Happy Christmas

The holly tree is in the garden of my parents' house.

For all of you who have been dipping in to our blog, have a wonderful Christmas
and join us in our toast: next year, in The Bright House!

With all best wishes, Jacky & Keith

the garage

This sits in the front of the house, and will, of course, be Keith's workshop. The space between the garage and house will be roofed in and be a porch.
The garage is not timber framed. John, our bricklayer and his team have just begun work, this shows him laying the black plastic to the floor ( a bit blurry as I took this in very dim light at 3.30pm yesterday).

This was followed by insulation (no photos as I was helping lay it)
This morning, the strengthened concrete floor was poured.

The precess was similar to the screeding in the house, but as this is open to the elements (and cats) we've had to cover it with a tarpaulin.



Soon, the scaffolding can come down, we just need to get the soil pipes in place, and the chimney pressure tested; however, we wait on the holidays and the weather.

geese & balconies

The brickwork at the back of the house is finished, so Keith has been putting up the balconies. (see footnote)


The geese are coming to feed:




It is now very cold, so we go to work with a lot of layers on (I have been saving old clothes for exactly this purpose)! I am especially glad of my Falke merino socks and my Buff which is permanently round my neck for warmth, and can be pulled over my mouth & nose when sanding or handling insulation, and round my hair when needed.

We take Thermoses of home-made soup to sustain us (and mince pies)

The brickwork on the chimney began this week, and the end of external work on the house is in sight. The guttering needs finishing and soil pipes need installing.

Footnote: why are they called "Juliet" balconies? She had a very large balcony, certainly big enough to put Romeo on, not just a little railing flush with the brickwork to stop people toppling over.
The more so because Shakespeare knew his building work: Hamlet knew a hawk from a handsaw, I now know a spatula from a compound mitre saw.

plodding on

Our main task continues to be boarding: Keith cuts all the holes for lights, speakers, sockets, and puts the boards up. I check the screws, scrape the adhesive off, slap on filler and sand it down.
We both put up insulation: most people deal with the stuff a few times in their lifetime, but never forget it as it prickles and gets everywhere; so we often to be found "togged up" including barrier cream (we did get some special stuff, but I'm also using up the free samples of nappy cream that I used to get!)

The brick delivery is held up by "quality control issues" so external work is slow.

We spent the early part of the year sourcing materials for the build: some of them we bought and asked the supplier to hang on to them for us. Every so often one of them will ring us to check we are still alive, and that we haven't forgotten we own a planer thicknesser, hundreds of tiles, or ovens.

The white blob is a swan, and the darker ones the geese who fly in daily to feed.

solar power

I have previously posted pictures of the panels. Today, Jeff & Colin (pictured) from Solar Partner came to commission them - that means this afternoon we were using our own generated electricity.
The inverter (above) is in the loft and has lots of information showing how much electricity was generated over any period.
Today, an overcast afternoon, we were generating about 180 watts (see the panel below)

How we spend our time

When we began this project, we knew that Keith's skills would be the ones most used. Assembling the staircase, putting up the boards in all the rooms are jobs that use the skills he has learned over the years. Although this is by far the biggest and most difficult project, it is one where he "speaks the language"
So we knew that my role would be support, at all levels.
I do all the paperwork and keep track of the receipts & payments.
I make the phone calls, organise deliveries etc and liaise with the workers (of which more, below!)
As Keith puts the boards up, I go along, checking the screws, scraping off excess adhesive & smoothing down & filling. Having written about impact drivers, I have to say that the new Ryobi driver does fit in my hand very well:
Note for anyone who buys me presents: this is the ONLY time in my life that I am likely to be delighted by a power tool!!!!!

I make sure that we have tea, coffee, soup, biscuits & apples (many thanks to my aunt & uncle, Pat & Dorothy, for the pears & apples from their trees)
I run errands of all kinds: collecting Screwfix orders, picking up small items from local stores, as well as the usual food shopping. You will not be surprised to know that I have found local markets at Raunds & Thrapston, an excellent deli (Buntings) and I occasionally run to M&S food at the local service station.
I am supposed to be the labourer as well, but sometimes Keith has to manage without me, such as today when yet again the scaffolding firm waited a week to send someone along with the wrong information!
I do the washing-up in a bucket at the outside tap (camping has prepared me well!) which I quite like as passers-by stop to chat: Denford has proved a very friendly & welcoming place.

This week I spent longer than I would have liked bundling and grouping cables for the "smart home hub". They were already coded, but I had to group them by type & area & number; here they are finally:

This may look boring, to me it is beautiful! And when - if all goes well - our computer systems, TV & audio are all functioning, I shall remember the cables!

the staircase

Getting this in spread over 11 days, so we could have the help of 2 sons.
Keith & Neil took delivery on November 4th

And Keith got to grips with the instructions

Keith & Neil "offered up" the upper flight to check that it fitted


We took it down and glued it on November 5th, and then on the 6th, Neil came back to put it into place.
Edmund came to help on November 14th:
So the lower flight got into position:



The Keith prepared the half-landing:


And here it is on November 15th:

The main part is made of ash, and I spent November 16th covering it all up with protective wrap so that it doesn't get spoiled as we continue to work around it.
I am delighted to walk upstairs to our "office" for coffee or soup instead of clambering up a ladder.

the best news of all

Joseph Houghton Bright was born, safe & well on the 11th November
Congratulations to Katie & Duncan
and deepest thanks to birth attendant Hannah & midwife Tina
for the care that enabled this.

the 6 metre steel lintel

One of the most striking features of our house will be the glass doors that take up most of the back wall. A steel lintel has been specially made to go over them, and Tuesday's task was to get it into place. I was mercifully excused and allowed to take photos.

First of all, John, Ali, Keith & Matt took the lintel down the side of the house




Then it had to be swung round ( the top part of the fence had to be removed) so it stuck into the neighbouring garden (thanks to Peter & Sheila for their forbearance)


Ali leapt over the fence, and Keith walked round in order to manoevre it into position along the back wall


John tried to remember his Scouting knots:

The lintel was hauled upwards

And finally positioned:

As I write, the soldier course over the lintel has been completed, but I've not been able to take a picture yet.

PS: one of Derick's favourite mugs has found its niche:

soldiers & a waistband

It has been lovely to see the decorative work coming along.

John cuts the "soldier" bricks to size: these are the upright bricks that will go over the windows:

The first one goes in to position over the kitchen window:


And is checked with a spirit level:


I took the waistband design from a building in nearby Thrapston.


Tomorrow the staircase is delivered.

the stairwell

As you can imagine, the hardest part to board is the stairwell. Here it is before:



The window is frosted and looks over the gloomy leylandii, so we have to make sure there are plenty of downlighters. That means Keith has to cut holes in the boards that go on the ceiling - and cut them very accurately.
The 2 back bedrooms are still the only ones with natural light, so one is our office and the other the workroom.
This week we dismantled the boards put across the stairwell for safety, boarded the walls up from the ground floor, then put in fresh batons and temporary boards to make a stable platform for us to work on, including lifting the boards to the ceiling.
We did take time to eat at our local - only 100 yards from our new home. New landlords Sam & Dan have gone into partnership with an excellent chef and long may it continue!
That was on Thursday when it rained a lot, so we were delighted to see our new guttering was working very well (the downpipe isn't in yet!)



Most of the week was lovely, and a number of people had taken the opportunity to canoe down the brook at the bottom of our garden, and there were a lot of narrow boats navigating the Nene as well.

Bricklaying is no further forward, as we waited most of this week for the scaffolding to be altered.

A further note on gloves: Axminster where we buy a lot of the tools we need, do gloves in a size 8 - 2 sizes too big for me, but still a much better fit than the standard size 10s!

Noggins

In general building terms, noggins are the things that go between the beams & uprights of a timber framed house to fill it in. In Bedfordshire - and other parts of the country this used to be brick and you can still see some lovely houses built this way.
For us these days, it means hundreds of pieces of timber that we put between the beams & uprights. Some of them are to enable pipes or cables to be run through them (1,680 metres of cabling so far & still counting) some will be to take the weight of things like cupboards.
At the moment we are concerned with the ones that we hang the Fermacell boards from.

Most of them are cut to the exact size to fit between the uprights, but some have to be cut especially which is my job (see "carpenter's apprentice"). They then have to have holes drilled in them to take screws - also my job, this is one in the jig ready for drilling:

And here are some that Keith has put on the ceiling:

Now the Fermacell board is lifted up to the ceiling:

And Keith uses his auto feed screwdriver to fix the board into position:

The boards have to have adhesive between them, so my next job is to scrape off the adhesive, check the screws. ensure the join is smooth and then use filler in all the screw indents.

3 rooms done so far: next week's job is to board the stairwell before the stairs arrive.

I would also like to add a note that none of the tools fit into a woman's hand easily. Makita just e-mailed me about their hand-held power drill that they have coloured pink for breast cancer awareness month. Good for them for donating £5 to breast cancer charities for every one sold, but I would be so impressed if they brought out a drill that I could hold in one hand.
One of the local stores is astonished at the number of "gardening" gloves I am buying - that is because all the builders' gloves are too big!

boards & bricks

This has been a busy week.

Outside, John & his team have been laying bricks.
Inside, we have been putting up Fermacell board.

Our first bricks:


John lays the first quoin ( corner decoration)

And Ali continues down the side:


Here is our hoist to get the boards upstairs (£4 on Amazon for the pulley & £10 at B&Q for the cord). Keith's rather piratical look is about keeping the dust out of his hair (although he keeps calling it a "do-rag" having read too many American thrillers)



Here is our first boarded room, although we have yet to "finish" it.



Thanks again to Sheffield Insulation (James & Tracey) for their prompt delivery of acoustic insulation for the internal walls & ceilings.

The swans continue promading serenely:

The carpenter's apprentice

Fermacell

As I have written before, this is a recycled board that takes a heavier hanging load than conventional plasterboard and is easier to finish.

Chris came to give us a tutorial on putting it up, and here he and Keith are cutting it and putting up the first one - many thanks Chris for your help. 6 down, 534 to go!


We were interested to hear that it has been used in the Olympic Village and in the basketball stadium. We have tickets for the basketball, so may be seen inspecting the walls as well as watching the game!

indispensables

The heron isn't indispensable, but I thought you would like a picture! Not a good one, but at least recognisable.
We continue with the cabling, but today I thought I would write about the necessities of a build that I have to carry everywhere:

The site diary is A4, with a waterproof cover (yes, I have left it out in the rain) and we write everything in there - and then have to try to decipher the handwriting several weeks later.

The handbag: this gets little mention in the books & magazines, but is an absolute necessity.
Made in sturdy canvas, and bought on a Spanish market, it has lot of pockets for the following:
The collection of delivery notes & invoices that I gather as the week goes by.
Small metre measure on a key-ring (useful to check sizes in shops)
Pens, and markers of all colours, for marking positions of appliances, cables etc.
Mobile phone, with our whole lives programmed into it.
Camera (so you can all see the nice pictures!)
Baby wipes, very big ones.
Hand cream (good stuff, to use after leaving the site in an attempt to ward off “builders’ hands”)
Lip gloss because standards must not slip below a certain level.
Discount or reward cards for all the major DIY stores
Looped on the handle is my trusty Buff rainbow headband, to keep my hair out of my eyes.

The builder's apron:
Based on those macho toolbelts, this was run up in an hour out of some spare denim, also with many pockets for:
Scissors
Stanley knife
Pencils & markers
Tape

The box:
tea, coffee, biscuits & apples!