weeks 23 – 30

7 weeks have passed and things are taking shape, the old cladding on the front has been removed, timbers replaced; new cladding; new windows and guttering done on the front of the house

the old render has been removed from the bottom part of the front, yet more timbers replaced, various membranes and meshes all ready for new render

when I applied for permission to clad the house, the plan was to clad the whole house in black, which would fit with lots of the old houses here on the island, but sadly they would only let me clad in black at the top and white underneath to fit with the cottages either side of me…. I felt that black and then white cladding would look weird on the front so we decided to render it again, it was a lot of work to get it off but worth it, more rotten timbers were replaced and then covered, each and every wall inside and out that is timber framed has been stripped down to the bare bones and sprayed with woodworm treatment, insulated and rebuilt, the builders estimate that about 70% of my house is now new

the porch was removed, it was hanging on to the house with three nails and rotten

there’s been a right hoo-ha about the porch windows, which I’d ordered months ago and then didn’t come so we had to order more which are a slightly different size and we’ve shunted the door over a bit, so the step doesn’t match up, this will be remedied in due course, along with all the other things that still aren’t finished

the side of the house has been stripped bare, re-timbered etc. as per the front and the back and clad, I’m still waiting for the gutter man to come

rather than wait to show you a photo with the new guttering and down pipes, this is how it looks today

I had a fit about still not having hot water in the kitchen or at my basin in the bathroom and no upstairs toilet, so all that was done, which is such a luxury, after years of no hot water in a kitchen i now have some, but then my kitchen was ripped out, insert hysterical emoji here, Dave also built me the best wardrobe ever

the last of the lathe and plaster walls have been removed in the hallway and landing

which has, hopefully put an end to my endless trips to two different dumps and I can finally hoover out my poor little car, I’ve saved myself a fortune in skips and made lots of friends at the dumps……

whilst removing the render from the side of the house, the builders discovered that half the kitchen floor was concrete, we knew this but we didn’t know there was no damp proof membrane, so half my kitchen floor has been removed and re-concreted, properly this time

my new kitchen has arrived

I set up a temporary kitchen in my conservatory, with the old wardrobe re-fashioned as a pantry and borrowed some appliances from a friend

meanwhile, in other news my garden is fantastic

I made some caramelised red onion chutney

the clematis that I butchered has recovered, phew

we’ve had some super dramatic skies, which I’ve messed about with

I love living on this island, I love having a home and as much as I love my builders I’m looking forward to them leaving, they’ll be off for the summer and will probably come back at some point but it won’t end there, i’ve still got walls to get plastered and floors to deal with, but none of that is imperative, it’s stuff I can live with and do as and when……I’m looking forward to the day that I have my house back to myself and don’t have to micro-manage anything much at all