Building a new house

We had a few days away in S Wales this week, and it was dusk when we got back yesterday. Of course, we couldn't resist coming back via the house, even though the only 'torch' we had was an iphone one. We were rewarded by the remnants of extraordinary natural light: the last rays of the sun as it set in the west were bouncing off clouds over the Vale, and a large moon had risen to the east of the Clwydian range and was throwing an eerie light towards us. As we stopped we could see that some rendering to the outside of the house had been completed, but it wasn't until we went back this morning that we could work out exactly what had been done. The garage, the south side of the house, and part of the front have had their base coat of render, with just one section of the south wall having its top coat, too. You can see the finished (off-white) colour below: and through one of the windows in the bay in bedroom 3 (the dark spot is on the window glass, not the wall). We are no...

We were away in Devon for three days this week, while the plastering work continued apace. We visited on the way home yesterday, and again today, to find Saturday working in progress. It's been amazing to see the transformation of the upstairs space as rooms have been defined by the boarding of the studwork, and ceilings have appeared, separating the rooms from the loft space. And now we even have significant areas which have received their skim coat, lovingly smoothed and polished, so that volumes are defined by super-straight lines and, in the case of the full-height hall, by beautifully sweeping curves above the rooflights. The disappointment is that while it all looks great 'in the flesh', it's not photogenic. This is accentuated by the fact that I rushed some photos with my phone, not the camera, and it struggled to focus (or I struggled to hold it still). Nevertheless, for the record, here are some images. bedroom 4: boarded, and the storeroom for plenty of trestl...

This week work has continued to fit such remaining windows as have arrived. We have the perfect set of circumstances: most of the windows are in place and have their double glazing units, but there are some frames in place with as yet missing glass, and some glass units in the garage with as yet missing frames. We are led to believe that this will be rectified in the next couple of weeks, and in the meantime some of the missing glass has been temporarily replaced by boarding so that the plastering may proceed. When we visited yesterday Pat was fitting some window sills upstairs as further preparation for plastering. Downstairs we shall have mainly oak sills. Today Sion's uncle and his fellow plasterer are hard at work boarding out the first floor, which has the higher proportion of stud walls. Their work fitting board to the solid walls and then skimming everywhere will follow. They could be on site for 6 weeks, as their work inside will be followed by rendering the majority of the...