Christmas may finally arrive in our house now that space has been cleared for it. Thanks to Freecycle, we were able to pack our old kitchen units off to a new home and free up some space. Into which we have moved the bunny, the fish and the sideboard, formerly resident in the sitting room. This means that we can now put up the Christmas tree and allow a little seasonal joy into our lives. Tra la la la…
Archive for December, 2008
Don’t forget your shovel
Look, no moat
Now that the interior is finally habitable, we were able to turn our long-overdue attention back to the exterior last week. We really need to get the rest of the wall plastered and rendered before the winter really kicks off. Unfortunately, the winter chose last week to really kick off.
Donald spent last weekend filling in the trenches around the base of the house with the soil rock-hard and the stones frozen together. It was so cold that the exposed wood fibre board was covered in a layer of ice that didn’t defrost all day. This meant that there was no way we could apply the plaster. We had to wait not only for the walls to defrost but for the temperature to rise above 5 OC. Below this the plaster will crack as it dries.
We’ve been watching the forecast closely and yesterday (Sunday) was predicted to rise to the magic number. So Donald rounded up an assistant – a friend from college – to come over and do the mixing while he plastered.
The day dawned cold, there’d been a heavy frost overnight, but Donald was optimistic. With his faith in the Met Office, he defrosted the car and set off to collect Andy. They set to work as the sun struggled up and very gradually began to melt the ice. They managed to get the last fiddly bits done just as the light dwindled, then settled down with well-deserved beers and hoped there would be no frost. And do you know, the weather actually co-operated for once.
We are now, completely, weatherproof. The plaster needs a week to settle before we can apply the render (which isn’t temperature-senstive) and then we’re all done outside. That’s if you ignore the fact that the garden is still a building site. But somehow we manage to. Time enough in the spring.
Donald plastering
Donald and Andy mixing it up
