Days Away

In between all the work on the house, we did find some time for a few days away in North Wales. 

First stop Llanwrst - a spot of lunch and a walk in the sunshine by the river:

Then on to Betws-y-Coed for two nights:

• more sunshine
• chips on the bridge 
• too much English breakfast 
• a walk up to Swallow Falls 
• a few beers / ciders in the pub

All good stuff!

Finally from Betws we headed off to Chester for a couple of days . . .

Not so much sunshine this time, but we walked the walls anyway - visited some cool pubs - ate some nice food - and watched the local wildlife:

All in all a good break - needed to get away from the chaos for a few days (we still have a lot of the living room furniture stuffed into other rooms) - before returning to await the next stage of the building works. 

Let There Be Light!

Our living room has always felt rather dark, despite having two windows and a set of french doors.

So after much debate - and given that the work on the ceiling meant we'd be in a 'mess' anyway - we decided to have a new window put in, next to the french doors, with a view down the back garden.

The first thing the window fitters did was brace the new ceiling (to hold everything up between creating the 'hole' and fitting the supporting lintel).

Now for the messy bit - cutting the hole in the wall . . .

It did create an awful lot of dust - but they'd soon knocked through - and then it was on to fitting the window itself.

By the end of the day we had a window - there's a bit of tidying up work to do, but the room is already much lighter, and we're already enjoying the view!  

Watch the Birdie

The latest from the Bird-Cam . . . 

Carnage in the Garden . . .

In addition to the work going on in the house, we've also been doing some 're-modelling' in the garden.

Martin basically took it into his head to tackle the (mostly) hawthorn hedge between the bottom of the lawn and the fruit cage.

It had gotten a tad tall - and as a result was getting difficult to keep in trim.

Whole sections of it have now been removed (not without some human carnage given this is thorny stuff), and hopefully it will now be a much more manageable proposition for the future.

 Before                                    After      

Getting Plastered!

With the roof done, it was on with the next job . . . the living room ceiling, which was suffering with cracked and shabby artex, and heavy ceiling roses that belong in a room with a much higher ceiling!

The first stage was to remove the existing coving, and plasterboard over the old artex, which involved partially emptying the room . . .




Then it was on to the more messy job of replastering - which involved removing everything (except the snooker table).

And it was very messy, the plaster seemed to get everywhere . . .


Done now though - the builders have to come back to re-do the coving, then, when it's all dry, it's up to us to decorate - but there's another messy job to be done first, a new window looking out onto the back garden, due to be fitted in the next couple of weeks.

Job Done!

And down comes the scaffolding . . . just short of a week after it went up.

Can't say they didn't make good progress!

They've done a tidy job as well.

We now have a nice new slate roof - hopefully watertight for years to come . . .