Fly boy fly….

Mr Tim takes the controls. Fool!

One completed garden

Although the weather is truly PANTS at the mo, and roof work is slow between showers, we do have a garden – in double quick time! At least the rain will help the turf bed in!

The deck is fantastic – we’re currently considering the type of summer house to go on the back of it – pent, apex or pyramid roof?

No roof progress…so time for the garden!

No real progress on the roof to speak of in the last week. AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH – I’m getting REALLY frustrated about it. Weather is really hampering things. Instead (and ona more positive note) work has started on landscaping the gardens (different team of people). The ponds and paving are going, to be replaced by lawn. The greenhouse is going, to be replaced by a summer house. Work started today – and what progress!

However, as you can see, the frogs are now without a home and hopping round the garden wondering what to do next. More on frog watch tomorrow.

The latest on the roof

rear roof stripped of slates

progress at front

from this….

….to this!

Work is continuing, although has been hampered by poor weather (a la Buxton in the summer!). The roof is now fully stripped on the back, Pat and Mart have started stripping the front and today chipped off all the plaster in the guest room. Our lovely guest room………..

Wildlife camping out in the Dormer

Stripping the roof slates has progressed to the dormer window at the rear of the house, uncovering:

Roof update

The scaffolding is finally finished and roof work has begun – very scary the height of the scaffolding, and the knackered state of the roof now that the slates are coming off:

        

More to follow in due course……….

Roof works begin

Not a lot house renovations have happened over the last few months. However, in the spring high winds damaged the roof, with slates slipping and coming off, which has caused water damage in the guest bedroom at the top of the house – really annoying because it was one of the rooms that had been finished.

water damage in guest bedroom

Anyway, we’ve had a couple of months trying to sort out insurance, contractors etc…..and today the roofing working begins. Or at least the scaffolding is beginning to go up! We decided, after taking advice, that the best thing, long term, is to remove all of slates, put a new waterprrof, breathable, membrane underneath, and then relay and reuse the existing slates. At the same time, they’ll replace the flashing, tidy up the ridge tiles and repoint the gable end wall at the top of the house, and replace the fascias on the dormers – all a lot easier when the scaffolding is up (and the scaffolding is the most expensive single item on the job!).

So, scaffolders arrived yesterday – 2 days needed to errect the scaffold. Progress after day one:

  

Anthony Gormley Rocks!

 

A lazy Sunday morning spent eating bacon sandwiches and reading the papers? No, not us! I’ve wanted to go and see the Anthony Gormley installation on Crosby beach (that’s near Liverpool for all of you southern blog readers!) for ages. Gormley also did Angel of the North. The work at Crosby has been in place a while, but we have never found time before – renovating the house last spring, recovering in the summer, bad weather on previous occasions etc. Anyway – today WAS the day - a beautfiul, windy, early spring morning complete with watery sunshine. Crosby is about 90 minutes from home, but well worth the time in the car. “Another Place” is 100,  standing, human sized sculptures across the beach. I’m not really an art (modern or otherwise) buff, but they are fantastic, and extremely thought provoking – bleak, alone, but uplifting at the same time. The ones further out get completely covered by the incoming tide – which has meant they have become really weathered, with barnacles over their bodies. It’s very sad thinking of them “drowning”, and I wonder that they are all waiting for…and thinking about.

I think the work was originally funded as part of a regeneration project, and it seems to have been a success – The beach was really busy for a VERY windy, cold,  Sunday morning. Well worth the trip, and recomended!

 See the pics on flickr

My CVS leaving party

So, I leave the CVS tomorrow moving on to pastures new. Had a great lunchtime thingy at a local pub, with about 30 people attending. Thanks for coming, and thanks for the cards and gifts.

Some images on Flickr can be found here

Cellar or cinema?

Not a lot of efforts on finishing the house off the last few months, so no postings to that effect. However, we were keen to get the cellar furnished before Christmas, so that it could serve as a second lounge….and we nearly managed it, just the late ordering of a sofa (our fault) meaning that it wasn’t truly finished until last week.

Choosing a sofa proved a challenge, because we wanted a corner sofa and the cellar isn’t very wide – after looking everywhere we found a company on tin-ter-net (what did we do before that?) called Nabru where you can design your own sofa based on the measurements you need – very useful, and it worked, although we left it until the week before christmas to order so it only arrived last week.

Anyway, onto the gadgety bits:  (42″) Samsung HD plasma with surround sound home theatre system – sounds superb and the picture quality is great (the DVD player upscales, making a standard DVD look virtually like HD). When the cellar was being plastered, you may recall that we had speaker cable and junction boxes placed ready – a fantastic thought at the time, meaning no unsightly wires trailing round to the rear speakers, which are mounted on the junction boxes (thus hiding them) on the rear walls. And of course a Nintendo wii (fantastic over christmas with no furniture in the room – some major games of tennis doubles taking place).

So, a great chill out room  / home cinema – and yes, we’ve even got a popcorn maker!