Middlecroft Cottage

The Skip Again, it has been rather a while since out last post, but that certainly does not mean that there has been any slacking! Rich has been working hard every day and has honed his plastering skills, not to mention all the prep that needs to happen before you can even consider plastering. But I think that might be a post for another day.   We did however make progress on another front and ordered a skip to come bright and early one Friday morning. It was amazing how much rubbish was collecting in the house as we were removing everything to start afresh. One of the things that we though would take up a lot of space was the old kitchen units. But we decided to get a little technical about it and instead of just fling them into the skip any old way, we laid them out flat. We got a bit geeky about it and tried to make it fit like a mosaic. Rich also cut up the old kitchen counter so that we could get it out of the door! We were surprised at how much room, the carpets, underlay and...

Happy New Year It has been a little quiet on the blog since new year, but that does not mean no progress has been made. The new boiler was installed just before Christmas, and just after Christmas the cottage was rewired. It was proceeded by a couple of hard days for Rich helped by my Dad chasing out the wires. Unfortunately, it did not make for great pictures, but there is evidence all over the cottage in the form of dust - a visible reminder of the hard work. This kitchen now has a boiler, no units on the wall and no tiles. We have been shopping around in the January sales and have picked new kitchen units and counter tops. It was really nice, seeing the designers impression of the kitchen, after we are used to seeing this half dismantled room. All we need now is to find some suitable flooring. One one of my rare visits to the house, Rich let me on the tools and I had good fun removing the tiles from the kitchen walls. I was rather proud of how many I got off with breaking them:) The...

Progress inside and out Progress is definitely being made at the cottage, although the above image does not really represent what is happening. Rich has been the main worker at the house, while I am at home on the computer - books about wrapping Christmas presents don’t translate themselves ;) I have however been able to pop over on weekends, when Rich let me have a go with his hammer and chisel.  Snow was brought in by storm Arwen and we were lucky that nothing appears to be damaged on the house. Notice that the bay window is being held down with bricks as the window surveyor realised that gravity (and a thick coat of muck) was the only thing keeping the canopy it place! The snow also gave the cottage a Christmas card appearance. Before the cold weather, Rich fixed all the pointing and the spalled bricks at the front of the house (see pervious post, which was however missing an “after” photo). It certainly looks a whole lot better now that all the smeared lumps of concrete have be...

(Warning: this is an insanely long post. It’s largely an information dump so that I don’t forget what I’ve learned, so please don’t feel obliged to read it all!) How do you solve a problem like lime mortar? With some difficulty, as it turns out... While the weather stayed unexpectedly mild in November, we decided to focus on the outside of the house. As well as painting the stonework and weeding, one of the priorities was fixing the pointing on the bricks at the front.   What's the problem? The main issue was that some absolute chimp had smeared mortar across the brickwork as though icing a cake. It looked awful and couldn't be left as it was.  The cement mortar coating the brick faces There were also sections of mortar missing, with big gaps between bricks. And the other problem was that it appeared to have been repointed at least twice before - but with cement mortar. Cement mortar sitting proud of the brick faces I didn’t realise there was such a thing as the ‘wrong ty...

Building Walls That is right, the space invader is back... well no it is Richard and he is building the garden wall - the protective equipment is needed due to the lime mortar he is mixing. A few weeks ago, I showed you a photo of a wall that had fallen down in the back yard. Just a pile of rubble really, and we knew it couldn’t be left like that. So once Rich had repointed the front of the house (a special post by Rich on pointing will be coming up), he set about rebuilding the back wall. A little work in progress pic. And now the finished wall from both sides. He also cleaned away all of the rubble:) And after that is was time for a nice cup of tea in the warmth of the front bedroom. Due to work, I have not managed to get to the cottage very much the past two weeks, but I did manage to go last Saturday to meet Jascha and Christine to show them round and have a rather chilly socially distanced-picnic. That’s all for now. Next week we are going to start on the inside of the house, whic...