We had a great day at the show, best weather for months. Plus the Woolclip won best stall at the show.

Cecilia Demonstrating spinning at the show

Arfon came up to help on the barn this weekend. We got loads done; finished off the plumbing linking the new hot water pipes into the old system (with a valve so it doesn’t flood the barn), and put up the stud walls for one of the bedrooms.

And just after Arfon left the boiler man rang to say he is coming tomorrow to start installing the solar hot water cylinder and the boiler.

As a finishing touch to the airing cupboard, I gave it a coat of paint. It seems like big step to start getting paint on the walls, as though we are nearing the end! However its just one little room..

I did some more plastering this weekend, in the bathroom where the bath is going to go. It feels like I’m starting to get the hang of plastering. Still not 100% but its getting better.  I needed to get that done so I could run some pipes along it. I didn’t finish all the plumbing I had planned but I got enough done so that the boiler installation has enough pipes to link to. We are splitting the heating circuit into 3, old house, new barn, and bathrooms. This means lots of pipes connecting though to the old part of the house. The installation of the boiler might happen next week, but last time we spoke the man was waiting for the last bit (tanks), so we’ll have to see.

The boiler has been delivered, our nice Atmos log boiler, its a DC32GS. The accumulator tanks should arrive next week, and it will be installed early September. Means I’ve got to finish all my piping for the heating next weekend!

I’ve nearly finished it – just needs a coat of paint (and some doors but they can wait until the tank is installed). I managed to plaster all the wall and ceiling in one go….never again…one wall at a time. I spent half the time scrapping the plaster off the wrong walls.  Still its done, I’ve laid a bit of floor and some skirtings. The cold water feed needs to go through – its all cut out just needs a bit of soldering.

To celebrate we had a day out, and stopped worrying about all the building work, or wool orders.

We went to Ennerdale Water where we had a walk along the lake, the weather was rainy showers – a bit like our wedding day. I found out afterwards that there are some iron age remains so we will have to go back sometime.

Here are some pictures I took between the showers. There were rowan trees with loads of berries everywhere, I don’t think I’ve seen such a proliferation of fruits before.

To finish off the day we went and sat on the Whitehaven harbour for a cup of tea and cake, watched the cormorants and large fish swimming in the marina, and best of all the sun came out!

I’ve spent most of this week getting things ready for the new boiler. The room needed plasterboard, plaster, and some plumbing. The pipes on the ceiling are to feed the central heating in original part of the house.

The right hand side was the first to be plastered, which turned out rather well considering my last attempt at plastering was a very lumpy ceiling. The other wall wasn’t quite so good, but hopefully I will be passably good by the time I get to the bedrooms. Read the rest of this entry »

The second brood of swallows in the end of the barn fledged today. Their flight was a short hop across to one of the beams. Later in the day they started exploring a kept coming in to the new part of the barn to see what I was doing…then couldn’t find their way out again.

I go away for a few days and I find the courgettes have been taking over

There are more on the way and I’ve left one to grow into a marrow.

We’ve also got one squash large enough to eat…well football sized. We think its a spaghetti squash – now I just have to fight my way to the label at the base of the plant to confirm it!

We’ve got a new door where we knocked through to get into the barn. Hopefully it will keep Cecilia happy by keeping most of the dust out of the house. You can also see a bit of my plumbing – new pipes to join the existing central heating up with the new boiler in the barn.