Getting stuck in

After a few weeks of activities that took me away from home, and with Sarah out of the picture on Julia's hen do in Edinburgh, it ws time to get stuck in on the house. Peter came round and helped me for a bit in the morning, running some electrical cables, but today was about getting ready for the ceiling to go back in. I removed the staircase, and replaced a couple if rotten joists, and finally ran a series of noggins to attach the edge of the plasterboard to. Half of the weekend gone, and i am a bit behind what i wanted to complete. I have Dave, Peter and maybe Phil coming round to give me a hand with the plaster board, but before that goes up i have another run of noggins, a clean up and emptying the  spare wood out if the room.
Looks like i will have a busy morning tomorrow. 

North Wales x2

Peter and Carloes wedding

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Famous again.

http://madeinroath.com/?s=waterloo+road

Check it out, we are part of an art exhibition in the local area. It is on when we leave for Australia so will only get a sneak peak before we leave.

Front Room

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Setting a new beam and joist hangers.

continuing the work on the front room, the next step was to install another bram and also better joist hangers. i propped up the floor holding for the loft and after a lot if deliberating i got up and but the enss of the joists iff. thua was a bit freaky, a fwe creaks and moands fron rthe wiid miving. after a bit there was a bit if a cracj. feeling a but freaked out i dexided to go down tir rhe hire ahip and picj up another acro prop. Setting this uo in the middle i was a lot more comfortable and the thiufhts if tbte riif falling in was soon in the past. It didnt take much longer to remive the dodgy work the the previois buikdees had carried out.
So now after removing the acro orioa there is a bit of my sodgy work in the lof tnow. Now only have ti change the rittwn joists out and then plasterboard the ceiling and get a plasterrr in to smootht he walls and finish off the ceiing .

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Puppies just don't know when ti stop working

After slogging it out foe the fay, Mallie didn't want me to stop. She was as eager as Sarah to get the house finished, so she chased me down to the lounge room and brought me boots.

I didn't get the hint though.

Man vs Rot

After the report came back from the damp people I decided to give it a go in attacking the areas suffering from the dry rot attack. Mainly because the report was detailed enough to follow a course of work, and also the fact that they estimated a starting cost of 2k. Not to be daunted i got stuck in.

It began with an attack on the front wall of dry rot. My tools to fight back:
- one lump hammer
- one bolster
- a concrete lintel
- my secret weapon, some rot kill spray.

The rot had spread quite far, underneath the old plaster, hacking this off i was able to get ahead of the rot. But thus revealed the seriousness of the attack. The old wooden lintel had succumbed to the rot, it was only there for display, it wasn't doing anything at all.

Round one to the rot.

Pulling it out, the lintel will be replaced with a concrete one, much more sturdy and also won't rot away for a long time. This Is the start if the fight back, no more pulling things away, now for putting things back into the wall.

Round 2 to man.

With a bit more effort and a couple of tries the lintel fits like a glove. No more threat if the front wall falling in, no more sagging bricks, just level, secure lintel.

Man wins!

Sunflowers

It looks as if summer is coming to an end, at least my backyard is still full of sunshine from the hugely successful sunflowers!

Pretty much all of the plants have now flowered with the largest of the flowers growing to a huge 30cm in diameter. It is a shame the the stalk cannot hold such a huge flower head up straight, or it may be that the stalk can but with the huge numbers of bumble bees that have stopped in for a break this may have pushed the flower over the tipping point.
The flowers have been such a success that there is almost a guarantee that I will give them another go next season.

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Potato time!

It is time to harvest the potatoes, so mallie and i got stuck in digging out the potato bags to see what we could find.

Not a bad haul this year, a couple of whompers, but mostly a few small ones that will do nicely.

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New Kitchen Table!

We finally go ourselves a new kitchen table! It was on sale, and in my opinion a real bargain. Hopefully Mallie will not take too much of a liking to it and start giving it a chew.