Build Update - March

A remarkable thing has happened since I last updated the blog with the build status. We suddenly have a first floor – walls, rooms and doors; bedrooms, bathrooms and corridors.

The build has been assisted along since January by Steve the electrician who’s done plumbing, wall construction and door hanging as well as getting all the downstairs electrics and one of the underfloor heating zones running.

Adam’s done more plastering than he could ever have imagined – he probably wouldn’t want to be known as a plasterer but he’s really pretty damn good at it.

Barbara’s mixed, at the last count, 54 bags of plaster, that's about two tonnes of plaster as well as taping over a kilometre of joints between the plasterboards, cut insulation to fit into the walls, painted litres of PVA on the walls before plastering and kept us on track by planning each days’ work.

And we persuaded Ailsa, an old hockey friend of ours (well, not so old but we have had a lot of hockey experiences together over the years) to come out under the false pretence of having a holiday but actually she spent the whole week cutting and installing steel wall framing and plasterboard. She enjoyed this so much she was back three weeks later for another intense week of electrics, boarding out the lofts and yet more plasterboarding.

So, at last the rooms, the ceilings and the exposed timberwork that have been in our imaginations until now really exist. They’ve had to be in our imaginations as the architect never got to grips with the internal layout and so what we‘ve ended up with is entirely our work – and, in my opinion, it’s great.

When we first saw the barn in 2009 the height was one of the things that really attracted us and I think we've made good use of that, the bedrooms and mezzanine are really high and spacious and have some attractive and unusual roof lines.

Stop Press: Today we have finished the major plastering in the building, we started on 9th October so that's nearly five months we've been working on the walls and ceilings. It's a big job ....