The stone is going on well-thanks to Jamie and Sam (and Joe who's not in the photo).We started at the bottom of the first-floor overhang - it's the one area where the starting level was critical.
The beech tree came in to leaf as the stone-work progressed. It's really lovely to see everything greening up again. (and there's a robin on the roof)
The stone window surrounds seem to work well - they've been mechanically attached to the building with metal straps that are now hidden beneath the stone slips. Hopefully I'll soon be posting the finished stone wall as pointed up with gutters, lead etc all properly fixed and the scaffolding down.
The drip-strips on the wooden sill were supposed to protrude beyond the stone to shed water efficiently. However for mysterious reasons they've ended up flush with the stone sills (which look thick and solid, despite being only 38mm deep to avoid compromising the insulation). Hopefully if we mastic the join carefully the windows will last just as well and look neater too.
I had to visit the stone yard at Cullingworth to get a missing jamb cut. It's an interesting place - a mix of hi-tech and stone-age. Here they are cutting the jamb that goes up the side of a window for our house.
On the big east facing gable and northwest upper elevation we've gone for a lotus-like acrylic render that should stay lovely and clean for a long time (unlike the child).
A close up of render - it is thinner than I expected but it looks very neat.
We've been washing some old flag stones for a hearth.
Meanwhile inside the house.....
Stud walls are going up all over the place - this one's in the hall.
Upstairs (not shown) even more insulation is being added in the attic, and we're getting ready for the pre-plaster roof inspection by Building Control.
In the sitting room we've stripped a section of wall, the width of the hearth, bare of polystyrene to expose the concrete inside the wall.
We'll build a natural stone wall against it. The stones are there on the floor ready.
It's an internal wall and the idea is it will retain the heat from the stove and also help transfer some warmth into the concrete core of the wall and on through to the rest of the house. It should look nice too.
Feeling happy!
It's starting to look a bit more like the model (but 100x bigger!).
