2015 already!

Now I made excuses last time for not posting for a while, but this is crazy! I have not added anything since JULY! what an earth have we been doing?

The main thing that slowed us down was the intense heat during August and September, just made you want to sit in the shade and do nothing, The house did prove how the thickness off the walls will work as inside felt cool compared with outside and placing the small bedroom window towards the gap in the valley did just what we wanted it to. In fact even in the middle of the summer months we had to close the window at around 4am as the breeze made us too cold!

We had a quick visit in September from Irene and Jose to talk roofs! So of course we had to invite Simon back over. We had used the gravel and plastic during the summer months which worked great against the sun, but when it started to rain we had problems! drip drip drip on my head only, how come that always happens, Rich just sleeps through it and I had to go sleep on the bloody sofa.

Horse head on the roof

The boys removed the plastic and gravel and we then started with the wood that will create the gutter. We still have no money so we had to then put on new plastic with no holes this time and back down with the gravel. When it did rain again no leaks and drips so well done guys! Lets just hope that we get some pennies soon so that we can pay for the real stuff that we need.

"oranges" a plenty, all helping with the mudding!

Oranges started to some back in October so we did start again with the mudding! I had forgotten just how long it takes, even with 12 massive buckets we can still only cover small amounts of wall. I have no idea when I can say that we will have done this job, I am going to make a guess now at May. I do hope I am wrong but hmmm lets just see.

Normal hands covered in mud!

In November we had loads of Oranges and we took the scaffolding back in the kitchen, much to Richards protests, as he hates not been able to get to his cooker properly.  That at least allowed us to get more mud on the walls and finally cover all internal straw and one big job that I didnt want to finish was to taint the beams with the mud to take away the yellow colour that I hate so much.

I also used some tiles I had bought years ago to make a window sill. They are just sitting in mud, not sure if it will stay strong but time will tell I suppose.

Window sill made from handmade tiles!

I also decided to do more work in the larder and make it more useable. All the shelfs on the wall and from old wardrobes that someone had put at the bins, the tiled worktop is using old tiles I had left over from The Orange House. The tiled backsplash is the tiles I took from the skips last year and the fabric I have had around 20 years in a box. I dont think anything in this room was actually bought new, even the double sink is second hand.

Larder with sink full of washed dishes! 

As I had done the mud on the ceiling I could then paint the brick walls and start to put up some of my art work to make it more like home, TV mounted on the wall and a nice second carpet and the sofa that we all love is back in place and the lounge now feels like my home.

Starting to feel like a real home! 

We had been using a paraffin heater that we had bought last year for the caravans, they work great but the fuel is quite expensive and we have lots of left over bits of wood, from the house frame and from the pallets that we have used for various tasks. Much better to not spend any money and to make the area more tidy as the wood gets burnt! Rich did moan when I came back from the car boot sale a few weeks ago with a tiny little burner. Only 10 euros bargain! We did have to spend money on pipes and chimney though but that will pay for itself in no time.

As soon as we lit it Rich was impressed and now we love it very much, so do the dogs as you can see. Prince the boxer just stands infront for ages in a trance!

Prince enjoying the new burner, he just sits and stares at it! 

I will do another update next week with more work we have done outside and hopefully I will have done a little bit more mud work!