A few garden pics

We've had a fair bit of fencing work done, and we've had a little hack at it ourselves so took a few photos of the garden:

The pond's been fenced off to stop errant little boys trying to drown themselves. There's a row of trees (little whips) in either side of the fence now. A mix of Bird Cherry and Cherry Plum, so in blossom, a mix of pink and white flowers.

There's ivy everywhere. This is showing the 'after' picture, believe it or not.

View of the outbuilding, again, mobbed with ivy. That tree in the foreground has been the subject of some serious ivy removal work.

There's a big gate in the fence round the pond so that you can get a ride-on in there.

Looking back over the pond toward the house.

Bit further up the garden, looking back at the house

Bonfires! Getting this lot to light up at this time of the year is impossible. Going to have to rebuild it when it's drier and light again.

These twp pics are the strip of land we bought to square the plot up. A row of apple trees was here. It was part of the purchase that these were removed. We've had the fencing put in and a native hedge planted. It's a mix of Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Dog Rose, Guelder Rose and Cherry Plum.

Small start made inside

Because I've really spent most of the time doing outside projects*, there's not been too much progress inside. But, there's a start been made on this room:

This is going to be my daughter's room. It kind of looks 'Okay?' in the pic, but it isn't. The plaster is all soft, there's no point to that picture rail being up so high, and there's no insulation in the walls at all.

So time to smash the room up then:

As you can see, the door's off, and the floor's been lined with polythene, the rads removed and all the skirting and picture rails. And the fitted wardrobes.

We're not done yet, that wall with the window in it needs its laths removed. You can see that given that this is an outside wall, the construction is timber frame upstairs. Going from inside to out, the walls are plaster, laths, studs, felt and then battens with hanging tiles. We need to insulate - the idea being that we'll build out on the studwork uprights with 2x2 and insulate with batts between them. Then we'll use insulation backed plaster board on top of that.

The wall on the right is the wall that is between the daughters room and the sons. We'll use sound reducing insulation on this wall both sides for obvious reasons.

The wall on the left has a chimney brest in it. There's still a surprise possible behind that.

Lots of plaster to shovel out. Via...

... this home-made rubble chute.

* although there's outdoor projects done in mid-winter, there's method to the madness. The house has no storage (although the loft is now being boarded), and there's nowhere to put building/decorating materials. Also, things like stripping paint can't be done in the house with small children, so this is why a workshop/store is so important. Ah, yes, but the outbuildings, you say. Yep, but the candidate part of that is going to be used as a temporary kitchen when the real kitchen is being smashed up and rebuilt. So it's sensible really.