Front of house

We got new gates. So front of house has gone from:

Through:

To:

Sitting Room (again)

The sitting room has been subject to something of a blitz. I often get asked 'why don't you just do one room at a time - surely the rooms don't take that long?' Well. We started from here (this post inevitably repeats earlier ones):

The fireplace:

The double aspect room. The curtains are doing a fine job of shielding the paintwork on the shutters which is so yellow that it's getting on for brown...

Smash the place up:

Fireplace and glorious 70's lighting effects out:

Supporting beam for fireplace in:

 Room cleared and ready for plasterboards, holes cut for first fix electrics:

Plasterboards up over fireplace, also hearth cast in concrete:

More first fix electrics and data points for CAT5E:

Random 'floor up' pic:

This bit I didn't do - lack the skills - but plasterers in, and plaster on walls:

You can really see the browness of the wood work in the above pics. We've also now taken out the old electrics and filled the holes in the skirting boards where the plug sockets used to be.

Starting to paint, but find damp patches on the wall. This is what you get with old houses - surprises. Often unwelcome.

That damp patch corresponds to the chimney on the other side of the house, so exploratory work starts. The little circle of filler in the pic one above this one is where I drilled through the wall. Duh.

Another brown woodwork pic above.

First coats on:

 Picture rail up, sockets on walls. These three pics are where we are now:

Random garden pics

Took some pics today as was in the garden:

Grass has got so long, I've needed to use the lawn tractor to cut it. Scalpage the result!

Out of view, but on the left of the first shot are the chickens. There are 10 now. All happily clucking and chickening about.

Greenhouse yet another project!

Out front

With a digger on site (see previous post),it seemed a good idea to try to make a bit of progress on the front garden. Well, the path at any rate.

You might remember this:

That load of hardcore leading to the front door is the path! Well. Kind of. The idea is that there'll be a path, and then a circle at the end. So you'll go up the path, and then instead of a right angle bend left to the front door, there's a circle. Anyway. It'll eventually be York sandstone. For now, it just needed the circle digging out and level with the start of the path. Digger in, and this was the result:

Much of the hardcore is from the fireplace in the sitting room!

That earth bank isn't against the new wall, it stops just at the foot of it, which emphasises how much higher the road is than the front garden. It needs raking out properly, but as the digger's on hire, I did that and not raking. Garden is going to need lots and lots of work!

Stinky poo poo wee wee

Ever since we had the house, we've had problems with the drains. It's been frustrating as the system that this house has is the same as the one in the last house, down to the installer, and that system was 100% reliable.

The only difference is that this one makes use of an existing system, and just modernises it, where the previous one was purpose built as the system in that house wasn't big enough. In any case, there are two tanks, the first is where the business really takes place - the digester tank:

Don't worry, wasn't going to give a proper view of the whole inner workings, but basically there's an air pump that aerates the 'mixture' and gives the bacteria in the tank that live off the contents oxygen so that they can process the waste efficiently. The waste is broken down in to water, which is clear-ish. The water is gently pumped to another tank, which is a settlement tank.

Any solids that remain drop out of the liquid, leaving the top layer of water clear and fit to join the nation's watercourses (so we have a license to discharge into the pond, basically).

As I said, we'd always had problems. The installer came back time and again, blaming builders for putting plaster down the outside loo, the washing powder we use and so on. We'd told him that there was another tank, but he waved us away, and as he'd installed it, we believed him. This time, though, we were fed up, and as we are on holiday (ha-bloody-ha - who spends their holidays like this, for crying out loud?) we had time to investigate more thoroughly. I remembered that the previous owner of the house had provided a diagram of the drains, and so dug it out. Hey presto, two tanks. Lifted the manhole from the 2nd tank - it was so full of solids that there were slugs crawling on the top of it.

Off to our local Machine Mart to get the blue hose pictured in the above, and pumped out the tank. It was at this point I wished that I'd bought a longer hose, because instead of giving our rose bed a good feed, it's clegged up the lawn like some sort of environmental catastrophe:

That is what lives at the bottom of the settlement tank. Because there's no air pump, and because I doubt it's ever been emptied, it's black because the process of decay is anaerobic. It also stinks. A clean up operation is pending.

Having pumped the tank out, the outlet pipe was visible, and so that was rodded. It was clear that there was a blockage. I assumed at this point that the old clay pipes had collapsed, so bought a plastic pipe and an adaptor to get onto clay. I also  ordered a little digger for a day's hire (that's Jem on the right - he's our helper on the weekends, and as it's the summer hols, he's also doing a couple of days here and there)

Digging up the exit pipe revealed a couple of things - one the clay pipe did have a small hole in it, but it wasn't collapsed. There was a concrete disc, and under it was this:

It's a valve - the exit to the pond is to the bottom of the photo, the tank to the top. So, if the weight of water is sufficient, then the water will push that round trapdoor open, and the water will exit into the pond. However, if the pond is flooding, then the valve will shut, preventing a backwash of water into the sewage treatment system. It's very clever, and we didn't have one of these at the last place. Needless to say, the valve was jammed shut. A bit of digging and poggling later, the valve was fully operational again. Jem and I also fixed the broken clay pipe:

And we also put back the concrete disc, for now. It will need a proper manhole cover in case this happens again, so for now, it'll have to stay like this until that arrives and gets fitted.

For now though, we have a fully operational sewage treatment plant! Exciting.

What is incredibly annoying is that the installer (who also services the plant annually, and empties the tank) has obviously never emptied the settlement tank. He's also been happily taking our money to investigate the problems we've been having, and never actually found the root cause of the issue. He's basically been taking the mick. In addition, if he had actually diagnosed the issue, he might have gained some business fixing the thing, and in doing so would have gained our trust and recommendation. Instead, we'll never use him again.

A set of well used drain rods!

More sitting room....

The plasterers came back the next day to finish off.

It took a fair amount of plaster to make the chimney breast flat and even, and the fireplace the same, remembering that the builder's opening was pretty rough. The inside of the fireplace is just rendered. It seems a bit OTT to plaster that out, and it gives a good effect. We might have left it plain brickwork if it hadn't been so rough.

Here's the fireplace again, nearly dry. The hearth has had the self-leveling floor adhesive applied. It's 'nearly' self-leveled! The room has also been 99% fully prepped. Two days of filling and sanding and filling and sanding. My wife doing the lions share of the graft. There's a bit of trim work around the window on the right in the pic below, and a little bit of inevitable filling to get all the edges clean, and that's it. Ready for paint. The picture rail will be reinstated too.

It's really hard to get across the work that's gone into getting us this far, and the room still looks rubbish! Paint will make a huge difference....

There's been some other progress elsewhere in the house - lots of time taken cutting and fitting skirting boards and architrave, but it doesn't make much difference to the overall look of the place, so didn't bother with pics of that.

More progress, some finishing touches applied....

The plasters came today. They're going to spend 2 days here and the sitting room will be transformed. Not finished, but having the plaster on, and all the surfaces smooth and uniform will be a huge difference. That's been after about 4 days of hard graft by both of us. Me doing wiring, filling in after wiring, putting plasterboards up (having to cut each and every one of them too), wife doing wallpaper stripping. It's a swiz as it doesn't look better than the last post, even when the boards are up....

There's one other thing - I made the hearth, or at least the base for it. You can just about make that out on the far side of those saw horses. The chimney breast was a pain, with much messing about to get it not even all that even and level.

If you liked it then you should have put a ring on it.... a ring main that is. And some CAT5E too. These sockets will be hidden in a cabinet, and that one high up will be behind the TV.

Anyway, as I said, the plasterers came and have done a bit - you can see where I've covered the RSJ - this room was one knocked into two (not by us - in the dim and distant)

This one just shows the fireplace a bit better on the far side of the Heath Robinson scaffold the plasterers will use to do the ceiling.

In other news, the boy's room got a finishing touch - he's now got a Star Wars storm trooper threatening that soft toy chicken....

Should be more progress to report soon!