Category: Uncategorized
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Katie’s big week off
Having landed a new job, and handed in my resignation, I decided to take a week off between roles to get some more work done on the house. The week started with all hands on deck, my parents having travelled up and Chris being free for the weekend. With the additional help, my dad and…
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Chipping away
In a day and age where you can order almost any variety hot food to arrive at your door within the hour, or get next day delivery on anything from socks to craft scissors, it’s frustrating that building materials can take days or weeks to appear. Despite only having a small area of the roof…
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Helping hands
I don’t know how we got so lucky to have so many friends and family come lend a hand, but it’s certainly much appreciated. This weekend was the turn of my old school friends Sarah and Michael, who travelled over specially from Sheffield to work in appalling conditions for no pay. Lucky them. The weekend…
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The roof
With the structure of the roof repaired, we were now ready to begin rebuilding what we had so laboriously taken apart. So, booking another week off work, we set about a 9-day marathon of roofing. With the slates cleaned and sorted into three piles, depending on their condition, we started our work on the hip…
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A heavy weight…
Asking for help is something most of us are disinclined to do. This is largely because we, incorrectly, view the inability to carry on alone as a weakness. Yet, there are plenty of tasks that are simply easier, and lighter, when shared. Such as renovating a house. We were lucky to have many extra pairs…
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Padstones
What is a padstone I hear you cry. Well I recently learnt that they are large, surprisingly heavy, blocks of concrete that prevent massive hunks of steel from dropping through your ceiling. So pretty important, all in all. The two purlins in need of replacement in our roof are opposite each other on the side…
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Dad to the rescue
After covid had scuppered his previous attempt to lend a DIY hand, my dad finally made it up for a weekend of roofing. This, after visiting one of my siblings to take the grandkids to a dinosaur park, and before taking another out for a fancy birthday meal. But who wants dinosaurs and cake when…
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More roofing
It is a truth universally acknowledged that roofing takes absolutely ages. At least it does when you are two amateurs working weekends and evenings. The good news , however, is that the rain has held off. This long dry period that has left us all sunburnt and exhausted, and killed off half the plants in…
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Roof week
It’s roof week! During our initial estimates of how much work the house might require, Chris felt replacing the roof might well be an unavoidable job. Yet, it wasn’t until we had had a better poke around and gotten the advice of a structural engineer that we knew that the slight dip in the roof…
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Red bull gives you… insulation
There comes a point in every DIY project where you seem to have a hundred half-finished jobs, but nothing that actually seems to be moving you forwards. We’re very much in this zone, seeming to flit from one thing to another. At some point all the half finished jobs will reach a satisfying crescendo, but…
Ruined 