Little words of wisdom

More "little things"...

...like a new air-to-air heating system!  Yet again, I'm not organised enough to show you how the work has been progressing at St Abbs in the right order 😉  The new heating system went in just before the scaffolding arrived ~ everything seemed to suddenly be happening at once!  A mighty big drill bit was used for making the holes in the wall here ~ I've never seen one so long before!

This is in the sitting room.  The pipework came into the house in our bedroom (in a convenient cupboard!) and was then fed down the wall.

The units looked quite large to start off with but now that they have been up for a while, we don't really notice them now.

Same size unit in the dining room.  It's quite amazing how well the warm air gets around each room.

At the top of the stairs.

In the kitchen.

And this is the unit that does all the hard work.  It's not the most attractive thing but it's at the back of the house so doesn't detract from St Abbs' pretty face 😊

See that piece of plywood on the wall?  Well, it's gone now, along with the wall-lights and the shelf.

We had our sofa in front of the plywood originally, but the sitting room has been somewhat rearranged now.

We wanted a wood-burner to supplement the heat units ~ and there is also something rather lovely about sitting in front of a real fire, don't you think?

Anyhoo, Chris and George opened up the original fireplace and discovered that the stonework was really lovely!  So, we decided to take a chance that the whole wall would be just as nice and the guys took down the lath and plaster to reveal... 

...this gorgeous stone wall!  Just look at that fabulous lintel!  Adrian and I were thrilled that the guys uncovered such a treasure and we now have a beautiful feature wall in our sitting room 😊

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Little words of wisdom

It's the little things...

...like new windows.  I should really have put up this post before the scaffolding one, as the windows were (mostly) installed before it went up.

Poor St Abbs' windows were well and truly knackered.  The frames were rotten, there were cracks in the panes and all bar a couple had been sealed tightly shut with paint *sigh*  I'm convinced that the house was actually very sad about her windows ~ I know that Adrian and I certainly were!  So, new windows were one of the first things on the home renovation agenda.  

I actually remembered to take some close-up photos of the dining room window before Jock had done too much destruction LOLYou can see part of the old window here but it doesn't really tell the true story of just how bad they all were.  Jock stripped off the lath and plaster from around the window recess ~ bloody hell, it was a horrible, messy job!  I dread to think what it would be like to have a whole room stripped out 😱

  I was very interested in the stonework ~ the house walls are a good couple of feet deep.  

It certainly wasn't a straightforward job to fit the new windows, unlike in our old house where the old windows came out and the new ones more or less went straight in.

There was some damp on this side of the window, where the old frame had been letting in water.  Jock went down with a nasty cough and was off work for a couple of days after he'd got the dining room window in, so by the time he came back the wall had dried out nicely. 

Jock replaced the old lath and plaster with new plasterboard, and also fitted a lovely deep windowsill ~ perfect for my houseplants!

It was the same story in the sitting room ~ well, in every room to be honest.

And lovely new windowsills in here, too ~ just as well, as I do have quite the collection of houseplants LOL  We kept with the same style windows as the originals throughout the house.

This window is in the bathroom lobby ~ the old window here was one of only two in the whole house which could actually be opened.  Mind you, both of them had to be propped open with a little wooden block as the sliding mechanism was broken!  We will have the actual bathroom window replaced once the room has been stripped out ~ methinks the lath and plaster in there will all have to be replaced because of all the damp issues from the old roof and chimney.

 I took this photo looking down into the wall cavity when Jock stripped off the landing window surround.  You can see how the plaster oozed through the lath when the house was built.

The landing window is the same pattern as the original one, except we decided to have blue glass in the corners to match those in the front door.  Like the original, this window doesn't open.  Jock fitted a lovely frame around the opening, which has finished it off beautifully.

He also fitted a frame around the front door.  It took a little while to get used to the fact we no longer had to slam the door to shut it!

The old kitchen window had been replaced with a uPVC one at some point ~ goodness knows how bad it must have been for the previous owners to have done that 😲  We still decided to have it replaced, though, so that it was in keeping with the other new ones.

And finally here is the new back door.  I had a bit of a job to get far enough back to take the photo, as the scaffolding was in the way.  We had to wait a while longer for this door to "come home" (as the folk up here say) than the windows and front door.  I do love this colour!  It's called Chartwell Green and is such a pretty shade.  The old door was solid, so having the new one half-glazed has made quite a difference to the light levels in the kitchen.

I haven't taken any photos of the bedroom windows from indoors but here is a shot of St Abbs' face 😊  This was taken after the scaffolding came down last week.  The guys have virtually finished painting the front now, so there will be even more photos coming along soon!

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

The scaffolding is finally down!

You are probably thinking to yourself "well, we didn't even know there was any scaffolding up in the first place!".  Oooops, sorry about that 😉

St Abbs has been encased in a steel corset for the last eight weeks or so whilst Chris and George have been working from the top down to make her watertight.

The house is only classed as 1 1/2 storey, but I'm glad that I didn't have to be up on the top of the scaffolding!

The paths around St Abbs are not overly wide..... 

.....so it was a tight squeeze to get the scaffolding in place.

 

All the slates had to be removed ~ underneath them was a layer of horsehair!  Chris was surprised to find that the roof didn't appear to have had any work done to it for the 100 years or so that it has been there.  He told us that the horsehair insulation is an indication that the house is at least 100 years old, which tallies with us being told that St Abbs was built sometime in the early 1900s.  The horsehair was horrible stuff ~ the guys looked like they had been down mines when they had taken it all off the roof!

Luckily, there were only a couple of sarking boards which needed to be replaced ~ not bad for a house of St Abbs' age, eh.  Chris and George put down a damp proof membrane, then rehung the slates that were still in good condition, along with new ones, using copper nails.

The repair and renovation seemed to take for ever, but there was a lot of work to be done.

This is the chimney stack which was letting in so much water.  The old render had to be completely removed as the wet had got beneath it.

Both stacks had to have new concrete tops made, and all the pots have been replaced.  They now all have vented tops, too.

The other chimney stack wasn't in such bad repair, but did still have to have some of the render replaced.  The pot with the stainless steel cage is the one for the sitting room.  

The concrete skews now have lead flashings, and the flashings around both the chimneys has been replaced.

The kitchen roof is due to be replaced in a couple of weeks.  The "slates" currently on it are made from some kind of composite material, and are in a terrible condition.  They will be replaced with a fibreglass roof, along with a Velux window to let more light into the kitchen.

The guys have fitted air vents along the front and back of the house, so the roof space will now have plenty of air circulation.

As you can see, there is still painting to be finished, and guttering, etc, to be put up, but at least the steel corset has now been removed!

Bye, bye scaffolding!  Thanks for your help but we are very pleased to finally see you on your way to another house in need 😉

Yes, I AM still here!

image from allposters.co.uk

Well hello ~ how are you all doing!  I've been absent for waaay too long, I know.  No excuses, really, just haven't been able to find my blogging mojo to be honest 😖  Still, I've decided to make a concerted effort to get back into the swing of things, so watch this space!

There's been lots going on here at St Abbs, so I have plenty to bring you up-to-date on ~ I don't think I've posted anything about the house since the middle of March 😲

I've also been trying to get back into the swing of crocheting regularly again, so I have one or two projects to share with you 😊  I must admit that I hit a brick wall regarding my crafting; no ideas were swirling around in my head, my brain had gone numb!  Perhaps I just had a tad too much going on earlier in the year, what with the move and everything.  I'm happy to report, though, that my head is once more swirling with ideas, so my normal butterfly mind is back in service.....although I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing!

Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)