I’ve not said much about the house renovations. For one obvious reason, it’s been a touch stress-inducing. But the roof has been restored (re-battened, felted and insulated), the chimneys re-pointed and leaking elements fixed, the bedroom gables made secure, and the rear conservatory demolished and removed, and so we’re on the upward trajectory. Or so Graham assures me.
We’re pleased with the roof. On the house front the original Welsh slates have been re-used wherever possible, with reclaimed vintage ones making up the shortfall. The back-of-the-house tiles were all asbestos and had to be removed by a specialist company. They’ve been replaced with Spanish slate, new Welsh slate now being too expensive to contemplate, which is a great pity. But then back in 1922 when local builder George Nicholas was roofing the house, he likewise thought Welsh slate was too expensive to use on the rear elevation. The house then backed onto fields, with only cows to know the difference.
With the roof done, super-builder Alan Morris has been forging ahead, even as he shivered in biting winds and rainstorms re-pointing the chimneys. On top of that, it’s not an easy site: street access is problematic (narrow road), and the new rear kitchen extension, mostly on the footprint of a conservatory, is hemmed in by house, hedge boundary and a terrace wall.
New tiled roof and old conservatory
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Demolition begins:
Bricks from the inner skin of the conservatory to be re-used on new exterior walls.
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Shifting the debris and digging out new foundations
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We filled three skips which required some nifty delivery and retrieval. Large vehicles can only reverse into the street. There’s not enough road width to exit at the top of the hill.
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Builder Alan explaining some finer points of construction to Graham
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And this is where we are now: waiting for the floor to be insulated and the concrete laid (Tuesday)
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For the month of May, Becky is hosting the daily posting of a square format header photo. The themes are renewal, burgeoning, moving forward, reconstruction. I’m thinking our renovation works are pretty much covering the lot. And finally, most importantly, we have a moving forward with the weather: sunshine and some warmth. I think we can now say (fingers crossed) it is actually spring here in Shropshire.
