Getting to know the neighbours

After just six weeks ownership, it was fair to say that the house was starting to look like a work in progress, rather than just being damp, cold and unloved.  There had been much interest shown by everyone who passed by, and the house clearly had an air of mystery in the locality; consequently, Jane had a wonderful idea that we should invite the people we knew, and the whole of the street (of who I had met several whilst working on the front wall), into the house so that they could see for themselves what it was like.  I suppose at the back of our minds was the hope that eventually we would have a house of which we would be proud, and would feel even prouder of it if people had seen for themselves just how bad it was when we started!  Thus it was that we had about forty invitations printed and distributed, offering mulled wine and discerning conversation about old houses over a period of three hours last Sunday morning.

We had over thirty visitors altogether - we both lost count as there was always someone to talk to; at least people now know why we have not moved in.  I have to admit that it was very cold indoors; due to the scaffolding we had to use the front door but it has a rotten frame (to be done in January) and sticks on the floor, so it had to be left ajar all the time.  Fires were lit in both the groundfloor rooms - I had cut a lot of the rotten wood into decent blocks and it was all consumed.

I suspect that once I was a bit sharp on someone from up the road when we were talking about the dampness issues; he asked if we were going to fit a chemical DPC (!) and I said "absolutely not!" which came out just a bit strongly.  Mind you, he does live in a house which is older than ours so I wonder if that is what he's done?

Overall, we were confirmed in our view that people here are very friendly and we think that we are going to enjoy living in such a community.

Progress Update

We have been held up by the weather recently, as one might have expected; I think the roofers have lost seven days in the last two weeks.  This has been especially frustrating as we were so close to completing the roof.  However, it warmed up sufficiently by Thursday to enable the last coat of the chimney rendering to be done and the box gutter has slates and ridge tiles (see photo right); now all that is left to do are just a few slates, some "muck work" for the back ridge and hip tiles and then the installation of the guttering.  Then we can have the scaffolding down!

Today (Saturday) was an unusual day as there was no-one at the house but us.

Together we removed all the plaster from the two back bedroom ceilings as there were many holes due to the leaks (see photo left).  I have to repair the laths this week so Phil can do the plastering in a week's time.  Lath is quite expensive (~£20/sq metre) so I saw no reason to pull it all down and then pay to replace it.  We tried removal from beneath, trying to keep it tidy, but then I decided that it was better to go up above the ceiling and to scrape the plaster off the top of the laths and push through to fell the plaster below.  This is very messy, but also very satisfying when you push and a whole square foot falls down below. 

The end result is in the photo on the right.  No plaster, lots of laths and lots of holes!  On Monday my first job will be to tidy up the mess...

One benefit from this approach was that it is more obvious when you find a rotten lath - we have a good number that appear to be fine but are rotten inside and have no strength at all (not forgetting the many which suffer from wet rot).  We were very glad that we did not see anyone we knew, as we walked back up the road to our car doing our impressions of the dinner party in "Carry On Up The Khyber" (but with rather scruffier clothes under the dust).  Perhaps we should have waited until it was dark!