Another End of Year Review

One good thing about a blog like this is that it helps me keep track of what I have achieved with this house and, possibly more importantly, what I have NOT achieved! Hence this end of year review is largely for my own benefit.

Frankly, I don't feel I've done much here in 2017. I did accomplish the previously reported refurbishment of the two remaining large sash windows - both hard work but very satisfying to see (and feel the benefit of reduced draughts). I also managed to repair the corner of a back wall where many stones were loose - I was worried that if my neighbour's side was as bad then the wall might collapse but, fortunately, his side was better anyway. The rest of the list from earlier this year is still outstanding.

There has also been a lot of clearing out in the second bedroom where I have made a wardrobe. This clearing task was made much easier after August as our daughter's wonderful wedding dress was used for its intended purpose and now lives at her house. Otherwise my shed is now full of stuff from my Dad's house that I would like to use, restore or sell - that last task seems to be a lot more work than one might think. I have not done much in the garden except to keep it tidy; I was really annoyed when the people at the back started to cut the ivy on my back wall - I asked them to leave as much as they could as it breaks up the appearance of the wall and adds some privacy, as well as giving food and shelter for birds.When they finished, it looked the same on my side, but on their side they had given the bit on top of the wall a short back and sides - the vertical wall was totally clear and so all the ivy on top had been cut off from its roots! Sigh.

It might be considered that I must have been lying around doing nothing this year, but this is definitely not the case. Leisure wise, I have bought a one-tenth share in a small aeroplane which is older than I am, and refreshed my private pilot's licence, so there is a bit of flying to look forward to in 2018.

At the church, we have done a £250k job on the exterior, thanks to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. In the course of this work we suffered some vandalism when some little sod got up the partially completed scaffolding before the alarm was fitted and literally kicked a couple of stained glass windows to pieces - this repair should be complete at last in early January. You can hardly imagine how much work is caused by an incident like that, and most of it fell on my shoulders.

That reminds me of something that I need to pass on about the erection of scaffolding. It appears to be customary trade practice not to fit a scaffolding alarm until the erection of the scaffolding is finished. Now, I can understand why that should be the case for scaffolding around a house, as the alarm will get in the way of the next day's erection work. However, when you are putting up 13 lifts of scaffolding around a church tower, the job will take several days so I cannot understand why the alarm cannot be fitted once you have done the first three or four lifts, as all subsequent work will be above the alarm. If I was the insurers I would be insisting on a change to the current practice, but fortunately they are paying (apart from our excess)...

At one stage recently, one of the two temporary plastic sheets fell out of the window and made everyone very cold for one weekend. To fix this, I hired a 7.2 metre double width scaffold tower which was erected and dismantled by me and two men of similar age. To my surprise, I found that the double width tower was no more difficult to erect

and, in fact, the platforms were easier to manage, so I will use one of these in future. The window job itself took only 25 minutes and our end result is much more secure than that of the professionals who fitted the stuff.

This year we have had a cruise from Jordan to Malaga through the Suez Canal, seeing Petra in Jordan and calling at Crete, Malta, Palma and Gibraltar; we also spent a week in Sicily in September, so we have done OK for holidays. (NB From our cruise we flew back from Malaga and had the most dreadful airport experience of our lives - don't go there! If it's a bad as that on a Sunday in early April, what was it like in August?)

We have become used to being in each other's company for most of the day, almost every day, now that we are both properly retired, and I expect to end my six years as Churchwarden in May 2018, so I will then have even more time on my hands.

Sash Window Surprise and Mystery

Yesterday I started to tackle the complete renovation of the last large 2 over 2 sash window
in the house - this one is in the hall (photo right), and there are still two small sashes in the bathroom to be done but they are one over one, so they hardly count. (NB The front door is at right angles to the window, behind the wall to the right.)

Now, the weather this August has not been too good, and this week is no exception. Having identified this as the last two week period this year when the job could be done, I started yesterday but didn't get very far in that weather. In fact it was pretty depressing as, having been pretty successful in removing the old glass on the four similar windows which I have renovated in the last two years, yesterday I broke three panes on only the one sash. Now, since the window is 2 over 2, by definition one sash has only two panes - I broke both those and, in seeing if a spare piece of glass from a previous window would fit, I broke that too! However, today was better. I got both wavy panes out of the top sash unbroken, and also stripped both sashes to bare wood, including getting all the putty out.

The surprise was the discovery that the top sash has never been a moving window. It has no pulleys and weights, nor even an attachment point for any cords.

The mystery is that although it was quite difficult to get the top sash out, this was entirely

due to the fact that it had been generously painted in on several occasions - there was no other visible attachment holding it in place. No screws, no nails, no wedge, nothing. How did they do that?

Left is a picture showing the pulley for the lower sash and an unpainted piece of wood with no hole where it should be for the pulley for the upper sash!

Fortunately, when trying to free the upper sash with a Stanley knife, I was well aware that there might be no cords holding it, so I did the job very carefully. I was most relieved when I had it in my hands complete and undamaged, and even more pleased when I had both panes out safely an hour later.


Edit following completion of the task: Mystery solved! The top sash was originally held up by a pair of very fine nails - basically long panel pins - which were nailed upwards at an angle of 45 degrees at the bottom of each vertical part of the sash frame. These of course were ferrous and so had rusted away a long time ago; it took me a long while before I found the traces of the tiny rusty holes as I knew they had to be there somewhere!

I am very pleased to have had the whole window repainted, reassembled and working on the eighth day of this project; it took about 30 manhours and looks pretty good. I didn't bother to even take any photos of the stages as it was just the same as the earlier ones, apart from the fixed window. Now all I have left are two small one over one sashes which form the bathroom window - that's a project for next year.

Plan for the Year

It might seem a bit late to be making a plan for the year in mid-May, but nearly everything I need to do is either outside or requires me to make frequent trips outside, and so the weather has been beating me. Right now I am feeling defeated as the forecast was for some cloud, clearing to the east, followed by scattered cloud with possibility of rain; we have actually had overcast cloud with drizzle for the entire day, punctuated by two half hour fool's breaks (you know, when you think you can do something and start, only for the rain to start again).

Anyway, there are jobs to be done and the first is to make a list:

a. Sash windows - two large ones are left to be refurbished, and there is a smaller pair in the bathroom. Hopefully I will get at least the two large ones done this year - one is in the kitchen and the other is in the hall (but there is also some remedial work to do on one of last year's where some putty has slipped).

b. Plastering - I need to do the inset bit at the top of the hall window which is hanging, albeit still complete, plus the three inset bits around the main bedroom window. These bits were all not done in 2010/11 as they looked OK then, but they are showing signs of wear around the edges!

c. Garden walls - I have been doing some repairs to two of the garden walls, and this could continue for ages as they are in pretty poor condition. In many cases I have to remove several stones and carefully remortar them (with NHL3.5) so that they are set solid before I do the next bit above. There is also the front (side) garden wall which I found last year was bowing horribly towards my neighbour's garden - and it is about 10' high, so that's quite a worry. However, that rebuild won't happen this year...

d. The back garden needs lots of tidying where the residue of 2011's work is still apparent, and there's still some ground elder to dig up carefully.

e. Redecoration - I think that 'Er Indoors wants some redecoration in at least one of the back bedrooms and, possibly, the lounge.

I have done some things this year - the wardrobe in a back bedroom was completed back in February, which has allowed a rearrangement of the stuff in our main wardrobe. As another consequence, we have been able to dispose of some items of furniture.

I have also been helping my next elder brother and both my sisters to tidy our parents' house. Mum died in 2015 and Dad is now in a carehome with vascular dementia; at 95, clearly he will not be going home again. I think the house will need to be sold by early next year to pay for the carehome which is really quite expensive. As part of clearing that house in London I have occasionally brought things back home for disposal or sale - such items always take priority over mere house jobs and selling things on eBay is actually quite time-consuming, I think.

The major change this year is that my other half has retired from full-time work. This has been quite an adjustment for both of us, as I had been so used to her disappearing early in the day and arriving back much later in time for an evening meal (made by me); this routine allowed me to work out the day for myself as I wanted, but suddenly there is someone else wanting to use the car, or the bathroom, or whatever room I wanted to work in etc. You get the picture!

I've been retired for nearly seven years now, and haven't really stopped until the last year or so - at last, this is what retirement is really like?

More New Year Resolutions

I have found making resolutions beneficial in the last few years - at least by writing my intentions at the start of the year, I then cannot deny what I wrote! Also, it helps my failing memory about what I intended to do, and then what I actually achieved (and when).

The most momentous event of the year was that t'other half finally retired and so no longer travels to London each weekday; we are still trying to work out how to exist together for seven days per week, when for the last six years I have been accustomed to being on my own (and doing the shopping and cooking) for five of those days. We have already learned the benefits of not waking at 6.15am, and are still catching up on years of lost sleep!

Last year I did achieve most of my intentions:

a. The hall landing and stairs were painted in the Earthborn claypaint
b. I stripped, repaired and repainted one half of the back gates
c. I managed to renovate two more sash windows (the back bedrooms)
d. I installed a wardrobe in the second bedroom, using the doors and frame given to me by the neighbour who was throwing them out  - I'm very pleased with the result
e. I built a second wood-store and also did a couple of similar jobs in the church

However, I still have the following to do this year:

1.There is still some plastering to do: the window recess in the front bedroom is some of the last original plaster left, and it doesn't sound good. 

2. In painting the hall I found that the plaster in the top of the hall window recess was dropping down and so needs to be re-done as well, with lime plaster.  It would make sense to do both 1 and 2 at the same time but that will make a mess in two places at the same time, and the job will want three or four coats with drying time between.

3. The wardobe in the front bedroom needs plastering (modern stuff - it's panelled with plasterboard).

4. I still want to put fire black on some fireplaces - I've never done that before and feel that it could be messy!

5. There are still two more of the same size sash windows (hall and kitchen) to do, plus the pair of small ones in the bathroom.

6. One very new job is that the high stone wall (between our neighbour's back garden and our front) needs to be rebuilt - it is about 8 feet high on my side, and about 10 feet on my neighbour's, due to the difference in ground levels. It has a lot of ivy damage and also leans alarmingly. I think I will get it done by a professional...

We have our daughter's wedding to look forward to in August, and have also booked a cruise from Aqaba to Spain just before Easter. Somehow I don't think the year is going to hang around!