More Window Stuff

These are just a few more photos of the work in progress. 

Later today the sitting room will be ready for me to clean.

This post was (and still is) 4 cm out at the top, compared to the bottom.

Nothing to do with the window company, but with the builder who erected this house. 

As you can see the damp proof membrane was lying flat, bridging the cavity and bringing rain right into the inside wall. 

 We had a leak in the ceiling around this time last year. Which had been temporarily fixed (or so we thought). The damaged ceiling has been cut out...

...and replaced with new plasterboard, ready to be skimmed.

Now that we know the damp proofing under the windows was bodged, we're certain that the leak comes from the windows upstairs. But we'll have to wait and see.

Oh dear. Ha ha ha ! What fun it's going to be to get everything back in order.

 The sliding door.

Would you believe the window company made all these windows smaller than the original ones ? 

And that is why they didn't want or need to chisel away at the plaster to fit the windows. They could skip that step by literally breaking out the old windows.

The blown plaster has been removed and will be redone.

All the other brown windows, fascias and soffits will also be replaced with white, but in a few weeks time. 

At least the sitting room will soon be ready. Clean and redecorated.

Have great weekend.

Patricia xxx...x

The Window Saga

It's okay. The work started yesterday morning. 

It is a very slow process and lots of dust, but our motley crew of  very skilled craftsmen/builders are doing a fantastic job. They are from the village and we know them well.

Not a destroyed window in sight. So far so good. 

You just gotta love this picture. Ha ha !

You've got to wonder how on earth the window company were going to fit in the new windows without chiseling away plaster and rendering. 

A bit of rubble and a lot of dust.

The old windows were fitted abysmally. The damp course membrane underneath the windows were lying flat underneath the indoor sill. No wonder we had water seeping in with the wind driving the rain through. Our team will fix this. 

This is a gap around the old windows. No insulation like expanding foam. Just simply plastered straight up against the window frames.

It won't be so draughty anymore when the new ones are in.

Thank goodness we put our foot down last week as all of us are certain we would have ended up with quite a bodge job from the window company.

Patricia xxx...x

New Windows

Yesterday morning, before the window fitters came, we'd put everything safe and away from the surrounding areas.

It looked something like this :

Last night (and this morning) the sitting room looked like this :

No new windows were fitted. Yes, the fitters came but they couldn't take out the old ones without breaking and damaging the old ones. What !!! ?

"No, it is not possible to take them out without damaging them"

Well, that's not going to happen in this place. These windows might not be to our liking but they are perfectly good windows and deserve repurposing and/or recycling.  We wanted to reuse some of them for a greenhouse at a later stage, others we wanted to give to our friends.

When the sales representative came for a quote he said it wouldn't be a problem but there might be a breakage. You know, we can live with that.

After a lot of telephone calls to a fro (some of them with tempers flying) to the company, we will keep the new windows and have someone else fit them. Amazingly an acquaintance of ours is going to take out the old ones without breaking and installing the new ones for us.

Thank goodness it will be sorted in the end after a fairly stressful morning/day.

Why would you want to destroy perfectly good windows, that's what I want to know ?

Unbelievable ! Isn't there enough waste on this earth already ?

Okay, I'm calm.... ahuuuuuummmmm.....

Patricia xxx...x

Soon.

I've been hankering for new windows from the day we moved in. Well, earlier. Since the day we put an offer on the house actually.

The new windows arrived last Thursday and would have been installed this week. But that isn't going to happen for another week, at least, as the 4 largest windows were all wrong and had to be taken back by the guys who delivered.

Aaaargh ! 

What's another week or two in the grand scheme of things ?

Soon.

Patricia xxx...x

Bert's Pizza Oven

A few weeks ago, we decided to 'test' Bert's new pizza oven. He has never, ever made a pizza  in his life and he didn't make it now either. 

The oven is obviously meant to be used outdoors and the fuel used are wood pellets.

A torch is used to light the pellets and when they've caught on you just fill up with more pellets.

 As soon as the pellets are glowing and the oven is hot I started assembling the pizza. Ah yes, I always have a well topped pizza.

If you do this too early, it won't slide off the pizza peel.

Close the oven.

 Ticktock ticktock ticktock ticktock ... x 90  or thereabouts 

Ready !

Next time we won't be putting the oven in such a windy spot. The flames licked the pizza a tad too much. 

Very tasty, nonetheless. 

Patricia xxx...x

A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do.

 That girl was me (old hag more like). And what did I do ?

This.

The kitchen counter tops look (almost) like new again.

A good clean and scrub, before I oiled the wood. It is something that should be done twice a year, but we've let one year slip by.  It was high time.

We use Woca Oil from Denmark and it works very well.  So far we've had no stubborn stains from normal (and more intense) kitchen use. 

Since our worktop is Douglas fir and I don't want it to turn yellow or orange I use the white oil, which gives a nice patina.

The weather was fabulous and I worked with doors and windows open.

The dogs enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. Millie had been lying most of the day on that spot, looking, relaxing and sleeping. I say 'most of the day' because she had a break when Bert took them out for a stroll over the land.

And that was my weekend. Now I can look forward to a relaxing week ahead ;-)

Patricia xxx...x

The Latest Project - Guestroom

I've been neglecting the blog world and I have a good excuse. We've been busy.

So yes, the guestroom. 

It's an okay room in general and doesn't need lots of work but there was this useless and lost space near the en-suite bathroom that I thought could do better.

My mother, Irma, arrives later today with my 8 y/o nephew, Mathias, in tow (or is that the other way round). They fight (argue, a bit) when they have to share a bed and bedding and he is getting a bit too grown up to sleep in the same bed as grandma.

To surprise him we made an inglenook bed for him in the forgotten corner of the room.

As luck would have it, the measurements corresponded with an IKEA kiddie mattress (160 x 70 cm) and a bookshelf for underneath.

And then I set Bert to work.

Nil, our last volunteer, painted the wall behind in a turquoise blue. and the woodwork white.

The wall stickers I bought a good while back in Lidl.

What have I been doing ?

I made the curtains.

And a duvet cover for Mathias.

Nil made the design for the hot air balloon and the boat and cut the fabrics for them.

As a side note. Nil has left us in the meantime for  another hosting place and it is her birthday today.

Happy Birthday, Nil !!!

Mathias can enjoy this for one week only. Then his 5 y/o sister Sarah arrives and she'll turf him out onto the air mattress and take possession of this inglenook bed.

I made a duvet cover for her too. And my sewing machine has been playing up big time while I was in the process of all this sewing malarkey.

I haven't even started on her Cinderella dress yet !

Looking forward to a month of family visiting ! I have however, no idea when I'll be back on the blog as there will be lots to do.

Take care and enjoy the summer, if you have one.

Patricia xxx...x