Sunday morning and I'm looking out of the caravan window at the east side which is completely ready to be rendered. R has not only put Heraklith all over it, but also timbers to attach the porch roof to, when we get round to building the porch, and also a lead flashing. He was at it till about 8pm last night, with arc lights. My hero. He's away today so he had to get it all done because Lee-the-master-plasterer arrives tomorrow morning to finish off.

Putting the last bit of the jigsaw in


All done

This has been a week of contrasts. This time last week we were doing budget control, a kind of reality check: where are we at, what bills are outstanding, what's the running order of operations for the next few weeks, what can we save money on by doing it ourselves, or putting it off for a while, what has to be done immediately, what do we have to have professionals for??

Etcetera.

One week later, we have:

The plasterer finishing the outside in the next ten days (weather permitting)
The prospect of the scaffolding coming down as soon as he has finished, thus saving us money in hire costs and allowing us to see the building properly for the first time.
A plumber signed up to put our (very basic) plumbing system in. Starting in two weeks.
A front door threshold ready to be put in place. R will put the frame up and then only needs one helper for a few minutes to hang the doors, and Lee, being on site anyway, has agreed to help with this.

Oh, yes.... and the timber frame company is coming to put the insulation in.
I anticipate a photogenic event. The main part of the insulation is in the external walls but there is also some in all he internal walls and we had thought that they would charge extra to make two visits to do the internal and external walls on separate occasions. Therefore we would have had to wait until the plumbing and electrics first fix (wires and pipes behind the walls) were in and the plasterboard on the walls, which will be a few weeks yet.

This apparently is not the case and so we have booked them as soon as possible to do the external walls. I haven't seen this done but I believe it involves large noisy blowing-in machines, vast amounts of shredded newspaper and holes in the inside of the external walls. The stuff goes in like a giant grey snowstorm. It is all recycled newspaper and I am a bit worried about this. Supposing it is all the News of The World and The Sun? Will I live down the shame? I am hoping to see traces of pink, indicating the Financial Times (oh but isn't the Racing Post pink as well?) - oh, well - I will pray for the Grauniad and the Indie.

Here is a good link to Warmcel: http://www.greenspec.co.uk/html/product-pages/warmcel500.php
Click on Downloads: Product brochure and you'll see pictures of what installation will look like.

The thing about the insulation is that with that and the front door we will have a sealed, warm and cosy house. and we'll start to get a feel of whether this whole passive house business is going to work. We can get our pressure-test ordered to check on leakage, and start making dicsions about heating.

Having thoroughly Heraklithed, R can now settle down to his Wall and is approaching the interesting bits at the top. Here we recycle the garage roof (remember the garage?) into a tiling crease with brick soldiers on the top. You'll see it in the next couple of weeks, and also another very fine curve.

We are planning to move into the house before it is completely finished. Even then it won't be till March I shouldn't think. We'll finish the ground floor and then do the upstairs bit by bit after moving in. We have to work out what needs doing to satisfy:
Building Regulations
Our own needs
Maharishi Sthapatya Veda regulations

However, I am happy to be even thinking about Moving In. Must buy a new floor mop, in anticipation....