The corridor in the middle floor had a large hole in the floor where a wall had been moved and never rectified so I got myself a jigsaw and some spare oak floorboards from the stockpile. The reason no-one bothered to sort it is the floor runs at different heights in the gaps so not just a case of slotting in a spare plank or two. Before pictures: After: Once the floor is sanded and stained in to match it will look a lot better.

Waste pipe from ensuites and loft all boxed in along the living room after leak test: And across the front door all boxed in ready for painting as well: The games room gets a few coats of grey paint on the walls:

Before shot of rear of house showing un-decorated windows, shutters and missing lights: Windows and shutters finally painted and refitted:

We bought some ceiling fan lights for the guest rooms as it can get quite warm at night in the summer. Each light requires assembling and is quite a fiddly job: The finished article: Will make the rooms very pleasant on a warm evening.

Wallpapering the bedrooms

Each bedroom is to have a feature wall of paper to contrast the whiteness of the rooms. So we got 3 different wallpapers and had a go at fitting them: First room done 2 more to go...

tiling the ensuites

I decided to have a go at tiling the splash backs for the en-suites as this would save us a days labour from getting the builder to do it. He warned me the mosaic tiles were very fiddly to line up and that I would probably fail but this only made me more determined to have a crack! The mosaic tiles were a different width to the white tiles so had to be cut into smaller strips and each square would move independently to the others so took a lot of work: Finish lining up the tiles: After grouting: All 3 done now and looks ok even if I do say so myself!

The builder has now finished the 3 ensuite bedrooms on the middle floors and has moved onto the conversion of the huge loft to a 9 bed club room. The roof is being insulated with silver foil multi layer as well as thick wool type insulation. This should help keep the room cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The huge oak beams will remain exposed throughout most of the loft as the plaster boarding will be built around them.

"ghetto" scaffolding motorcycle clothes rail

I needed a strong clothes rail for hanging motorcycle clothing and the cheap shop ones are never strong enough. I had some spare aluminium scaffolding so decided to make one. Assembling scaffolding (and PVC waste pipe for clothes pole) : Bolted onto a base:
In situ in the boiler room for now:

Mega delivery from uk!

A few items arrived from the UK on the same day, so many items that the postie refused to deliver them and we got a call from the sorting office saying we had to go and collect everything ourselves. Several car trips later: Petrol strimmer, vacuum cleaner and bedding from Marks and Spencers. Some of the bedding in our newly decorated store room(for 13 beds): Our friend who helps with the cleaning from time to time: New petrol strimmer assembled and ready for some serious weed whacking: And some weeds in serious need of flaying:

The whole house is lacking in skirting boards so several hundred metres have been purchased. The boards all stained ready for fitting: Takes a few hours to do a room as each section needs measuring, cutting, restaining on the cuts each time, then glue and tack to wall and fill gaps if required. Work in progress:

The showers in the ensuites are all tiled and fitted. I need to tile above the sinks and fit shelving, skirting and mirrors etc.

Installing new lighting

I decided to install some new lighting for the lower barn as there is currently no power down there and this barn is to be used for customer motorcycle parking so will be useful to have a PIR light and some power down there. There is currently power in the upper barn so all I needed is about 15 euros worth of materials: PIR light, roll of electrical cable, some extension leads and adapters and a plug for the PIR so I can remove if needed. materials: 3 way adapter on socket plus leads tacked along the upper barn for charging the bikes: cables ran down the side of the socket and through the floor to the lower barn: Wiring for PIR: Light now comes on when you stand by the entrance. Job done: I also installed some new outdoor lights on the back of the house as the previous owner kindly removed the lighting and jsut left bare wires dangling off the wall. Hard life for some eh?

Repairing the oak staircase

I decided to repair the main oak staircase myself to save us some money on the mounting building costs. After all, if it was no good I can always pay someone else to put it right :-) The staircase has been eaten away from underneath at some point by woodworm which has caused the bottom step to drop away from the staircase and it also has 2 huge holes in the top of the bottom step: First I removed the terracotta tiles with a crowbar carefully: Then with the crowabr and a large motorcycle tyre lever I pried up the dropped step: With a rubber mallet I hammered some bricks and stones under the staircase to raise the level of the eaten step: Then I put back the tiles and cemented them in place: Now to deal with the massive holes in the top of the step: More cement poured into the holes: Ta daa! Next I will mix some cement and sawdust, fill the top of the step again, and when that dries cover in wood filler and stain in to match the staircase. More on this in the next exciting episode!!