Granite work started

Another productive weekend and a half has seen the outside of the house really starting to take on what will be its final appearance. I had the oppertunity to spend some more time on site earlier this week as I was in Aberdeen for a training course so could spend a couple hours on site in the evenings before it became too dark to work. This allowed me to get a bit more varnishing of the larch cladding done but there is still a good amount to go!

At the end of last week the remedial brackets were installed onto the corner windows steel lintels. These brackets transfer the load of the walls into the steel work at these locations and allow us to avoid having a pillar in the corner of the window apart from where the window meet. This allowed me to remove the temporary supports, which was a rather nerve racking affair to start with. However the saw blade never jammed once indicating that in fact there wasn't much load being taken by the temporary supports.

Temporary supports gone

With this done the corner windows could be installed along with the utility room door and the boys bedroom windows.

Master bathroom corner window installed

Windows installed in Ewan's bedroom

The only outstanding windows to be delivered when I left yesterday was the family bathroom window and that was due today. So hopefully we now have a wind tight structure.

Probably the biggest visual change in the last week though has been the start of the granite work on the walls. The brickies so far have managed to take our wishes into account and the stone work is really starting to look good. Its quite a jigsaw puzzle for then trying to get all the pieces to fit.

Detail of the granite work

West face with granite almost complete

With all the ground floor windows in now it shouldn't take them long to complete the masonary work and I expect that by the time we go back in mid October for a few days (school holiday time) externally the house will be complete. It will be exciting to remove the scaffolding and have clear view of the house.

Dad unfortunately developed a bad hernia last week so won't be on site again until he is fully recovered. This will make it a bit more challenging to keep updated with progress so updates maybe less frequent for a while.

Blockwork started

Work progressed visually again this week with the main progress being the start of the external blockwork skin in the areas where there will be a wet harl render finish and where there will be granite work

Blockwork outside the utility room

Electricity meter box installed

At the end of last week we had one more door show up which happened to be the front door and this was installed and the larch cladding completed at the main entrance way.

Front door with larch cladding

The brickies started the block work by first finishing off the stove enclosure. This will allow us to get the stove flue installed while we still have the scaffolding in place and easy access to the main ridge.

Stove enclosure

The blacksmith was out on Monday morning this week to look at what was needed to implement the remedial bracket solutions that will support the structure at the corner window locations. Apart from having to move the steel lintels out a bit to allow the brackets to be installed the solution the engineer developed was fairly simple. Hopefully we will get done soon and get the last remaining windows on the ground floor installed - looks like I'll get get the job of removing the temporary supports when I am back next weekend. I know I'll be holding my breath when I do that!