Happy 2013! *Back into the house*

Hello all once again,

It's been really nice to spend some time doing hedges and woodland work here at Pentiddy. It has reminded me of just what we have here and the bigger purpose behind the build. However it has also been nice to get back to the house!

So... what's news then? Firstly I guess is Dave who has been with us for 7 months or so and has dealt with all sorts including lime, clay, lime, snedding, lime, hedging, lime and all sorts of verbal and physical abuse from me. He left us today to return to a 'normal' life in Reading (is that a contradiction!?). Was it something I said?

Thank you Dave - for everything. You've been a STAR!


Well, the most exciting progressions are that we have two lights working (albeit temporarily wired), quite a fair bit of render to the scratch coat stage downstairs, windowsills, doors all coming together and flue with temporary woodburner in and functional.

The next most exciting thing is that the ceilings are to be plastered this coming weekend.
As I think I explained before, we perhaps would have chosen to do something other than plasterboard and plaster had we had the time when the ceilings were put in place. However given that plasterboard is what we have, we decided that standard gypsum plaster would be the most straightforward thing to put on the ceilings. The other upshot of this is that it's a job for someone with experience to do so i don't need to do it! Mark Stanley (and his mate Jamie) who came and helped us with the lime is coming to do it- hurrah!

Wiring is next on the task list, though the little bit I've done has already thrown up a complication..... 'What!' I hear you say, 'A complication? surely not!' (I'm sorry but it does seem to be a recurring theme...)

To meet with the building regulations I have had to use fireproof cable. I have used a product which is far simpler than the earlier mineral cables but has another drawback. The 'fireproof' bit of the cable is a thin metal sleeve under the plastic outer coating. This makes the cable able to bend and to be shaped but it is not really flexible enough to pull round bends in the conduit. I have had to re-design the wiring to allow me to pin the cables to timbers so I can shape it rather than it all running through the conduit.

I haven't even started plumbing yet...

Just looking into modifying shower fan systems to work on 12v, low power music systems, paper pulp vs flour paste in final render coat and last but not least might have the possibility that our neighbours (across the track) are planning on putting in mains so I may be purchasing their off grid stuff (2xsolar panels, BIG batteries and a rutland wind turbine)