Taking Deliveries

Thursday should have been a relatively easy day. Had the delivery company taken note of Sparks's warning about narrow lanes, sharp turn into the driveway etc, they might have showed up in sensible lorries. As it was we took delivery of most of the building materials for the project in 2 hits, one on a full size 40 foot artic which assumed we'd have a forklift, the other on a 28 foot Hyab (flatbed lorry with crane), neither of which could make the turn.

This meant that both deliveries were going to be made to the country lane and we'd have to wrangle stuff up to the house. Add to that, some of the stuff was to be the modern composite wall insulation boards, plaster board bonded to thick foam sheets. Plaster board in any form hates to get wet (goes soft, sags and forms bellies in your ceiling which do not go away even if it dries out, as anyone knows who has had a plumbing leak above a ceiling). It was threatening rain and kept delivering heavy squalls which had us racing to cover any exposed stacks before running for shelter ourselves.

Luckily, just along the road from us is one of those magnificent 'Celtic Tiger' big houses which never got occupied (more than one visitor has asked why we didn't buy THAT one!) but which has a hard lay-by out front big enough for a 40 foot artic and a van alongside on the roof-rack of which to tip sheeting from the lorry floor, with still room for cars to pass. But is was another arduous day (not as bad as clay-shovelling, but close!) taking sheets off the lorry 10 at a time and shipping them to the house on the roof rack of Sparks's van.

The 40 footer was emptied by 1pm and we had a 20 minute break before the Hyab arrived, laden with our one ton bags of gravel and sand, the joists, floorboards, door frames, wood for stud walling, bags of cement and plaster, rolls of bitumen sheet for the extension roof, sheets of plywood for same, lead for flashing etc. At least this guy had the crane, so was able to drop piles in and around the entrance or over the hedge. The boys then had to wrangle it up the drive in the van or on the 2CV with trailer in between the showers. Knackered again by about 5pm they left some sheeted till the morning and one of the one ton bags right in the middle of the drive.

This is all a bit physical for Mum so she heads for Dublin to take a belated chance to visit family and friends who we have not been to see since moving over. Questions were starting to be asked! Luckily, Mum's wee Fiat can slip out between the sand bag and the gate post.

Friday is then, of course, filled with squaring away the remaining building materials, left the previous day. It had rained all night but, as seems to be the way of these things, by morning it was clear and sunny and plaster board could be unsheeted and moved at will. We have to move all the stuff from the entrance up to safe places; the timber, the plaster board and the plywood roof sheets for the extension roof. None of it is particularly heavy - plasterboard sheets are 25kgs, so they are mainly awkward and need two men to carry them. They all get carried upstairs one by one and stacked flat. We have now and embarrassment of building materials, meaning the build is turning into a bit of a game of solitaire. We need to move this to get to that, but we can't start that because these are in the way. Sparks is scratching his head trying to plan a sequence of moves and tasks which will work. The wall sheets alone take up the entire living room floor to ceiling.

Living in Roscommon

We are now living, at least part of the time, at the Roscommon house, planning to retreat every now and then to the Silverwoods with bags of dirty washing (and grungy bods)like teenagers coming home to Mum at the end of term. This just while there is no power or water on site. So we work through that first evening and then through Sunday and the morning of Monday getting started on the proper project, which should see us all entertained for the next three to six months.

First job is removing the plasterboard sheeting from the east end of the house in the big upstairs bedroom. This is our last chimney and we are looking to reveal a fire place which we can then rod out, clear of jackdaw nests and leave open as we have for the other three. An early punch through the boarding reveals a load of what looks like damp peat behind the plasterboard, so we think we have scored a direct hit first time. But this is not to be. The peat proves to be only a few inches deep, behind which is stone and cement. We start to open up going right and left, and digging out the peat but if there is a fireplace here then its a blocked up one. We can see where the chimney breast goes up, with its shoulders but if there was ever a hole, then it's now stone with a cement screed over. The stud wall goes straight across the room 'ignoring' the shape, so it's half an inch from the screed in some places,9 inches away, braced on horizontal struts in others.

This work goes on punctuated by coffee and smoke breaks, broken by meals wrangled on the hot range, and beginning an ending pretty much with the daylight. We get up at 08:30 as it's getting light, light fires and start breakfast, and by 16:30 ish we are running out of light. We can carry on a bit with artificial light but we have no mains voltage yet, so it's all propane gaz camping lights and battery powered 'torches' and work-lights. Inspired by Diamond's John (and Basil from the Cambria) we also clear away any debris after each short burst of destruction - "squaring away" the rubble and wooden stuff carrying it down to the rubble pile in buckets or rubble sacks, separating the wood into potential kindling and bonfire, burning what can be burned on the bonfire.

Mike-the-Cows has now dragged the old VW Golf out of the brambles with a tractor and left it down by the gate for collection (we hope) later. This has become the place to put scrap metal, hoping that the person who takes the car will also take the scrap. There are two old cookers, a very old pre-electric washing machine with mangle, a fridge lying on it's back like a chest-freezer now filled with rusty tools, nails, brackets, bits of hinge and unidentified farm-related bits.

This is turning into a long post, so I'll break off now and return to this soon.
Deefs