The big barn is losing its roof
Well, for a change we had a bit of good news this weekend.
The log burner situation is not quite as expensive as we thought and were originally quoted. We had the chimney surveyed, this involved putting a small high definition camera on the end of the chimney sweeps extending pole (oo-er missus) and looking at the inside of the stacks.
The good news is our chimneys are in excellent condition and we don't have to have expensive liners fitted. Woo Hoo.... fantastic news.. so that means what money we can save on not having liners fitted we can spend a bit more on the actual log burners themselves and go for better spec with higher heat output, so we are going to get 8kw ones instead of 5kw. This basically means they will pump out more radiant heat into the rooms ... making the house lovely and cosy.
We're going to have 4 burners fitted in the house. One in my office, one in the sitting room, one in the dining room and one in the drawing room. I am umming and ahhing about the drawing room still.. I cant decide to have a burner or a open fire. Asthetically an open fire would look nicer..but a burner would be far more practical and gives off a higher heat.
Anyway, this week we are going to choose and order the burners and hope to have them fitted by mid march.
The bad news this weekend is our barn roof is shedding its corrugated iron roofing sheets. With the hurricane winds we have had the past few weeks, the 8ft long metal sheets have been blowing off like sweet wrappers in the breeze. Two are now under the oak tree, one is in the farm house garden up the lane, one is flapping in the wind and making a horrid metal scraping noise and another is bent double and banging against the rafters in the roof. When I got home from work the other day I got out of my car and stood looking at the metal sheeting waving furiously in the gales. It was knocking and scraping and it would bend back on its self then bang back into place. I'm glad we don't live next door to the barn, it would have kept me awake all night. There was nothing I could do about it, so I came indoors , shut the doors and battened down the hatches, and I couldn't hear it inside the house...
The rooks that live in the barn are pretty fed up with us. They can't get inside the roof of the house like they used to, and now the barn is becoming less wind and water proof so they have started roosting in the oak trees at the back of the house.
The barn cat seems to have bunked off to find a quieter place to make a home. Stevie saw the illusive barn cat a couple of times, slinking down the pathway to the barn. I saw wet paw prints in my porch, and the builder said he saw a flash of black fur disappear through the barn window opening....but I have never seen it . I wish he was here the other night to catch the rat that chewed its way through my box of ornaments... Our ginger fur ball is getting too old now for mousing and his rat catching days are a thing of the past. He much prefers the comfort of a 15 tog duvet and an electric blanket to sleep on top of. The barn cat has a load of old loft insulation to sleep on inside a cold wet stone barn.
Stevie says we should get a couple of farm cats to keep the vermin at bay. They could be kitchen cats and could live in the boot room . Tango can have the run of the main house as he is getting older and stays indoors most of the time nowadays.
Oh, I nearly forgot. I bought some test pots of paint yesterday... This is for the main hall and entrance After much discussion and comparing colours by laying colour charts all over the dining room table then marking which ones were our 1st, 2nd & 3rd choices. We chose hessian and redcurrant... I painted little patches on the walls last night ..totally the wrong choice. (His fault) (of course, steve)
The hessian is OK, but I'm not overly enamoured with it ...but the redcurrant is just awful. its the colour of a tarts boudoir as my granny would have said. Its just wrong....We we're trying to coordinate colour schemes, and pick up the colours in the tiles in the main entrance hall.. I'm going to try a different combination of colours next weekend. Gold cream and black . I can see were going to end up with little blocks of different colours painted, and colour swatches all over the house until we make the final decision. But it has to be right. The hall and landing as absolutely massive and high too.. We will have to erect a scaffold tower in the staircase in order to decorate, so once its painted it wont be done again for a very long time..and because its a period property we will have to find colours that stand the test of time.. modern colours wont look right and wall paper is a definite no no.
So back to the drawing board for colours... and as for curtains... Arghhhhhh..Help....
xxx
Jo
The log burner situation is not quite as expensive as we thought and were originally quoted. We had the chimney surveyed, this involved putting a small high definition camera on the end of the chimney sweeps extending pole (oo-er missus) and looking at the inside of the stacks.
The good news is our chimneys are in excellent condition and we don't have to have expensive liners fitted. Woo Hoo.... fantastic news.. so that means what money we can save on not having liners fitted we can spend a bit more on the actual log burners themselves and go for better spec with higher heat output, so we are going to get 8kw ones instead of 5kw. This basically means they will pump out more radiant heat into the rooms ... making the house lovely and cosy.
We're going to have 4 burners fitted in the house. One in my office, one in the sitting room, one in the dining room and one in the drawing room. I am umming and ahhing about the drawing room still.. I cant decide to have a burner or a open fire. Asthetically an open fire would look nicer..but a burner would be far more practical and gives off a higher heat.
Anyway, this week we are going to choose and order the burners and hope to have them fitted by mid march.
The bad news this weekend is our barn roof is shedding its corrugated iron roofing sheets. With the hurricane winds we have had the past few weeks, the 8ft long metal sheets have been blowing off like sweet wrappers in the breeze. Two are now under the oak tree, one is in the farm house garden up the lane, one is flapping in the wind and making a horrid metal scraping noise and another is bent double and banging against the rafters in the roof. When I got home from work the other day I got out of my car and stood looking at the metal sheeting waving furiously in the gales. It was knocking and scraping and it would bend back on its self then bang back into place. I'm glad we don't live next door to the barn, it would have kept me awake all night. There was nothing I could do about it, so I came indoors , shut the doors and battened down the hatches, and I couldn't hear it inside the house...
The rooks that live in the barn are pretty fed up with us. They can't get inside the roof of the house like they used to, and now the barn is becoming less wind and water proof so they have started roosting in the oak trees at the back of the house.
The barn cat seems to have bunked off to find a quieter place to make a home. Stevie saw the illusive barn cat a couple of times, slinking down the pathway to the barn. I saw wet paw prints in my porch, and the builder said he saw a flash of black fur disappear through the barn window opening....but I have never seen it . I wish he was here the other night to catch the rat that chewed its way through my box of ornaments... Our ginger fur ball is getting too old now for mousing and his rat catching days are a thing of the past. He much prefers the comfort of a 15 tog duvet and an electric blanket to sleep on top of. The barn cat has a load of old loft insulation to sleep on inside a cold wet stone barn.
Stevie says we should get a couple of farm cats to keep the vermin at bay. They could be kitchen cats and could live in the boot room . Tango can have the run of the main house as he is getting older and stays indoors most of the time nowadays.
Oh, I nearly forgot. I bought some test pots of paint yesterday... This is for the main hall and entrance After much discussion and comparing colours by laying colour charts all over the dining room table then marking which ones were our 1st, 2nd & 3rd choices. We chose hessian and redcurrant... I painted little patches on the walls last night ..totally the wrong choice. (His fault) (of course, steve)
The hessian is OK, but I'm not overly enamoured with it ...but the redcurrant is just awful. its the colour of a tarts boudoir as my granny would have said. Its just wrong....We we're trying to coordinate colour schemes, and pick up the colours in the tiles in the main entrance hall.. I'm going to try a different combination of colours next weekend. Gold cream and black . I can see were going to end up with little blocks of different colours painted, and colour swatches all over the house until we make the final decision. But it has to be right. The hall and landing as absolutely massive and high too.. We will have to erect a scaffold tower in the staircase in order to decorate, so once its painted it wont be done again for a very long time..and because its a period property we will have to find colours that stand the test of time.. modern colours wont look right and wall paper is a definite no no.
So back to the drawing board for colours... and as for curtains... Arghhhhhh..Help....
xxx
Jo
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