House-on-the-Hill Blog

13th December

Jack Frost was hard at work last night and the landscape glints with that picture postcard wintry landscape appeal. How lovely to walk across the fields and feel the crunch of frosty ground beneath my boots instead of suction dragging them down as I try to skirt the muddy bits. All is silent up at the house. It's the weekend. No-one working. I pick my way carefully round the upper storey, keen not to put my foot through the floor insulation. Upstairs, the underfloor heating pipes have been laid on top of the insulation and the electricians have been on site with a first fix. And I am there to vacuum up the sawdust before the screeder comes. Just one little problem. No generator, ( locked away over the weekend ) so no power. Silly me, not to think of this.

My better half confesses to a lapse in his role as photographer. The camera has been away in the landrover whilst in for repair. He assures me I'll get enough to log progress. Meantime the photos below were taken prior to progress on the internal partitions. And before Hightae, another local firm, moved in to make a start on the underfloor heating. John, the Hightae boss, escapes to Crete for a long festive break any day now. But not before cupboards I had earmarked for other things have been commandeered for manifolds and all manner of underfloor heating essentials. Smugly, I claim I had made allowances for this. Not really true, but everyone does remark on how enormous my cupboards are...but there again the average house doesn't have up to 12 people arriving with big suitcases they need to stack away out of sight... let alone storage for cots, highchairs, loads of linen and towels, and all those other essentials.

Only a few days now before everyone departs for Xmas and Hogmanay.

Here they are getting slotted into the frame	The gallery edge	Grey roof, grey water, grey sky!
Windows start going in upstairs	All 38 or so windows arrive in readiness	Drillers arrive on site. We need 3 boreholes for the geothermal heat
And here's the drilling rig		Their task proves not so easy

November 2009

They say pictures say more than a thousand words, so once again I leave you to track progress via the captions.

Starting to take shape	Shadow play	Cloaked in cheery yellow and with scaffolding
Yes, the ground beneath was rather uneven	Sunny yellow will eventually give way to lovely larch!	More of the interior
Meantime a ladder... Eventually a grand stairwell		May keep this brace as a feature inside

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