It was great to be on site with Steve for almost a full two weeks over Easter. And whilst still lots of various inside jobs going on, the focus was very much on external stuff, not least drainage!
Suffice to say that drainage is one of the things that has been top of Steve’s priorities for the house. In the ideal world – and if it hadn’t been for some apparently rare heather – the driveway to our house from the track would have come to the side, rather than straight downhill. As well as the challenges of steepness of slope for cars, it’s pretty important that we ensure that water doesn’t just pour straight down the drive into the house.
Easter week was therefore the week that Danny and mostly Davy were back on site, tidying up the landscaping and also putting in some all important ditches. Within a day, through some expert digger work, the slightly abrupt contours that had been created during the build process were smoothed out. And a new ditch was created – which forever more will be known as ‘Steve’s Ditch’ which carries water brilliantly off the drive and round the side of the house and down the hill.
We had lots of discussion about what the best surface was for the front of the house. Given the slope, and cost, we’ve opted for tar planings – which are basically chopped up old road tarmac (so good ‘re-use’ material!). If the test is whether my VW Up (with an engine the size of a sewing machine) can now get up and down the drive, it’s passed very well! The crash barrier also does a really good job at the start of the steep section moving water into Steve’s ditch to the right. We’re still waiting for chippings (big gravel) to go round most of the rest of the house, plus we’ll have some hard paving immediately in front of the front door – just need to go and look for that, and then find someone to lay it for us. Something for another day.
Some more finishing bits and pieces
Over Easter we were quite proud of ourselves for making all the cladding corners. Not sure why it took quite so long to cut and fix 12 pieces of wood, but it did! But it was worth the time, as these bits of ‘finishing’ make such a difference.
Over the Jubilee bank holiday, the ‘finishing’ elements continued, with more of the final pieces of cladding done, plus finally we got the round window cill in place. Then in a fairly back-breaking job (and something that would definitely have been easier to do about 6 months ago, before any of the cladding – or indeed Pavatex – went on) I painted the blockwork black. A lot of the blockwork will be covered once the chippings arrive, but the black really does smarten things up.
