I HATE MESS.

[Schoolmarm]

You need a little touring caravan parked up.

 

[MdB]

You need a little touring caravan parked up.

A highly insulated touring caravan if you are to survive at this time of year. (I speak from experience...)

 

[Feltwell]

Well, I must congratulate the family Feltwell on a job well done. Complete success.

Why thank you, kind sir!

That shall be the last major mess for a while - else Mrs F will start divorce proceedings I fear!

Most of that big pile of muck is now safely tucked up underneath the (suspended) garage floor, ready for someone to curse me about at some point in the distant future when they decide to rebuild my lovely garage.

 

[Jon Maine]

Well, I must congratulate the family Feltwell on a job well done. Complete success.

Why thank you, kind sir!

That shall be the last major mess for a while - else Mrs F will start divorce proceedings I fear!

Most of that big pile of muck is now safely tucked up underneath the (suspended) garage floor, ready for someone to curse me about at some point in the distant future when they decide to rebuild my lovely garage.

That old building tradition, hide the crap under the floor......... :lol:

 

[Cloudscape]

Boo, everyone! Long time no see. Life has conspired to keep me busy in one way or another. I had a family visit and worked extra hard to get the kitchen and dining room presentable. You could actually cook, sit and eat in there. :shock: I'd forgotten that.

Then work started stripping plaster and cement off a long wall, the kitchen door frame was removed (along with the door of course). Polythene walls were erected to contain the dust...

... in one of the windiest fortnights we've ever had. The dust is everywhere. Somewhere under it is a dining table, a leather sofa and a floor.

But hey... now I have a good excuse for the place looking like a bomb's hit it. :wink:

 

[MdB]

Welcome back Cloudscape.

Pictures please. It doesn't count if you don't post pictures ;-)

 

[JoceAndChris]

Hey - Cloudscape! I don't remember giving you permission to absent yourself like that. But it's lovely to see you back.

Using the dining room? Guests? :shock: Are you feeling OK? Glad to hear that any tidiness was just temporary and you now have a nice wind tunnel of thick pervasive dust.

It's great that work is taking place on your house too.

 

[worms]

my kitchen has felt the wrath of the hard hand of mess last week.

I know you have explained this before, but from the picture it looks more as if the roof is holding up the round-wood beams rather than vice versa. Since this is a more recent lean-to on the older building, are these beams purely cosmetic (which would be surprising given the dates that you mentioned for the door inscriptions)?

 

[Tom]

You need a little touring caravan parked up.

A highly insulated touring caravan if you are to survive at this time of year. (I speak from experience...)

Oh, you part-timers!! 14 years I've been in here and not a day of complaint :roll: :wink:

 

[MdB]

I'm afraid we gave up when the water in the toilet bowl froze. The dogs were not so keen on the frozen water bowl either.

 

[Tom]

I'm afraid we gave up when the water in the toilet bowl froze. The dogs were not so keen on the frozen water bowl either.

I have to admit to never having that problem. Mind you, we've insulated all underneath here to keep the cold from striking through the floor. Can't do much about the heat escaping through the roof though (a nightmare scenario for Biff, I should think!!). We've had the curtains frozen to the windows and stuff like that but you just learn to live with it. We did once have the water-in pipe freeze underneath when one of the dogs had knocked the insualtion off it. My poor OH had to get under there, in the snow and hail, with a hair dryer to thaw it out :lol:

 

[Cloudscape]

Some pics, but half the time, my camera was on the wrong side of the wind tunnel. :?

Don't you just love the fact that the make-do curtains hung there throughout the cement/plaster removal :roll:

(2 phone pics)

The original lintel, cut off when the door height was raised:

Keep finding this electric blue..

 

[Penners]

Boo, everyone!

For God's sake, Cloudscape.... don't make me jump like that, at my age.

Welcome back!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gosh Cloudscape, that looks like proper work, dust masks and everything. (and I do like those yellow curtains!) So any clues about the age of the blue? What a shade- I remember looking at an extraordinary 1840s gown in precisely that colour. It's just not what you'd expect!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Joce, an 1840s gown in "Surprising Blue*" is exactly what we'd expect - of you

*Is that one of Farrow and Ball's new "shocking decorative errors of the nineteenth century" range?

 

[worms]

Cloudscape,

What is the metal wheel behind the car? Old water pump? Chaff Cutter? Or something much more prosaic?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Mmmm, intriguing. My money's on a water pump; it looks a bit like mine though it's hard to judge from the photo.

Is that one of Farrow and Ball's new "shocking decorative errors of the nineteenth century" range?

Probably! It's almost as fun as your friends painting their passage in "Mouse's Back" and having a mouse's back passage!

(There has to be a lot more mileage in this - been looking at the paint charts; there's a lot of potential! Might have to pick out all the knobs on my kitchen unit doors in "Weekend", by Little Greene, I fancy some weekend knobs! And then I could have a "Mischief" snuggery and my passageway in "Welcome"! :lol: )

 

[worms]

My money's on a water pump; it looks a bit like mine though it's hard to judge from the photo.

That certainly looks like the beastie in question!

 

[Cloudscape]

That's what I love about posting photos... people always look at the bits they shouldn't. :wink:

It's a chaff cutter, minus its stand (broken off). £10 from a chap round the corner (he was going to send it for scrap).

The blue in the kitchen and dining room is at a low level in the paint layers. I think it's the fourth layer of many. There's white/grey, duck-egg blue, and then the electric blue. In places (probably where there were gaps in the limewash) the electric blue is on the pointing between the stones. In the utility room, its under a lot of coats of limewash, near the bottom again.

As for the age of the blue - I have no idea. 18th-19th C? I can't imagine how they made such a strong colour, or what this place must have been like to walk into...

 

[JoceAndChris]

Your chaff-cutter is a lovely find.

That blue- just like lapis lazuli - but I think that your paint is more likely to have been made with cobalt or cerulean? Here's a really interesting snippet of stuff about pigments: http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/coblue.html