The ugly bit of Feltwell Towers

[Feltwell]

Ages ago, 2020 in fact, mixed in with another thread - hence why I thought I'd start a new one - I posted a lovely picture of some "lead porn", followed by a picture of same spot but panned out....

A bit of "cast iron porn" for a Friday morning.....

Here's one of this week's endeavours, an old cast iron hopper rescued and installed on my newly repointed porch complete with restored stonework, fed into by a lead overflow detail above.




Alas if you pan out you'll also see the ugly plastic soil stack with it's even uglier connections, gas meter box, boiler flue, knackered cellar window in need of restoration, lots more repointing and brick repairs to do... :lol: :lol: The sheet of OSB is at least only resting against the wall (goes on the ground when repointing to stop mortar stains on the tarmac drive)



I've just shown you the ugliest part of Feltwell Towers! Ahh well, at least *one* bit is done now.......

Which caused some amusement.......

that looks like you are harvesting sewer gas for your meter there :roll:

you have to admire the craftsmanship of cementing random bricks at random angles into an old lime mortared brick wall - maybe you could paint a brick motif on the OSB and hang it over the pipes when not in use

Yes, there's nothing like real craftsmanship, and whoever refitted the bathroom last certainly knew nothing about real craftsmanship when they put those bricks in :roll: Still, better than in the kitchen where they used expanding foam to replace missing bricks with - externally. Luckily I have a large stack of old bricks and can always find something suitable to replace them with.

OSB painting - creative thinking, I like it......

Love your "beautiful period property detail....not so much" series of photos Feltwell.

Context is everything

Ahh well, it's a work in progress. If I'd taken a picture of how it looked when we moved in you would also have seen a badly collapsed leaded light window, spalled saturated stonework, stone lintel above the window badly cracked with the remains of old iron fixings sticking out of it, a gas pipe going through the cellar window ( :roll: ), naff plastic hopper and downpipe held in place with duct tape, no lead at the top of the porch, and porch brickwork in a right old state. Depressing that that area still looks cr@p, but hey ho, one job at a time!

I managed to free the opener in the cellar window last weekend without doing any damage, bit of an achievement as I reckon it had been rusted shut for at least 50 years. Oscillating multi-tools are wonderful! Managed to pass an old wood blade through gaps on the edge of the window and slowly cut through the rust. One of the hinges is broken though (I knew that before freeing it off) so I'm going to have a go at welding it, in-situ is the only option - having successfully welded some other cast iron recently. Worst case is I seal it shut again, as it was before.

Thought I'd post a progress update - as it's still not completely done!

Looking better overall I think - brickwork restored, stupid plumbing connections removed, new soil stack in place (with last connection to new bathroom still to go in), cellar window in progress (detailed on the "Projects" thread). Colours look a bit weird on the picture, it was starting to go dark when I took it.



Soil stack is a "fake" cast iron one - it's plastic - pretty convincing I think, even more so once I've given it a coat of gloss black paint when it's all done.

 

[LadyArowana]

Looks really elegant now, great job. I’m intrigued by the ‘Courier Buddy’ do you only get really thin parcels or is there an amazing laundry chute arrangement into the butler’s room?

 

[Feltwell]

Looks really elegant now, great job. I’m intrigued by the ‘Courier Buddy’ do you only get really thin parcels or is there an amazing laundry chute arrangement into the butler’s room?

The wall it's on is just around the corner from our "front" door (which is on the side of the house) so it's hidden from view from the road, and is covered by CCTV.

You lift the lid of the "Courier Buddy" and the sides fold out, the bottom folds down inside, to give you a big box with a self-locking lid to leave parcels in. It's quite neat.

This is great - and when we had our lovely postlady, Sabrina, it worked like a charm. She knew if there were no cars in the drive, use the box.

However Royal Mail have replaced her with a chimp who, despite the fact that we have a doorbell that could wake the dead that can clearly be heard from outside, insists on hammering on the rather delicate leaded light glass in the door before forgetting about the box and taking parcels away with him. I've told him about it 3 times, each time I get a vague glimmer of remembrance in his eye before he grunts "oh yeah I forgot" and lurches away up the drive, dragging his knuckles as he goes.

Other regular couriers know about it. Amazon changes driver every time, only about 50% of them even bother to ring the bell, most just dump the parcel on the doorstep and run. It's amazing we've not had anything nicked!

 

[CliffordPope]

All the couriers and BT are still operating in Covid mode round here. No one ever rings or bothers putting anything through the letter box. All letters and parcels are just dumped on the floor in the porch. A few deliverers drive up the drive to the back of the house and leave parcels outside on the terrace, usually if it's wet some think of putting them in the barn.

 

[Cubist]

Happy to report that the vast majority of post and delivery drivers around here are quite happy to bring whatever up to the house from the lane. Except of course for the Travis Perkins driver who deposited 4 tonnes of gravel in front of the gates - before he off-loaded the mini-digger!

 

[stuart45]

The brickwork looks like it's come up really well. Not an easy job to do, even for a pro bricklayer. I'd be happy with that result.

 

[88v8]

That's very smart.
We used real cast iron for our previous house, but the new stuff came coated with real bitumen. Slight problem painting it.
I hope your next-door neighbour is taking notes.

 

[Feltwell]

The brickwork looks like it's come up really well. Not an easy job to do, even for a pro bricklayer. I'd be happy with that result.

Greatly helped by the partial removal of an internal wall, giving me a good supply of exactly matching bricks. With all the soil pipe connections moving, the removal of extraneous waste pipes and correction of much past bodging, I think about 30-40 bricks got changed in that one area in the end. It was at the end of a repointing job on the whole house, so no issues getting pointing to match.

 

[Feltwell]

That's very smart.
We used real cast iron for our previous house, but the new stuff came coated with real bitumen. Slight problem painting it.
I hope your next-door neighbour is taking notes.

Considering it's plastic, it's pretty good - only on very close inspection can you tell that it's not the real thing. With having to connect to a plastic 110mm stub already coming out of the ground, and reverting to plastic once inside the house, it was a practical choice.

Neighbours - hmm, that's an uphill battle! They are starting to notice though - one commented the other day how my cast iron rainwater goods look so much better than his plastic stuff. Not that he'll change it mind.

 

[Zebra]

I like the idea of painting the gas meter box black. I wonder what other "period" finishes one could come up with for it: limewash it, perhaps, or clad it in oak. Make little fake half-timbered cladding for it perhaps

 

[Cubist]

I like the idea of painting the gas meter box black. I wonder what other "period" finishes one could come up with for it: limewash it, perhaps, or clad it in oak. Make little fake half-timbered cladding for it perhaps

I like those ideas and would also suggest 'Decoupage' - a new capability I acquired while building a Toy/Booty Box for my granddaughter - as another option.

 

[CliffordPope]

I like the idea of painting the gas meter box black. I wonder what other "period" finishes one could come up with for it: limewash it, perhaps, or clad it in oak. Make little fake half-timbered cladding for it perhaps

For the classical look how about faux marbling, with classical pillars and pediment. Perhaps a painted niche for the household gods?
Or for Feltwell, painted bricks with a false flue-sweeping access hole and cast iron door?

 

[Feltwell]

Ooo No, painted bricks - the parallax error compared to the wall behind would drive me mental (autistic, moi??)

(Feltwell goes away to Google "Decoupage", How disappointing - there was I hoping it was like "Décolletage" ). Ooo, I could do a nice chintz gas meter cover with that!

I could turn it into a dolls-house version of Feltwell Towers perhaps?

 

[Feltwell]

Froze my arse off outside today putting 18 little pieces of glass in that window!

Despite the fact the glaziers had plywood templates for every one, 16 of the 18 pieces had to be trimmed by me to get them to fit - a Dremel with a fine grinding wheel causes a little edge chipping of the glass, but the fillet of putty will cover that.

 

[Zebra]

Yeah, why is that - I take the old pane to the shop and say make me one like that, and it comes back and it won't fit

 

[Cubist]

You've got see the glaziers point of view; unlike cooking, or mixing plaster/render for that matter, it's easier to take a little more off than to put a little more back.

 

[noj]

If they simply cut round a perfect sized template it's going to always be at least the thickness of the tool bigger...

 

[CliffordPope]

If they simply cut round a perfect sized template it's going to always be at least the thickness of the tool bigger...

I'd somehow imagined that they knew how to allow for that.

Cabinet makers do - there's a convention about marking the place where they want the cut and then cutting a tiny bit offset to allow for the thickness of the saw

 

[Cubist]

Ooo No, painted bricks - the parallax error compared to the wall behind would drive me mental (autistic, moi??)

(Feltwell goes away to Google "Decoupage", How disappointing - there was I hoping it was like "Décolletage" ). Ooo, I could do a nice chintz gas meter cover with that!

I could turn it into a dolls-house version of Feltwell Towers perhaps?

Too often, I find, a niggling little thought will begin to irritate me after reading the comments and replies from others. One such, triggered by Feltwells idea for a chintzy dolls-house to adorn his meter-box was one such. Frequently these fleeting thoughts come to nothing and get lost among all the other detritus that rattle around in what passes for my mind. Sometimes though something else will come along that throws some additional light and the itchy niggle can be scratched. Last night I happened to be scanning the tv schedules in the hope of finding something vaguely interesting when I spotted a listing that provoked a light-bulb moment. In amongst the usual dross I happened to espy an old sitcom that provided a likely solution capable of killing two birds, so to speak, and I can now offer the following.

In the, at the time very popular show, 'Allo Allo' there was a story arch concerning the hunt for a misappropriated work of art the subject of which, I think, would provide an excellent image for Feltwell to apply to his meter box. Decoupage meets décolletage?

 

[LadyArowana]

In the, at the time very popular show, 'Allo Allo' there was a story arch concerning the hunt for a misappropriated work of art the subject of which, I think, would provide an excellent image for Feltwell to apply to his meter box. Decoupage meets décolletage?

So fess up, which one of you bought it? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-46397261