A better weekend than the last one..

What a contrast between two weekends ! A gorgeous sunny and warm couple of days, we went down Friday evening, and stayed until Sunday lunch time...and got loads done.

Jan spent most of the time cutting grass in the orchard, 4 weeks since it was last cut and this time of year if you miss many more weeks than that and the grass gets away, so a great job to keep it down and looking great.
The lanes are full of wild flowers at the moment, and the garden is looking lovely too.. Jan picked some for the hall...(thanks Southmead Hospital for the Jug)

I started by spending Friday evening finishing the walk-in larder, hung the door, added the cladding, and fitted the door furniture from http://www.fromtheanvil.co.uk/. very pleased with the result...

just need to add the skirting, (when the adjacent wall has had its first coat of lime)

PS...also tried to make an oak wedge for an axe handle, but incurred a hand injury (more later)

Saturday was spent liming. I managed to complete the two remaining walls in Alys' bedroom, hard work , but it looks great. Needs a few layers of limewash to finish it off.

I've found that while waiting for the cement mixer to make a good lime mix (it takes 10x longer than a simple cement mix), I like to find other jobs to do. So managed to get the ladders out and clear/fix the guttering on the back of the house...no longer will we need to leave the back door in fear of the inevitable drip down the back of the neck !. Also managed to give the chimney wall in Alys' bedroom another coat of limewash...I think this is going to be a challenge as it still doesn't seem to want to dry white..mmmm will persevere.

Before and After (this is me taking the cement of the walls when we first bought it), and this weekend adding the last layer of Lime  !!

Managed to wear away the skin on my right hand rubbing out the trowel marks on the final wall...lime hurts !!!..and now there is my blood embedded in these walls !!!

We were both absolutely exhausted Saturday evening, so a quick BBQ in the orchard, and an early night.

Sunday, I fitted the door furniture to Alys' bedroom door. Also lime-filled the sides of the finished pantry.
Then started fitting Alys' newly purchased fireplace. I cut a slate hearth (and recessed the associated floorboards), bedded it in with Lime. Had to add some wood at the back of the fireplace to fill the gap (remember me saying that it was inches too small for the gap). When in place, I limed to the sides and hey presto......

All in all a beautiful and very productive weekend.