Concrete

With absolutely no apologies for posting video that, to anyone not involved in the project, is one step up from watching paint dry, here's concrete arriving and being pumped, for footings for the new steel reinforcement of the front edifice. (I did type Facade, but it's pretentious and really should have a fancy "c")

Steel arrives on 19 Feb, once it's up we can remove the old temporary monstrosity, and actually be able to walk through the front door without clambering over scaffold :)

More soon

Arrivals

Portacabin's here. Toilet's here. Men are here, to stitch our front wall together. It's all going on.

Next week: footings get dug for the new steel, lots of other shenanigans. Stay tuned

Finally, a road

As promised, video proof that we've build a road. This will be removed at the end (sigh) of the project, and the exorbitantly priced bit of grass will be returned to its former glory and handed back to the Town Council. The road is a marvel - lays on top of the ground on a membrane, is of honeycomb construction filled with gravel, and can carry even large vehicles without spreading or pot-holing.

I've trimmed out some night scenes - the camera is sensitive to motion and headlights set it off. The camera will now be placed in the next place of interest, most likely inside the Sunday School, to catch the goings-on as the project continues.

More soon

Road news

The road is coming along nicely 

Aint she beautiful? The video footage will appear here (at 128x speed) when it's complete.

After this we'll be fixing the front wall, and digging drains, and yes there will be photos. Told you it was going to get interesting  😏 

Last post about planning - ever

We went to Buxton Pavilion yesterday, to witness our planning application being presented to the panel. Lyn stood up and spoke about the project, then we held our breaths.

I have to admit I did well up a bit when the three members of the panel who spoke were so full of praise for the project, and subsequently it was accepted unanimously.

Now I never have to come back to this blog with any news, good bad or indifferent, about planning permissions. It's done. We now have a house to build.

In anticipation of this good news, Paul had already started clearing the leased field for the access road:

This might look like a muddy track to you, but to us it's as magical as the yellow brick road.

Materials will arrive tomorrow to make it into a road capable of supporting even the biggest lorries. Then  Paul can really get moving on the agenda, as mentioned in my last post.

I do have the motion-sensitive camera recording all this activity, and I'll post a version here that will compress days of movement into a few seconds. Will wait for the road to be complete before I do that.

In other news, the front edifice of the Chapel is due some serious TLC, as not only do we have new steel on order to hold it up, but the inner and outer layers need to be stitched together with long bolts, drilled in from the inside, and bonded to make it last for many years. This is specialist work, so quotes are being assessed.

Final design tweaks are happening to the actual house, and there are regular meetings with Lyn, Jeremy the architect, and McVeigh Offsite who are supplying it. We did spend a happy hour pushing cut-out sofas, tables and cupboards round so we can plan how to arrange our lives when it's done - and struggled badly until I realised we'd got the measurements wrong and our sofas were the size of transit vans. :)

More soon.

The Plan

Builder on site from tomorrow. Here, in Lyn's own writing, is the plan:

I can't wait.

Today I put in place a motion sensitive camera that will record the road being built. If the result is decent, I'll post it here.

Some pics from the graveyard:

Looking nice for a January morning

What we're trying to preserve

Lyn checking out the sunrise. 

Moving Mountains

Well, we think we finally have our ducks in a row. Paul the builder will be on site this month, and he'll start by building our access road. Pics will follow. Kudos to Lyn, who has managed this two year red-tape-athon majestically without losing her sanity, not to mention her dignity.

Speaking of moving mountains, who knew that two hung-over sextagenarians could shift this pile of stone without mechanical aid? 

You can see where they came from, and how it was done. Needless to say we're now tired but happy.

By the way, that tree is spoiling the view and is marked for removal. 20 mins before this we'd watched as the setting sun lit up the valley beyond. Beautiful. 

Much more, very soon.