Deliveries

This week has seen two major deliveries at Hillside. Early in the week we were expecting the oak stairs to be delivered. We've made a point of delaying delivery of these till as late as possible to avoid them getting damage by builder foot-traffic. With the plasterboard going in this week it's important that they have the stairs installed so they can do the plasterboard in the stairwell.

No sign of the stairs though till then end of the week, but when they did turn up the chippie had them installed and wrapped up to protect them in no time. So whilst the stairs are in we can't enjoy them just yet - but it does beat having to climb a ladder to get upstairs.

The other major delivery of the week was the garage door, allowing us to replace the temporary boarding at the front of the garage, or boiler room as the builders call it. Unfortunately the budget couldn't stretch to the eco-option of a wooden door but we have at least got an insulated one, which will help to keep in the heat from the boiler and mean there is less heatloss from the old part of the cottage alongside and the new bedroom above.

I've not had time to 'play' with the door yet but I'm sure there'll be time soon. Instead we've been doing other important jobs such as trying to renovate the only original sash window that is left in the house. The sill is mostly rotten and I dug the bulk of the crumbly old wood out today. Working out how to get the remaining wood out, and replacement wood back in looks like it could be a challenge.

We also sowed a few lollo rosso and beetroot in the veg plot - it'll be interesting to see how they get on with the heavy clay soil lacking a great deal of organic matter!