Why Did I BRICK Up The Kitchen Window?

 The other day I posted my first patio renovation video and Sue G (a long time supporter of the blog) asked a really good question- 

Why did I block up the kitchen window?

I thought the best way to answer this was with a short video and look at my reasoning. 

Give it a watch and let me know what you think.

Would you have done the same?

Shared Meals

My bricklayer, Dill, has been working hard on our extension and it feels that we're making progress now that we're out of the ground. I've even got the scaffold booked for a weeks time! 

The other day he was going to work late as he had to start late, so I offered him a evening meal with the family (he often has lunch with us when he's working here).

Focaccia from the other night

I like our girls (and boy) to eat with as many friends and family as possible, sat around the table I think it's really good for them and helps improve their manners. My youngest daughter is a little bit besotted with Dill anyway and has named one of her Duplo figures "Dill" who goes on lots adventures building towers. 

"Dillster" working hard! 

I also think it's essential that they treat people working for us how they want to be treated, a Polish friend of mine says that in Poland if you have builders working for you then they eat with you each lunch time. 

A really strong memory I have growing up is lots of people eating with us as a family, kind of like a stereotypical image of a farm kitchen. Anyone working or helping us on the farm on a Saturday used to have chips with us on a night time and dad even does this for his workers on a Friday lunch time now, my mum also does a big meal around Christmas for everyone that works for them (a great fun evening!) as well as a cooked breakfast on a Saturday. These memories are all noisy, fun meals filled with laughter, part of the reason I've always wanted a big family. 

I'd like to have more people eat with us, not for showy meals but for everyday run of the mill meals, and hopefully with a bigger house we should be able to do it more often. 

Do you like to have people round to eat?

Do you enjoy big noisy meals?

Busy Half Term & Trying To Get Heating Ready

Autumn has come all of a sudden this year, the leaves seem to have fallen off the trees in the last couple of days. 

I've had a busy half term, working on a job in the local town and trying to mop up a few projects here (sorry no posts). I've still got lots to do before winter properly sets in. With such a busy summer my I've probably only got just enough firewood in store, but as I've been helping my brother some evenings he's promised me that we won't go short as he has about five years worth stored up - a good job because at the moment that's our only source of heat! 

Last year I posted about our boiler and whether we should repair or replace. Luckily it lasted the mild winter out but now I don't really want to risk turning it on again and even if it works I doubt it could heat the house much if it turned cold. The plan now is to fit a new external oil boiler, but I'm going to fit it about 8m from the house and duct all the pipe work in. 

This means lots of digging &lots of muddy mess! 

The new boiler will go down where the wall steps, that way when the patio is built up you should really see it and any noise or smells are away from the house

So hopefully over the next week we're (dad and me) going to dig up the patio (or what's left of it) and run heating pipes to the new boiler site. We're also moving the oil tank and running in new pipe work to that as well. and an armoured electric cable. I'm also going to install a couple of empty ducts so we can pull in extra cables if we need to. I have plans to install a generator down there and put a change over with in the house at some point so having the ability to install extra wires or pipework will be handy. 

Our heating system is just a regular heating system and I've no plans to change that at the moment, this means that pipework in the house stays the same and it also gives us the ability to install solar in the future should we ever want or afford to. 

So hopefully by the middle of this month(ish) we should have some proper central heating installed and hopefully that will be before it gets too cold! Lots to do before I start working full time again next year! 

Garden Wall Progress

Not a very interesting post I'm afraid but I'd thought I show how the wall is coming on. 

Dill, the brick layer, managed to get here a few days this week so he's managed to get on quite well. I've been trying to make sure he's got the bricks ready where he needs them and everything else is ready for him, this should help keep costs down and make the job a little faster. 

Hopefully this will be another job off the list fairly soon!