Sunday 28 July 2013

July...

This month has been a bloody scorcher, with yesterday getting to 37C in the shade. It's really uncomfortable outside, but blessedly cool, well, relatively-speaking, in the Bauernhaus. Nevertheless, much sweating ensued over the past week, as I  finally got back into getting stuff done, after near four weeks absence.

After getting a delivery of lots of Douglas-fir, I finally started on the under-construction for the bedroom floor and box room. Once the cabling is done here, and a sagging beam is jacked up, we'll lay OSB sheets as an under-floor, and work on the plastering can begin.

NE box room
The unfinished wall between box room and bedroom.
It's a bit dangerous working in the bedroom, as the battens between the oak beams are a bit rotted in placed, so it's easy to fall through if you step on the wrong place. At least it only happened to me once!

The first-floor bedroom

Bedroom
As well as that., over this weekend we began getting the, well, I'm not sure what they're called in English, but "Dosen" for the sockets and switches into the walls, as well as leading the cables into them. Makes the whole wiring a lot neater-looking already!

The kitchen, today.
Some network cables are also in, for the living room, running under the kitchen floor, which will all be sealed away, so I hope they work!

Kitchen
And we finally got rid of the piles of wood in the yard, thanks to our friend's big trailer, and a tetris-like method of stacking.


 In the meantime, the garden has been completely neglected, although I did have to trim an 80m long hedge as it was beginning to overgrow the access road behind the house. I know I am going to hate this hedge... We plan on getting a loan of some sheep next week to take the grass down under the fruit trees, while the bigger, open part of the field, behind the barn, is already well handled by three horses that pop in now and again.


But more importantly, our local inn, Gasthaus zur Linde, has reopened after a two-year closure and complete renovation. It now has guest rooms, which I reckon had not been used in over half a century, as well as a large, comfortable Biergarten, a new function room in the former barn, and good steaks. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the beer choices, but on hot days like these, a cold Bitburger helps clear the dust.


Catching up

The last six weeks have been a bit hectic, what with travel for work and helping out finishing work on the local inn. so it's only in the past week-and-a-half that work has resumed on the Bauernhaus. More of that anon, as since the last post a few things have gotten done.

Most of the cabling has been done for the first floor and part of the second floor, making for spaghetti-like scenes in the kitchen. Everything on the first floor comes together here, with the box for he trip switches on the other side of the wall. I probably didn't need all that sheathing in the wall itself, but no harm. It's quite fun doing the wiring, which exercises the brain more than the body, trying to plan where sockets, switches and lights should be, and how to best hide cables in walls where we will leave the timbers exposed. Quite a lot of work, which will never be seen again, but a big step towards making the house livable, eventually.


The trip-switch box is neatly in with a frame, so we can put a wooden door over it instead on the standard, ugly metal thing.

Likewise, I've built casings around a couple of the heating manifolds, just to keep it neat inside. Below is the manifold for the first florr kitchen and bathroom.



And upstairs, the beginning of cabinets for one of the manifolds and a comms cabinet (where the network patch panel, routers and phone outlets will end up).


 The beginnings of sills on the second floor have begun (nice and deep), but overall, lots of small details that needed taking care of.

With all the floors now out, we ended up with quite a pile of wood littering the yard in front of the house. Some people said we should chop it up for firewood, but frankly, I'd better things to be doing! :|


That brings us up to early June, so stay tuned for another exciting post for this month (if you can bear the excitement :))