RHS Tatton Park 2017

This week's been the RHS Tatton Park show, and so for the fifth year, we went along to the last day. It was a really good show, as normal, and we were luckier with the weather than expected (the forecast a couple of days before was for heavy rain showers: we actually only had a few minutes of light rain at about 1400).

We made the most of getting there early and went straight to the floral marquee. I think that's best early, before it gets (a) hot, and (b) full of people. We found a number of things we wanted, including some selfheal (Rose and Blue Pearl varieties) to brighten the herb garden, some salvias (Royal Bumble) that will go in the colour wheel, and some blue-flowered garlic chives (also for the herb garden). It's a rather smaller haul than previous years (I think 2016 will forever be our high-water mark for purchases), but that reflects the simple fact that the garden, after eight years being here, is increasingly planted-up, and more space now comes either from replacing plants that die (or we grow bored of), or gradual increases in flower beds at the expense of lawn (see: mulberry bed in the games lawn).

Highlights from the show (all &copy Ian 2017)

Decorating for Christmas

We've had a long weekend, with a very pleasant two-night stay in Scarborough, before coming home yesterday morning. We've turned our attention to decorating for Christmas, which is always a two-day affair, and which is now finished...it did involve wiring up the new outside socket, in order to put lights on the acer in the front garden, and also replacing the double light switch on the hall wall with individual pull-cord switches in the cloakroom and downstairs toilet. That's been on the to-do list for years, so it's nice to get it done. It means that the little bit of wall where the switch was, which is about the only hanging space in the hall, can now have something attractive on it, instead of a two-gang switch. While were in Scarborough, we visited the excellent Stained Glass Centre, where Liz's grandparents have bought her a lovely stone-effect arched mirror, which now graces the space—the final impetus to moving the switches.

Master En Suite

Yesterday we connected the new bath in the master en suite (waste and both taps), levelled the tub and fixed it down, and then tiled around the bath. That was followed, this morning, by grouting the tiles, which now look really good; we've also attached a shower-curtain rail that doubles as a normal curtain, and installed the glass shower screen.

While Liz grouted, I've properly hung the door between the guest room and that en suite—it couldn't be done until the blockwork wall was down, because the door couldn't open. That's now up, and allows access as intended. On the landing, we've put up the last section of plasterboard in the lobby, as well as finishing the stud wall separating the side guest room from the en suite, and plasterboarded the unfinished guest room side. That also meant hanging a wall light (reusing the cabling for the shaving light from its bathroom incarnation.

That really does bring us the end of major operations, which has meant that we've been able to clear the dining room, which has been the staging arena for tools, consumables, and building material for months, now—since August. We've been able to return tools and the small remaining amount of materials to the workshop and garage (as was), and collect up the waste, which is broadly either scrap metal, wood for recycling, and a small amount of 'domestic' waste. It's lovely to have the dining room back, which now feels like a big room again.

We've also resorted to turning on the central heating, as the stove is starting to struggle as the only heating in the house. Not bad, turning on the boiler right at the end of November.

The Pink Bathroom

After, I think, five years and three months bemoaning it, we've finally demolished (as it were) the pink 'house' bathroom. Tiled lovingly from floor to ceiling in a pink rose pattern, with monolithic shower plinth, and 'cosy' loo in the corner (tucked between said plinth and the wall), it's never been much loved. The tiles were augmented with two mismatched white tiles at some date, too. Anyway, it is gone.

We started on Saturday by taking out the sink, and then took the ceiling down. It sounds drastic, but it was a false ceiling, with the 'real' ceiling hidden a couple of feet above it. We're not entirely sure why it was put in: it's got some quirkiness to it, though. The upper ceiling is higher than any of the other first floor ceilings, with a sloped section at the front/back of the house. However, the finish matches the ceiling material in the far end of the house (~15cm T&G planks)—where, in fact, the ceiling is lowest. The lower ceiling, which is at the same sort of level as the middle compartment of the house (master bedroom and landing), matched the finish there, which is a kind of long panelled effect.

We decided we had to take it down, because, oddly, the master en suite and house bathroom had the false, dropped ceiling, but the airing cupboard, between them, didn't. Because the new guest room was going to absorb the bathroom, airing cupboard, and a slice of the master en suite, the ceiling had to be consistent; and as it was, it was carried on a beam affixed to the wall we were going to take out.

Down it came, in not too horrible a fashion.

Next, we started to dismantle the walls: the walls separating the bathroom from the master en suite, and forming the airing cupboard between them, were all coming down, replaced by a new stud wall that made the en suite slightly smaller, but the soon-to-be-guest-bedroom a better size.

Eventually, by mid-morning today, we had all the walls down, generating a huge heap of cement blocks (breeze-blocks) outside the kitchen. It revealed a number of pipes and cables we'll need to sort out, that were previously hidden in the airing cupboard. We've then taken out the toilet, and attacked the shower plinth.

I described it as monolithic above, which proved unexpectedly accurate: when we took apart the tiled ply exterior, we discovered that the shower tray had been set into a three inch slab of concrete, itself held in a timber frame and on top of a foam base. Why, I have no idea. I managed to lever it up, and then break it into lumps, but it must have weighed around 200kg. In combination with the high-density cement block walls, the floor was carrying an unexpectedly enormous weight, which, to be frank, I'm glad it won't have to support any more.

By early evening, we had the contents of the room removed, now forming an absurd glacis of bagged plaster, tiles, and cement blocks outside the kitchen window, waiting an eventual skip/grabber truck plan. We then set to work stripping the plaster from the walls, with the remaining pink tiles. Eventually, we finished about ten, and the room is bare.

I'm going to try to sort out the pipes in evenings this week, and next weekend we'll insulate and plasterboard the room, and, with a little luck, start plastering first floor walls.

Forty-Two Hours of Madness

(This is retrospectively posted, as I was in no fit state to be writing at the moment it's time-stamped, but posterity calls.)

David and Ann have long been scheduled to visit for this weekend, which has given us a key milestone and deadline to aim for in our work. Quite reasonably, I think they'd expect a functioning bathroom, and a live-able bedroom.

They were due about 2300 Friday night. Unfortunately, as of 0800 Thursday, neither bedroom nor bathroom were ready.

Also unfortunately, the tiles for the bathrooms, which I ordered some time ago, have been badly delayed (they need to all come from the same batch of stone, for consistency), and instead of arriving last Wednesday, were eventually due to turn up Thursday morning.

Perhaps predictably, the delivery didn't go smoothly, and they ended up arriving 1745 Thursday evening.

In order, then, to get a guest bedroom and working bathroom, we stayed up from 0700 Thursday morning, until about 0100 Saturday morning, working basically non-stop for the forty-two hours in between. I was functionally narcoleptic by then, and we collapsed in to bed as soon as we'd had a cup of tea with Ann and David, after they arrived at about half-midnight (a much delayed journey on the M1).

It has not been fun.

In the last couple of days, in the new en suite alone, we've:

• installed the cabinets;
• connected the bath to the drain;
• levelled the bath;
• affixed battens to the wall;
• tiled the critical few square metres around the shower (the rest will have to wait);
• grouted the tiles;
• silicone sealed the bath;
• constructed the toilet cabinet;
• built the cistern into the unit;
• plumbed it in;
• modified the door to attach the pan through--both flush connection to it and soil pipe from it;
• connected the flush button;
• attached the water supply to the basin;
• built the trap and drain;
• cut the worktop;
• mounted the sink and waste; and
• made a frame for the small worktop at the foot of the bath.

In the guest bedroom, we've mounted four wall cupboards above the bed, and two full-height units on one side. One full-height unit is up in the front guest (the old study), but that's it: the wall units will wait.

In our bathroom, taken out the suite, and installed the cabinets, repeating the toilet cabinet work, and cut the worktop. I've not plumbed the toilet or basin in, yet, though.

A massive tidy-up of the house has made the dining room passable, and the living room is now basically normal; the master bedroom is fine, the landing is tidy, the old house bathroom (the 'pink bathroom') is less cluttered, thanks to the new wardrobe/cupboards; and although the garage is pretty full, the house is actually miraculously straight. Thanks to this go entirely to Liz, who's been madly tidying while I stumble in a sleep deprived haze through many of the construction jobs.

We just about managed to hoover, too. So, when David and Ann rolled in after a particularly messy journey up the motorway, we had a respectable suite to accommodate them, and I'm delighted that's the case.

To paraphrase Churchill: this is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end; it is, perhaps, the beginning of the middle.

Cabinets, Bathrooms, and Blinds

On Tuesday, the order of cabinets arrived. Nominally, they're kitchen units, because this, for whatever reason, is the most economic way of obtaining cabinets with hardwood doors, even for bedrooms or bathrooms. Anyway: they've safely arrived, a collection of eighteen or so cabinets, with extra packages of shelves, side-panels, shelf supports, and a massive, 4m piece of worktop, which had to go all the way round the house and in through the patio doors. That was rather hairy, as the weather on Tuesday was atrocious, with high winds and heavy rain at the time of delivery...and peace to either side.

It's since been cluttering up the downstairs, although we're gradually taking cupboards up. The 'broom cupboards' that we're re-purposing as full length wardrobes are slightly tricky to manoeuvre: they're 210cm tall, 40-50cm across/deep, and not light. We're getting there, though, doing a couple in a sitting, then taking a break.

Once upstairs, we've positioned the two cabinets for the new en suite, with the basin and toilet placed 'dry' with them, to get a feel for the room. Actually attaching everything is next.

We've also ordered blinds, one for each bathroom, a big one for the patio doors (which are as draughty as predicted), and two for the kitchen, replacing those on the big window behind the sink, and on the old outside door.

It took the best part of a day, but I've also done the plumbing and wiring works for the shower, ready to install the bathroom suite.

Finishing the Dining Room

We insulated the front wall of the dining room in two stages, having started in early August, but breaking for other rooms. We've now gone back, and yesterday insulated the back wall of the room. This was relatively simple, with just a couple of sockets, a light, and the big patio window; but there was also the old cellar landing, which we have bookcases in, and which is a slightly awkward shape. Anyway: we stripped most of the plaster off on Friday night, and finished the insulation by relatively early on Saturday night (midnight, or thereabouts...which is a definite improvement on some days).

We discovered that there was, at one point, a back door at the top of these stairs.

Unfortunately, I accidentally screwed a plasterboard screw through a cable, which necessitated a thirty minute delay while I repaired it and replaced the fuse.

We got there in the end, though. Today, we've insulated our walk-in-wardrobe in the corner of the master bedroom, thus completing the master bed. This afternoon was spent putting up the new stud wall that will separate our en suite from the new small bedroom that the house bathroom is becoming, and plumbing in the two radiators that go on this wall. One will be replaced by a towel radiator later (probably in the spring, really), but the other's permanent.

Finally, this evening, we've put up the removable insulation on the gable end of the dining room. Removable because we want to retain the stone wall, so we've come up with a way to insulate it over the winter, but have our stone wall back for the summer. We'll have to see whether it works: if not, we may have to sacrifice the exposed stone wall.

Division

This weekend's work has been focussed on dividing the end compartment of the first floor, which contained the two spare rooms, into more equally-sized rooms, and an en suite bathroom. We had to start by taking down the rest of the stud wall dividing the two (Saturday morning), and stripping off the remaining plaster from the guest room, and the back of the study (Friday evening). Although that meant a late night on Friday, it did pay off in a much pleasanter start to Saturday.

Once we'd stripped the room back to bare stone, we were able to put up the insulation on the back wall of the guest room, and the gable end a bit further than where the new wall of the en suite was going. It went reasonably smoothly, not least because that stretch has only one window and one radiator; and we added some sockets, as normal.

Messing around with the electrics took, as normal, a little while. We had to separate off the light at the end of the study, which will now be the light in the bathroom; add a switch for this light; and add double-throw switches for the lights in both bedrooms, so that they can be controlled from next to their door to the landing, and to the bathroom. It was a little complex, but we got there. We also added one ring main looped socket, which we shall extend to further sockets later.

The stud wall itself was reasonably straightforward; two roughly 2m walls defining the bathroom, with a door into each bedroom (we're recycling doors for now, with the intention of getting nice new ones when we can...), and then a slightly longer one joining the square bathroom with the square lobby diagonally opposite.

It was a little hard, without the wall, to get a sense of the two rooms, but they've turned out really well: they both feel ample for double guest rooms, or permanent single rooms.

On Wednesday, work on the new drain for the en suite starts: they'll be drilling through the gable wall to create a 4' drain, taking it across the gable end of the house, and dropping it into an existing septic tank sewer behind the greenhouse. While they're here, they're going to reline that sewer, which has been damaged by the berberis growing straight over it.

Malvern Autumn

We've had a weekend away, visiting Ludlow, and spending Sunday with Liz's grandmother at the Malvern autumn show, which we've not been to before.

It's less of a garden show than, say, Tatton Park, with only a few gardens, and a lot of 'country living' stallholders. However, there was a very good apple pavilion, with an impressive display of apples from RV Roger (who supplied all of the maiden trees for our apple walk earlier this year). We watched a very entertaining, and pertinent, 'conversation' between Joe Swift and Monty Don in the Good Life theatre, and spent a lot of the afternoon browsing the plant nursery stalls, and wondering over the size of the mammoth veg. The prize-winning pumpkin was 472kg, which was, frankly, astonishing, but only slightly more so than the 152kg cabbage, or the 6.3(ish)m beetroot and parsnip, each, apparently, world records. How one digs up a 6m parsnip root, I know not.

(Why, I know not, either.)

Anyway, we managed to fill grandma's not insignificant boot, with thirty-five plants of our own, and a number of hers, and we added a few from her garden to take home, meaning our little Corsa was well loaded for the return journey.

• Two Crocosmia 'Sunglow', and two 'Buttercup'
• a 'Twyning's After Eight' dahlia
• Three white Japanese anemones, 'Honorine Jobert'
• Two giant scabious
• Three new heucheras, 'Fire Chief', 'xxx' and 'xxx'
• A pair of variegated sedums, 'Frosty Morn'
• A painted fern, 'Burgundy Lace'
• Three Panicum grasses, 'Squaw'
• An astrantia, A. major 'Lars'
• And a tray of obscenely cheap Cyclamen hederifolium; fifteen at a pound apiece.

We finally, definitively, learnt the reason for the riduculously low end-of-show prices. Apparently, the nurseries want to offload the last of their stock at almost any price, because for the quantity involved, the cost of transporting them back to the nursery exceeds the market value—hence selling things at a pound/pot is actually financially better than transporting the stock 'home', and selling it at market value later. I'm happy to help.

We got home about five, and I nipped out to pick up the rest of our pig, having collected the bucket of blood last Wednesday, before planting everything out.

Chimney Breast

It's proving, inevitably, to be another long weekend of work on the house. Today we've been working on the current study (the larger spare room, at the front of the house; it's going to wind up being one of two similar-sized guest rooms). We had hoped that the chimney breast in the room would turn out to be an attractive bit of stonework, hidden behind plaster and awful wood-chip wallpaper (soon to be entirely banished from the house: only a small quantity remains...).

It turned out not to be: instead the original stone lintels and mantel have been built (rebuilt, I assume) around with bricks (scuppering my long-held belief that the bricks we dig up in the garden are rubble from elsewhere). We'll have to see whether it's worth exposing those stones, and the fireplace, or better to plaster in the whole stack. The fireplace, like in the master bedroom, is on the left of the breast: to the right is the flue for the fireplace below—in this case, the unused one in the dining room, which is capped in that room. Of course, neither of these two are useable, as this chimney ends in the loft space, and no longer penetrates the roof.

Having established that, we turned to stripping the front wall of plaster, and getting the other preparations made. In this room, that meant preparing an extension to the ring main (that wall has a single socket, which has never been enough), and moving the pipes for one of the radiators ready to rehang on the bathroom stud wall that we'll be constructing in a few weeks.

The usual work then followed: horizontal battens, insulation foil, vertical battens, and plasterboard. There's one radiator staying, which went on with only minor kerfuffle (a slight mismeasure by me, sadly).

Quite enough for one day, with an 0200 finish (this is, as before, timestamped to the Saturday, nonetheless: at 2355 we were busily working, not blogging!).

Insulating the Landing

After yesterday's 17 hour day, we've stacked up another 15 today. Distressingly, that does mean that we've spent 64 man-hours on the landing, but at least there's something to show for it. Much of the insulation work doesn't actually leave one with much impression of what's been done. That's no bad thing, in some ways, as we always hoped that the insulation would make little visual impact, and not reduce the room size noticeably—but it's a little depressing, after hours and hours of work, to have nothing much to see that's changed.

The landing's rather different, though, as the room's changed shape and size, even if the external wall doesn't look that different.

It took nearly three hours to get the old plaster off, not helped by the fact that it's not all the softer lime plaster, but had cementitious plaster over large sections, and the section outside the guest room was a horrible laminate construction of two sorts of plasterboard, and two sorts of plaster, which was a dusty mess to get off.

We took a break from the wall to get the bathroom sink moved, which went surprisingly well, once I'd figured out how to remove it without destroying it. The tap connections have been 'sealed' (read 'bodged') with some sort of foam, meaning they're impossible to ever remove, if watertight.

As normal, the process of stripping the wall back, and then getting the horizontal timber battens attached, is what takes the time. As well as limited windows, there was only one single switch to replace, too, and a smallish radiator to take down and re-hang. The other, we moved yesterday to the opposite side of the room, as this makes the space rather more flexible.

Attaching the horizontal battens takes so long that Liz was able to keep pace with cutting these to length while I put them up, and also had time to cut the insulation foil to size. That did, though, mean that as soon as I had all the battens up, we could very quickly work together to hang the foil and attach the vertical battens. Attaching the plasterboard's always slow, but one does make reasonable progress, as they're tall enough to span the height, and 120cm wide. Rehanging the radiator has been made much simpler by a tweak to the insulation foil (basically, using a sort that doesn't have a non-woven mat of polymer 'wool' inside it, which is impossible to drill; making it a nightmare to mount the anchor bolts into the wall to hold the radiator brackets), so even that was reasonably simple.

A big tidy-up later, and the landing's done. Next weekend will, all being well, see us empty the guest room and 'old' study at the end of the house, into the 'new' study and house bathroom (as the en suite is now fully functional). We'll then be able to strip the walls and dismantle the stud wall dividing the two, ready to reconfigure the space into two guest rooms and a shared en suite.

Like I say, 'all being well'.

Bathroom

Today we've spent working on our en suite: we're now finished insulating all the walls, taking out the bath to do so and replacing it. I've created new pipes to supply the basin in its new position (opposite corner: strictly, I've re-purposed the bidet's pipes), and we've had installed a new electric shower above the bath. Once the insulation is complete, we'll be able to come back, and install the fitted furniture (yet to be ordered), and the shower-bath, basin and toilet (all ordered, to arrive later this month).

Tomorrow then we'll finish fitting the shower (the electrics and plumbing are ready, it just needs attaching), insulate the walls, and put the floor back together.

RHS Wisley

After a very long day yesterday, we got away from Ludlow as soon as we could (eleven), and made the long journey down to Surrey over lunch. We'd resolved to visit RHS Wisley, as we were in the area without Katie and Dan (staying elsewhere, though we're all using their house for two nights).

It's an impressive garden, though, actually, I think Harlow Carr compares well, and has the advantage of being a more locally representative climate.

The orchard, particularly, we enjoyed: there are hundreds of decades-old apples, which give a beautiful impression of what, eventually, we hope our orchard will come to be like.

Flower Arranging

[placeholder entry: awaiting photos]

Finishing the Kitchen

A busy day, today, finishing the kitchen. To start with, we pulled the cooker and two side units out of the cooker alcove (the old fireplace), and stripped that wall to stone, as well as the small bit of external wall near the deprecated front door.

We then had to work quickly to get the cooker's wall insulated (with some difficulty getting the foil behind the pipework near the floor!), before our helpers turned up: Philip and Clara came down to help get everything back into the kitchen. Clara was particularly useful, cleaning the cupboards before things went back in.

Meanwhile, I went back to the dining room, which we started some weeks ago, with an unexpectedly free afternoon after the last houseparty. Once the kitchen was re-stocked, Liz joined me, and we've finished insulating the front wall of the dining room, as well as replacing the windowboards on the back of the sitting room, and the front of the dining room. We need more cavity-fill batts/rockwool slabs before we can do any more of these, though.

There's a list of things we want to squeeze in to tomorrow morning, and then we'll hopefully be able to set off for Ludlow shortly after lunch.

York Gate

In between work on the kitchen, we decided we deserved a break, and took a few hours off to visit York Gate. We went about this time last year, and got good ideas: we hoped for the same again. It's given us a few ideas for plants that will help fill what we find is a slightly 'subdued' period in the garden, where there's less flowering than we'd like.

Photos to come...