Balcony, finished, nearly,

I hate wood. I like trees, give me plenty of trees but wood? horrible stuff. It hates me too. Give me stone any day. Please give me stone. You know where you are with stone. It doesn’t stretch or contract or twist out of shape like wood does.

I’ve not done anything or gone anywhere or seen anyone for what seems like weeks all we’ve been doing is balcony balcony balcony.. But it’s finished more or less, well the structural part anyway, just need to get the flatting on it and lay a couple of boards and that’s it.

When we do stuff with wood I have no patience so the wife is boss and I am the labourer. She directs and I obey. She doesn’t get the urge to torture wood like I do so we actually manage to get things done without me chain-sawing, hacking, axing, drilling the bloody stuff out of revenge. I must say she’s done a good job as usual. I think it looks rather good myself. We used chestnut in keeping with everything else here so it will weather  and twist (bloody stuff) and split like good chestnut seems to want to do and age quickly and won’t look so out of place.

We decided (thankfully) that we’d brick the stairs rather than fiddlle about with more wood fo rthe railings and banister and I started that today. The old houses in the 1600s often had walled steps so again in keeping with the style of the house.

When we started a couple of weeks ago it was summer, t-shirt weather and now it’s definitely almost winter. The kids have been really patient too and for most of the work we parked Robin  on the balcony with us (so he can learn the trade). Anyway, this is more of a blog for the Fither who was anxious for us to get it done. Well Fither,’tis done!! Next off, the tin roof. (click on the photos to enlarge)