Barn 2 progress

A week of rather dramatic progress with barn 2. It is still coming down brick by brick but with some extra help it has made a big difference. The roof was taken down initially leaving just the big beams which were rather precariously held up by the crumbling walls by just a few centimetres of overlap. I think they came down with a bit of a clatter when pushed! The roof is piled up on the bonfire ready to burn (after the scavengers with log burners had taken their pick!). The pallets of cleaned bricks were moved by the big yellow forklift so that it could get to the stone steps to take them down. The steps are now in our back garden with plans to eventually make raised beds out of them. One day we will be gardening rather than demolishing buildings and cleaning bricks. The remaining walls are extremely wobbly and the bricks are cleaning up really easily. I can attest to this because I've been doing it all weekend. Next week we are hoping that the rest of the building will come down and work will start on the footings for the replacement building.

Almost ready for the roof

First window lintel going in and walls up to roof plate level

It's taken some time to get there but the walls on plot 1 are almost at roof height with the window lintels just being fitted. Meanwhile the laborious work taking down plot 2 continues with the bricks being cleaned as they are removed to save double handling. Any worries about taking the walls down completely rather than repairing them are allayed when so many of the bricks come away from the wall with barely any mortar on them. It makes for an easier cleaning job as well, though there are thousands of bricks to do and it is so flipping boring. Even I can attest to the utter tedium of it all and I only do it at weekends.

Barn 2 half way demolished

The void underneath the stone steps has been intriguing me ever since we bought the barn site. It seemed such a waste of space as there is no access into it. Could be full of buried treasure or dead bodies! The mystery has finally been revealed and it is full of nothing. Rather strangely it is in two separate compartments with a stone lintel over a small opening between them. It's a shame that there is no treasure, but I'm pleased that there are no skeletons.

Hidden under stairs compartment

Barn Progress

The courtyard was becoming a quagmire with the digger, dumper and concrete lorries coming and going so a layer of stone has been laid. This instantly brightened the place up and made it look tidy. A bit like when you mow the lawn and the garden looks marvellous. I think all the foundations for plot 1 have been set and are ready for brick laying to the sub floor level so that the concrete floor can be set. In the meantime there is a mountain of bricks to clean so that they can be re-used. This is a bit of a tedious job which I'm secretly pleased that I can't help with due to the daily 9-5! I do miss pretty much everything else so I get a daily report with photo's and videos to keep me up to date. Below is a video landmark moment in the life of barn 2.