~?~
Wednesday 18th 38F/3.3C. Bright with all day sunshine promised. 64F/18C in the room. 42F/5.6C in the greenhouse.
Up at 6am after a busy night.
9.15 leaving to visit my English friend.
12.30 Back from my visit. It is sunny but does not feel particularly warm in the wind. Gusting to 10m/s from the south. I took a picture of some flowers in his spacious greenhouse. Where we enjoyed coffee and Danish pastries in the sunshine.
13.00 53F/11.7C. 65F/18C indoors. 98F/37C in the greenhouse. I'll open the doors out to the greenhouse. To borrow some of that heat. I have also opened the living room windows covered by the greenhouse. To try to speed up heat flow to the indoors. I also gathered the open stairwell curtains and tied them with a cord. To hopefully obtain a chimney effect.
I have decided to order two new doors for the north facing facade. A panel front door with diamond shaped square window near the top. To provide a smarter, far better insulated and much beter sealed entrance door. With a bit of extra light for the hall. Plus a triple glazed, terrasse door. To allow greater freedom for bringing things in and out of the living room.
It was an awful struggle to get the furniture in when we first moved here. The removal chap handed the heavy, three seater settee/sofa up to me. While I was standing on the 1st floor balcony in the gable end! Once safely upstairs it then had to be lowered down the narrow 55º stairs. That was 30 years ago. When I was still strong and fit at 50.
Similarly, the home helps and district nurses couldn't get the hospital bed indoors. When it was needed for my wife's final days here. The bed had to be dismantled just to get it in.
Getting Her coffin out ten days later was similarly difficult for the funeral directors. Very undignified! I couldn't bare to watch as they struggled mightily!
The narrow entrance hall forces a sharp bend from the living room out to what is the main entrance door. Which does not allow much freedom for anything longer than a few feet.
The new doors will help to lift the presently hideous appearance of Chez Hovel. Though how much it will improve the value is debatable. It might help the place to sell after I am gone. Every little helps.
The current window is a lanceolate topped, single glazed, pine antique. It was there when we bought the place. With the firm intention of getting rid of it at some point. It has some historical value and arguably some character. The old pine will probably last another century.
I shall have to do some demolition work to fit the new, full height, glazed door in its place. The area above and below the present window was bricked and blocked up to close the gaps. The floor level indoors is a bit higher than the black painted, ground bar. The ugly, lightweight building blocks badly need repainting. After decades of knocks from gardening tools being leaned up against it. Cream was my wife's choice. After much discussion. Only the back of the house was ever painted. I left the white front alone. With the lean-to greenhouse hiding most of it. The gable ends are still patchy white.
I presume this old window was once a real door in the long history of the hovel. Which dates back to the 1700s and was once a tiny, thatched, double hipped cottage. It was still like that in the 1950s. With a small porch to the main, south facing, entrance door. And another door directly into the living room facing east. Now converted to another window.
The last owner before us expanded the place and did it up [very badly!] I spent years doing the place up and making repairs myself. Once it became our new home. Though it was never really good enough.
I finally placed the order for both doors. After hours of re-measuring and deciding on the finer details. Some at extra expense. The living room rose to 75F/24C in the sunshine. Though it has cooled off to 71F now. After I closed all the doors and windows.
Dinner was cheese on toast with halved cherry tomatoes.
~?~
