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Thursday 26th 52F. Still windy and rather cloudy. The sky is moving rapidly across from west to east. Up at 5.15.
6.00 Yet again I am struggling with priorities. Too many choices. Not nearly enough inspiration. The shops will be shut. The garden waste yard open. I don't have any garden waste. Not unless I cut up the medium sized branches. Which means endlessly repeated chainsawing. Boring and noisy. Even with an electric saw. It is a holiday today. Nobody wants to hear me filling the empty hours. I could stack the larger logs somewhere. But where?
What would bring maximum benefit to my existence right now?
It is too windy for a cycle ride through the beautiful countryside. The sun has just come out. Further teasing my desire for escape. I have been spending far too much time in the car lately. It is too easy to just hitch the trailer and head off with another load of twigs. Now I have run out of twigs. No plans to attack anything else in the garden. Well, not for the moment.
Tidying indoors has been severely overdone. Two months of it. I can move about freely now. Though that doesn't mean the floor is clear. Nor any of the top surfaces of the old furniture. Most of which remain completely untouched. I just don't know how to deal with it. A clutter of ornaments and her "stuff."
You certainly wouldn't want to invite anybody in. Where would they sit? On the charity shop, coffee table? I suppose I could drag it through to the kitchen. That room is almost habitable. If you ignore the doors, windows, ceiling and walls.
A lady from the County Council Bereavement Department has invited herself around on the 8th of June. I haven't cancelled. Mainly because I am curious about what they have to offer. Besides, I get far too little chance to meet anybody. Let alone talk to anybody at length. Except for myself of course. He never shuts up! Can I manage a chat without tears? Is nine weeks long enough? On past form? I doubt it.
I am treating her visit as a wake up call. It demands further change and considerable improvement. It requires unavoidable progress towards a useful end. To make the place acceptable. Nay even basically comfortable for a visitor. This is a major incentive to remain productive. Without which I would become sloth. Wandering aimlessly and without real purpose.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: If I concentrated on the balcony room I could gain more invisible storage space. Finally finishing the insulation [after 20 years] would reduce heat loss in winter. The internal, dividing wall is not insulated. The problem is the 30cm wide gap along the sloping edges of the gable end which was never filled with Rockwool.
The balcony floor quickly became covered in storage and stacked boxes. Half of which was my own "stuff!" There was literally no room for a ladder to reach anything. So the the [intended] boarded ceiling never happened either. It stagnated into a chilly, [in winter] spare room stuffed with things which weren't meant to be thrown away.
Now it could become quite a pleasant space. Full of light. From the floor to the top of pitched ceiling windows is 3m. A true, wall of glass. Somewhere to sit and watch the garden happening below. The birds foraging and flying constantly back and forth. First the sloping ceiling must be finished!
A further benefit would be removal of the stack of Rockwool outside the shed door. Renewed access to store my wife's tools out of the weather and out of sight. A chance to clear the entire space outside the main house door. Which just happens to be at the back of the house. The front is covered by the lean-to greenhouse. Hall's double, sliding, greenhouse doors are crap.
If I can get into the shed I could reach the mower! Which is fast becoming a top priority. I can't just keep on strimming. The rapidly expanded lawn needs a proper haircut to remain tidy. With the chestnut gone it will be many times its former size! The grass will take over from the shade plants. Whoops! I may just have talked myself into starting another project.
Nearly 7.00. So I can have breakfast without feeling hungry by 8am.
There are three sizes of battens! The smallest came with the house. The largest are extra fixings for the triangular windows. The third are normal roofing battens. Which I had at the time of fitting the windows.
The [2] sloping ceilings in the balcony room are 2m wide x 4m drop. The sheets of cement and wood-wool are 120x60cm So that's 3.3 sheets per drop x 3.3 sheets wide. Have the narrower [1/2] boards against the dividing wall. Much less visible. I'll have a low, knee wall at the foot of the sloping ceiling.
None of the existing battens have the correct spacing. So they have to come off and be refitted. [60cm centres below the top] The 19x95 fixing slats can be laid and fixed on top of the re-spaced, smaller battens. This will avoid level complications with the much heavier battens. Which hold the triangular window frame to the rafters. These heavy battens project to the same level as the support boards. So can be safely ignored for cement board support purposes. The boards will simply lie over them.
Removal of the existing battens would make fitting the Rockwool far easier. With no obstructions. The Rockwool needs to be in 30cm wide strips. Two widths per sheet of 60cm wide insulation x 1m length. Or 4 sheets per sloping side in the empty gaps. Two bags full should do it. I have six. Easily enough to clad the small sections of uninsulated wall on either side of the lower windows.
10.15 60F. Time to stop measuring [and typing] and remove the existing battens. The image shows the ceiling before work started.
12.30 What a struggle! Rusty nails and cross-head screws did not want to come out. I had to resort to a hammer and crowbars. All the battens are off one side of the roof now. Except the thinnest. Which I left up to help to support the Rockwool. I have stuffed the missing gap with more Rockwool to 30cm 12" deep. The two highest supporting boards are up. Four more to go. I had to fetch a ladder. Because the builders folding stepladder wasn't high enough. Nor very safe when I am perched near the top!
13.00 Paused for lunch.
16.30 61F. Still blowing a gale. Returning from town. Where I bought 24 wood-wool-cement boards. Time consuming it was too. The board trolley would only take 8 boards at a time. The boards were in the opposite corner of the warehouse from the door. So, load 8 boards onto the trolley. Push it to the checkout. Out to the car. Lift the boards from the trolley and into the boot. Do this three times in all.
Then carry the boards indoors when I came home. They are now standing in the hall. Because I cannot lay them flat in the balcony for a week or more. As advised by the manufacturer before installation. I may be able to make a space to stack them flat in the bedroom. They are quite heavy at 9-10kg each. So how I am going to get them up onto an overhanging ceiling defeats me at the moment. Start at the bottom and let the lower board support the next?
17.10 Phew! Twelve boards carried up the 55º stairs and to the far end of the bedroom. I am breathless and hot! 72F upstairs. I need a rest before carrying the other twelve. [One at a time. I am not that strong! 🙄]
17.40 The last 12 boards are now up in the bedroom. I made two separate stacks to avoid overloading the floor joists. They are supposed to be "pinned" or "in stick." That is, separated by thin slats. To allow them to acclimatise to the indoor atmosphere and temperature. Presumably they swell or shrink.
I am going to hope that my tiny ceilings [2m x 4m each] aren't sensitive to such problems. It is not like a vast ceiling in a public library. Or a palatial office. Where multiples of millimetres soon add up over a considerable distance. Perhaps they buckle like rails in hot weather?
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