Summer Extension Project.

[K Simmonds]

Outside is now done, all bar four feet of guttering and a new down pipe which my father is happy doing. Also my lead work around the base of the nice new chimney needs a final beating and two coats of patination oil to look really good, again my Dad really enjoys doing that sort of thing as it's not strenuous. Will take some photos of the face stone work chimney once that's done.

Now have a nice new wood burner installed with a modern twin wall liner, a vast improvement on my old one! The new register plate above the stove took me ages to get right! There's a whole bail of rock wool above it which I rammed up the old chimney with a batten, suffice to say I'm not wasting any heat.

I spent today having a mega clean up, hedge cutting followed by a bonfire, there's nothing left up on the scaffolding now which is coming down next week.


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[K Simmonds]

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Scaffolding finally started coming down this afternoon, looking forward to seeing it all out of the way. The stripes on the chimney are shadows from the scaffold, the stones stuck out are called drip stones and are traditional around here on houses of this age. Helps protect the lead work.

[Nuvo]

Brilliant work there Kit, that's something to be very proud of.

[K Simmonds]

Cheers Nuvo, it's been a labour of love, am really pleased with how the chimney looks from down on floor as well as up close, not to mention the fresh roof, fascia/barge boards and guttering.

I spent today sorting the rest of my firewood and stacking in the house so I can get it drying, not enough to last all winter but will see me through to the new year. The three sacks contain all the small off cut's from carpentry work.

And here's a before of the chimney, it was well on the piss and the capping had blown letting water into the old stone work, the mortar of which consist's of over 90% mud.





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[K Simmonds]

Forgot to mention I'm going to build a 8'x5' shed for my lawn mower and collection of 1980's 240V Black and Decker gardening tools. I've got two great hedge cutters, strimmer, a mildly dangerous chainsaw as well as 2000 Watt beast of a 9" angle grinder all from the mid 80's and made in Britain... I'll also have the room to sort and stack another load of firewood in the dry, I can only keep so much in the house at a time.

It's going in this area, behind my oil tank, it looks tiny in the photo but there's a surprising amount of space there. And we put down a 3' deep base of crusher run ready six years ago while doing the drive so have a pretty level, solid start.

Going to be built as cheaply as possible, using very little timber for the basic structure, the exterior will be clad/roofed in sheet metal roofing material and the floor done with old pallets which I have a virtually unlimited supply of.

Will probably start a new thread so I can show other members how to make their own version as opposed to paying a stupid amount of money for a rubbish prefabricated structure. The only tools that are essential are a level, saw, hammer, tape measure, drill/driver and grinder using 1mm cutting disc's.

Will be doing it on any really nice day's we get, otherwise I'll finally be getting on with my car stuff.

[John.]

Chimney before and after pictures tell a story, your work is impressive Kit.

Regards your shed/wood store......think big, you'll always need somewhere to store something.........and you can NEVER have enough wood!

[Robertbozic]

Chimney before and after pictures tell a story, your work is impressive Kit. Kobilabs

Regards your shed/wood store......think big, you'll always need somewhere to store something.........and you can NEVER have enough wood! https://knife-market.com/listing/cat...d-blade-knives

You’re right

[Ian_C]

Scaffolding finally started coming down this afternoon, looking forward to seeing it all out of the way. The stripes on the chimney are shadows from the scaffold, the stones stuck out are called drip stones and are traditional around here on houses of this age. Helps protect the lead work.

Superb work! Perfect timing as the temperature plummeted! Chimney looks really good

[K Simmonds]

Cheer's guy's, your comments mean a lot.

I take a great deal of pride in my work, however I have the guidance of my 77 year old father who's an old school carpenter and joiner and worked in the trade his entire life so I must give him credit for teaching me as well as actively helping on site. It's almost certainly the last big job we'll do together so I want things to go as smoothly as possible.

I started helping him on weekends and school holidays from the age of 12 as I was a big lad for my age and the money was nice, got a two year old CR125 MX bike and full kit with my first summer holiday pay.

I've done everything from groundwork to roofing, though it's site carpentry and lead work that I enjoy the most. I like doing stonework but I'm a bit steady as I'm a little too fussy, however the end result is worth it in my opinion and speed doesn't really matter when working for one's self.

Anyway, we were super lucky with the weather for the first half of November, dry and no frost so perfect for doing stone work. Also not too hot as I had to shoulder a lot of heavy materials up two ladders.

We do have an electric hoist but it's bloody Chinese and not designed very well, the cable keeps binding and jumping despite my best efforts to adjust it and with a heavy weight on shock loading destroys the wheelbarrow chained to it. I wrote one off completely with 80 slates in it, thankfully that incident only broke five.

I was only happy using the hoist with buckets of muck or one large stone at a time which still saved me a good deal of work.

Unfortunately my farther and I have had a nasty bug for the past week or so, though we're both well on the mend now, we dropped the last of the scaffolding yesterday afternoon which was a good workout for me and actually did me a lot of good. Obviously I do all the carrying, I have to stop my Dad from hurting himself, I gave him my compact 1/2" drive impact gun which makes light work of undoing the fitting's so he was happy using that once he got the feel of it.

Will take some photo's soon now the scaffolding had gone. I'm going to sort out a few patches of bad pointing and give the whole place a fresh coat of paint next summer, we did the gable end while the scaffold was still up.

The shed is next but we need to re-tension the boundary fence and put some new post's in first which is a bit of a faff. Still I do have all the tool's to do it properly, I just need to cut down a load of undergrowth to get at it.

And as you say John one can never have enough dry logs.

[K Simmonds]

Here's a few photos with the scaffolding gone, am very pleased with the end result... It's probably going to grate with my odd neighbor's a little. Their place now looks a bit tatty compared to mine and they're super house proud. Still at least they have
nothing to moan about now and we have work in the dry to get on with if the weather is crappy.

I have to give my a father a good deal of kudos, if I'm still functioning that well in 30 years I'll be a very happy man. I have to stop him pushing himself too hard as he try's to exert himself far too often! I did all the lifting and loading out, which was the deal, he was supposed to direct me but I couldn't stop him getting stuck in as well.

We're going to do the shed next so I can get another load of firewood in the dry before Christmas, I'll have enough fuel to last all winter then

The next job in the house is cutting through a wall on the landing to connect up to the new build, due to the kitchen extension having a higher ceiling there will have to be a step into the new room(s).




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[K Simmonds]

I forgot to mention that tatty old satellite dish is going to be removed ASAP, it got knocked about during the job so it points the wrong way, is pretty old, probably from the 90's.and rusty. It'll really stick's out like a sore thumb on that gable end wall.

I no longer have a TV as there very little on there I enjoy, I decided it had to go back in 2022 and I don't miss it.