The roof is now finished!!! But while the scaffolding is up we’ve biten the bullet and asked the builders to re render the back of the cottage. The builders have now removed the cracked cement render reavealing the hodgepodge of stone and brick, all soaking wet as the old cement render wouldn’t let the wall breath. Unfortunately the stone and brickwork are in a sorry state and will have to be re rendered but this time using  lime mortar.

Colour charts are now being scoured so we can choose the colour of the final lime wash, it wont be pink. The cottage, unfortunately, didn’t throw up any more surprises. The windows look like they’ve always been in that configuration (we’ve a reprint of a Victorian postcard that had shown possible discrepancies but it’s obviously the quality of the light or print that’s the problem).

Some fine stone work with original mud mortar, some altered for the window and door openings. Georgian? brick in-fills and 1st floor.

There a problem though with the window openings. The arches above the windows had started to collapsed causing some of the cracks in the render. As we’re planning on keeping the openings straight, we’ve decided to put in concrete lintels. This is by far quicker than rebuilding an arch that’s then going to be in filled and time is of the essence .

Window arch held together by the render, they couldn't be saved

Both window arches replaced with Concrete lintels, a shame but practical

And talking of time, we’ve just been slapped with an £80 bill from the Local Authority for the scaffold being up longer than four weeks !!!

Before it’s re-rendered the Outer Doorway needed repairing. I had already machined and new piece to replace one whole side to match the old profile, and with enough spare to scarf a piece on the other side. Some oak from the woods made a new cill. 

Outer door frame repaired with maching sections, one side fully replaced the other with a new piece scarfed in at the bottom and oak cill