We (almost) have a kitchen floor!

So after a few weeks ‘off’ (me being away on a shoot and Jon moving officially into the barn, as his house sale finally went through), we needed to make the most of a full weekend working on the house.

Well I thought it was a full weekend, but because we watched a World Cup rugby game each day before heading over (what a win for England!), we obviously did less than we could have. Jon doesn’t think 6 hours is a full working day!

On Friday, Jon took delivery of about 2* tonnes of ballast and wood for the floor and wall joists. Luckily it got dropped off outside the house, but he had to move it all inside himself as I was at work. Serious workout.

With that he was able create the slave wall footing - a raised structure in the middle of the room, which will support the floor joists. In simple Jane terminology, to make it you follow these instructions: Dig a trench the length of the room approx. 2 foot deep. Add marker pegs to show how deep you need to fill. Fill the bottom of the trench with a layer of rubble/loose stone (apparently helps with drainage). Mix your concrete and fill to the top of the trench. Then wait for it to set. Just like baking a cake 😉

Saturday we put in wall plates. These are basically floor joists on either side of the room, onto which we have hammered joist hangers. These are connected to the wall with threaded rods and fixed using a load-bearing adhesive. To prepare, Jon drilled holes into the wall at the correct distance apart and I cleaned them out with a brush and air pump to ensure the adhesive works as effectively as possible.

I managed to blow brick dust into my eye and so spent the next hour attempting to clean it out, all a bit gross with dirty fingernails and the current level of cleanliness in the house. This also makes preparing hot drinks and lunch quite challenging, as we don’t have any cutlery or plates, so end up balancing bread rolls on bits of packaging and using a knife wiped 'clean' on my trousers to take out teabags! It’s a make do/camping lifestyle and like camping, it’s not for everyone. It does mean that we don’t need to worry when we spill though, which is very liberating.

Sunday we measured and cut all the floor joists, Jon finished off the brick course on top of the slave wall and I removed more earth in the kitchen to level off the ground.

It’s the kind of work that takes a long time and requires a high level of accuracy, but visually doesn’t look like we have done much. It’s so great to finally be putting things in though, rather than taking things out. And it does mean we should hopefully have a floor in by the end of the week, which is very exciting.

Beasts of the Barn update:

The latest addition to our barn menagerie is a frog. Jon messaged me while I was out one evening to say he had just got out the shower when he saw one hopping across the lounge! Then literally just as he was catching it, he heard the mouse trap go off in the attic. You couldn’t write this!

*Jon says it was actually more like 3 tonnes of ballast/cement and 1 tonne of wood.