Week 6 - Drains, Concrete, Wall Openings .... and Bathrooms!?!!

Hello again folks.  Nearing the end of week 6 and the weather has continued to be great and progress good.  This week has seen the foundations excavated and initial concrete poured for the foundation.  Inside the Mill the drain pipework has been laid and the initial concrete floor has been poured.  The latter caused a bit of panic at the start of the week when we found out late on Sunday evening that we needed to pick exact details for the downstairs bathrooms so that drains could be located to suit!  Not an ideal start but we got there thanks to the missus dragging the kiddies around bathroom showrooms the following morning!!  What stars!!!

Digging the foundations

Metal mesh for reinforced concrete floors

In side the Mill - first pour of concrete

Concrete now in the excavated foundations

Blocks at the ready for the under-building!

In the Mill, the biggest surprise for us this week was just how big a hole they had to make in the south side of the building.  This is the only new opening we will have on the original building, with the old window being opened up to create the passage way from the new extension to the Mill.  I haven't spoke with Stan yet but can only assume he had to take down the whole wall because it became unstable as they broke through.  It is only lime mortar and rubble in between the large granite so not surprising I guess.  Looks quite dramatic!!  It will be rebuilt with original stone for the new opening.

Ouch ... now that is a Big Hole!

These are thick bad boy walls!

Post concrete - cracking view!

Temporary staircase!

We've also started to replace all the old wooden lintels with concrete ones - these won't be on show thankfully!

Out with the old ... in with the new

On a historical note, these stones pictured below were recovered from the roof of the old mill lade.  They were the structural stones that straddled the top of the lade walls and were covered in earth.  We had to dig the old lade out and backfill it so will now need to think of a use for these massive stones!

Amazing stones and amazing engineering ... feel so guilty for taking them out

Week 5 - Roof Off!

Hello again bloggers.  A beautiful sunny day at Little Ennochie on Friday 22nd saw our first proper onsite meeting with architect and builder since work started in anger last month.  The office table was a pallet on the end of Stan's Manitou forks which proved very hand for raising and lowering drawings and notes!  We did however make our first error on this day......  a Friday afternoon, sunny, hot, not a breath of wind ... but we forgot the G&T's which would have made things much more civilised!  Things have progressed well over the last week thanks to the nice weather, including a good milestone with total removal of the old roof on Thursday!!

Someone has nicked our roof!!

A lovely day ... blue skies and no roof ....

A start has also been made to rainwater and domestic drain pipes into the Mill and also in the front.  These have been backfilled now.

Drain pipes installed at the front of the house

The old Mill hole has now been totally filled in also ... a bit sad, but necessary :-(

Goodbye Mill hole and lade :-(

An interesting view ... not much for the lever to operate now ....

The riverside extensions have also been marked off ahead of the foundation work next week.

This is a cool piccie that shows where the main riverside extension will sit

This is a picture taken standing in the TV/family room looking across to the entrance hall and office/utility extension ... what do you mean you can't see anything!?!

Inside the Mill now looks like some sort of Roman ruin!  Thankfully no lions around, just first signs of midges ... I'm not sure which ones would be worse!?!

Large roof light

Why are we doing this again!?

 Thanks for visiting .... until next week!

Week 3-4: Underpinning Complete / Site Cleared

The Mill slowly deconstructing!

Hello again bloggers!  Went out to site last night to see how things have moved along in the past weeks.  Encouraging progress despite it being the trades easter holiday week with the underpinning now complete on the 3 walls that needed work.   You will see from the pictures that the North, East and West walls all needed cement blocks poured to give necessary support (quick thanks to Craigie for starting the excavation with a shovel last year!).  I have also attached a photo from last week that shows how the blocks were made within a wooden box - simple but effective.  These will all be covered up (thankfully!) once the drainage pipes are run.  The South wall has really deep foundations so no support needed there - wall depth was probably a factor of the sloping site and all the heavy machinery and the Mill wheel that would have been loading that wall.

Cement box below our bedroom window!

Cement Box Construction

The first cement pouring

The other bedroom window!!

The old Mill wheel hole has now been cleared of all the rubbish that was in there (thank goodness I didn't have to do that job) ... you can now see right down into the old lade tunnel - pretty cool.

Looking down into the abyss

Looking up inside the lade outlet at the rivers edge .. spooky!  Someone was knocking back the old cans of Export!

Inside the Mill looks really large - the height seems massive now the floor level is all cleared out.

Can we fit rooms in here? Hope so!

The guys have also made a start to removing the old Scots slate from the roof - they are about 1/2 the way through I'd say.  The original slates and ridge stones are getting stored onsite for re-use once the new roof goes on.

Recovered Scots slate

Roof ridge stones .. can't remember the techie name!

The old roof looks really rotten when looking up from the ground - our builder Stan tells us all slates will be removed along with the roof timbers this week - now that will be a big fire!

Lasted for +/-200 yrs .... nae bad effort

The river side is now all prepared for starting the extension foundations, however architect has a few things to get sorted before Stan can get started ... hopefully get things moving before end of the week.

Lots of earth moved .. and lots more to go.

Site of the East extension (front door is close to where the mixer is)