Hello and welcome to our Jamieson family blog page! We have set up this site to allow us to record and share with friends and family our exploits as we (at long last) begin renovating the derelict water mill at Little Ennochie into what will hopefully be a fab and funky family house!! This has only taken us 3 1/2 years to get this far (and two bambinos!) .... so here's hoping this blog doesn't run for another 3 1/2 years !

As a bit of an intro, the mill is located on the outskirts of the village of Finzean, near Banchory in Aberdeenshire. The building sits on the banks of the river Feugh with great views of open fields and the hills, including Clachnaben. We have been slogging through Aberdeenshire planning and building warrants for what feels like forever, but we now have everything in place and the ball is rolling!

I will endevour to update this blog weekly with updates and photos so will see how that goes! Please keep watching and here's hoping this thing doesn't bankrupt us!

The Jamieson Family

Thursday, 28 April 2011

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
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)