Light and hammer.

Waterhen has new navigation lights. It took quite a while to complete but now we can go out after dark and be seen. Helen spent some time painting the flag pole and I made a start on stripping the bathroom with a hammer. Its taking longer than expected but it always does.

The great flood

At Halcyon for a weeks "summer holiday" which will mostly be spent re-plumbing and fitting a new toilet. We arrived at midnight on Friday to find the temporary plumbing to the old sink had burst (probably several weeks before !) and one of the rooms was about 2cm deep in water. It took most of the morning getting the house back to normal. There will be a lot of heaters on and the dehumidifier trying to dry it all out.
We don't have long as lots of orders like the Kitchen, bathroom roof and the heated floor will be delivered on Tuesday with the wood flooring arriving on the Thursday. It could be worse and have burst once the new floor and Kitchen were fitted.

Shopping

Today we made a trip to IKEA. Halcyon is almost ready for a new kitchen. Having selected the style and colour for our kitchen, we sat down with an IKEA member of staff and designed the new kitchen. Once designed we bought the whole thing, cabinets, work surfaces and appliances in one go.

Let's see how I get on with installing it. I wonder if it will look like this ?

A Packed Weekend

Just back from a packed long weekend taking in an extra Friday as the children had an inset day.
The long awaited deck wood arrived on the Friday. The North deck is almost complete. It would have been finished if it had not rained on Friday afternoon, but I used the time well clearing the bathroom and taking down an internal wall.

Rails, steps and netting and a bit of new planting including strawberries and thyme. The rails have little lights inside them for that magical look when it gets dark.

We had a nice run out in Waterhen to a pub for tea on the Saturday, however on the Sunday Waterhen had to be pulled up our slip to treat some woodworm in her bow. On investigation it look like it is just on the outside and may be quite old as there was no fresh sawdust. I sent Alex in for a look. He is just the right size :-)

Anyway, all treated and back in the water now.

Here is a view of the North side taken from Waterhen as we headed out. It was too dark for a photo on the way back. Ooops!

The South side of the property is now cleared ready for the next deck to be laid.

A Long Weekend in May

We have just come back from a long weekend at Halcyon. The wood to finish the first deck and build the second did not arrive which meant a quick change of plan.

First mini project was to reorganize the large shed Alex and I removed all of the contents and then we removed all of the current racking that used up a lot of space, then we built a new box to hold the paddles and electric outboard.

We also added a board for fishing gear.

and a high rack to hold sails.

We now have loads of space in the shed. Hurrah.

The next mini project was to try out my new table saw to make some window frames from left over cladding. I decided to make a quick first attempt to try out some ideas and learn what is required.

The first attempt doesn't look to bad as long as you don't look to closely. I now know what to do next time, which is to make templates for all of the parts as the complex angles required have left a few gaps.

I also fitted a couple of window sills on the East side

We also prepared the bathroom wall ready for cladding. Not bad for a long weekend :-)

and on the Monday we rested by going to West Runton beach on a search for fossils.
You can read about that on Helen's blog halcyondaysout.blogspot.com

Changing Weather

I have been trying to plan work around the weather, regularly checking the BBC weather forecast for Martham on the web, but it seems to change almost hourly.
So far it has not really rained much and by midday today temperature was about 7 degrees. A good bit warmer than when we arrived.
Work on the North deck has continued but again I have run out of wood. It is almost ready, but needs a hand rail and some elements to make it look neat and tidy. These should arrive tomorrow.

Tomorrows weather forecast is for heavy rain, so it may be an indoor work day (of which there is plenty)
I was up early on Wednesday to get some work in before we all went out swimming in Great Yarmouth. Below is a short video clip I took when I got up. You may need to lie down to appreciate it properly :-)

Easter 2013

It's the children's Easter holiday and we are up at Halcyon to continue work on the exterior to tidy up a bit ready for the summer. The main projects are two decks, one on each side of the house. We will also be completing the sun room. On our last visit I could not get Water Hen, our motor launch, so start. It was so cold that my hands were to frozen to take the engine apart. This time it is a heady 5 degrees and I managed to trace the problem down to a stuck solenoid. A bit of fiddling and the outboard started up. Originally I decided to take the boat out for a test run, then Alex and Theo decided to come to. I was about to leave when Helen and Persephone decided they would come too and we all set out for a trip down to Potter Heigham, under the bridge and as far as Dutch Touch. On the way back, Alex decided to run along the bank and race us back. It was a draw.

By the end of Tuesday we have almost completed one deck and completed quite a bit of tidying. I have also set up my table saw ready to experiment making some window frames. It looks a bit scary.

I didn't manage to complete the deck as I ran out of wood. Roll on Wednesday.