Time Capsule

While the builders are waiting for the concrete to cure, there is no progress to report on the build itself. But we have started working on a ‘time capsule’ to be hidden in the structure. The idea is that whatever we hide will be found when the building is demolished, and that it will be of interest to whoever finds it. Who knows when that might happen – in 50 years perhaps, or 100 years, or more?...

The capsule itself will be a locked and sealed cashbox. Each member of the family is producing stuff to put in it. The list of contents so far is:

• A selection of photographs of our house, inside and out
• A history of the ownership and uses of the house as far back as we can trace it
• A photograph of the family
• Daisy’s school timetable
• Pictures and information about Libby’s favourite bands and TV programmes
• Pictures of Daisy’s favourite fashion clothes
• A till receipt, and commentary, for our weekly shopping at the Co-op
• A brief family tree
• The front page of our local paper
• “The World This Week” page from The Economist newspaper
• The URL for this blog (will Google still exist in 2110?)
• A set of the coins of UK currency

 

As much as possible of this will be put onto a USB memory stick as well as on paper. (With a note to explain what it is!) I expect that even a century from now someone will figure out how to get the data off it.

So, here’s a challenge. Which reader of this blog can make the best suggestion for something else we could add to our capsule? Hit the ‘Comment’ button and let us know your ideas!

Concrete - and insulation

Dizzy the concrete truck arrived early this morning, on a dull and very wet day. The concrete was poured into wheelbarrows and thence dispersed around the foundations in a layer over the hardcore. It didn't take long, but it looked like hard work.

The most interesting bit to us was the inclusion of vertical sheets of Kingspan insulation around all the external parts of the slab. Living in a house that's about 160 years old, we don't see much in the way of energy-efficient construction. This extension is going to be very different indeed, with state-of-the-art insulation throughout. We're looking forward to cosy winters...

Getting more technical

Work resumed this morning with the laying of the first stage of floor construction, a good depth of compacted hard core. Underneath that, there is a duct for the new electricity supply (the black pipe) and an assortment of drain pipes, a vent pipe and a rodding pipe.

We noticed when we got home tonight, after figuring out what all these pipes were for, that something interesting had happened while we were out. If you look at the right hand side of the last picture you can make out a pickaxe with a large stone beside it. That stone was part of the foundation of our house. It has been removed in order to tie in the breeze-block of the extension which now runs into the hole in the gable. I'm glad we weren't around to witness that little manoeuvre!

The next stage of the floor is a layer of concrete - so we may be seeing Dizzy again on Monday.

Now you see them...

...now you don't. Was it something I said? Were the chocolate biscuits not up to scratch? Where have our builders gone?

The phoenix

Arising from the "ashes", today brought the first signs of new walls:


Now all the rooms look really small - another optical illusion we hope!

Dizzy the concrete mixer

It was a pretty slow start to the week. The builders finally arrived around 9.30, off loaded a few blocks, shuffled them around, disappeared again (repeat several times). However, at 4.30, this shows up:


Great excitement, lots of noise and slushy grey stuff - very Bob the Builder. Within 40 minutes the trenches looked like this:


I think its a very good thing we decided to pen the chooks in - I can just imagine them sporting little concrete booties.

Trenches

A scary amount of earth has been dug out and the ground flattened. The trenches appeared today and clearly show the outline of the rooms to come:


It all suddenly looks a lot bigger than it did on paper!

Well - no workmen over the weekend, so we can have a lie in. The concrete for the foundations arrives Monday morning.

The biggest alarm clock in the world

If you ever have trouble waking in the morning, I can thoroughly recommend the timely intervention of a pneumatic drill and a digger simultaneously attacking the foundations of your house. When you're not quite expecting it, and not quite awake, it does grab your attention.

By the end of today things looked very different again. The gate, gatepost and fence at the entrance to the house have gone. Our lovingly tended (not really) vegetable beds are buried under excavated topsoil. Our compost bins have been relocated away from all the action. The rest of the 'Link' is no more. The concrete floors and old foundations have disappeared - straight from the ground onto the back of a lorry and gone.

The digger is excavating levels measured by laser, which is more comforting than the usual bit of old string and a wooden peg. I'm actually astonished by how much has happened over the last few days. It's impressive, and just a wee bit scary.

Not sure what, if anything, is planned for tomorrow. A slightly longer lie-in would be welcome though...

Not much left now

A slower day today, but good progress nonetheless. The scaffolding has gone, the back door is weatherproofed (proofed against Skye weather, I hope!), the foundations of the old building have been broken up and the timber framed 'Link' has begun to come down. It seems it was very well built when we had it done five years ago. It's taking a bit of effort to remove it.

Everything is quite well controlled and the site is tidier than might be expected at this stage - so we are pretty happy at the moment.

There is talk of a digger arriving tomorrow. What fun!

...and they're off

After a week of absolute quiet, we were beginning to settle into believing that the whole project existed only in our imagination. This morning, just as we were setting off to climb Sgurr Mhairi, people arrived in vans and lorries. We left them to it and enjoyed our day in the hills. Returning home late this afternoon, we noticed that things had moved forward a bit.

We have never before seen that wall of our house. It's interesting to discover the marks of a much older extension, clearly visible as the unrendered and unpainted part of the gable. (The line a couple of feet higher is the roofline of the bit that's just been demolished.)

I think we have now passed the point of no return.

Day 2

Nothing. Niente. Nada. Rien...
The weather here is rather wild this week. Perhaps it's not surprising that they don't want to start dismantling sheets of corrugated iron in a gale. I wouldn't fancy it myself!

Day 1 - Monday 5th July 2010

There was great excitement this morning. Up early, breakfasted and waiting for the demolition team to arrive. (We thought they would be here sometime between 08:00 and 09:00).

At 10:00, with no sight or sound of them, we decided to get on with life and headed out to the shops of Portree. Back home at midday - still nothing happening. Phoned our architect. "Well", says he, "The contract says they 'can' start today, not that they 'will' start today." We should be getting used to Skye-time by now! So we decided to relax and go with the flow (or lack of it) for a few days and take stock later in the week.

And then, at the crack of half past three this afternoon, came a knock at the door. "Is this the right house for us to knock down?" I confirmed that some of it was to be knocked down and tried to explain with clarity which bits I wanted to be left standing. Expecting the noise of sledgehammers to begin at any time, I retired to sit it out at the other end of the house. All was quiet...

Anyway, and despite all of this, it seems we are to have a rather more controlled demolition than we had anticipated. By 5 o'clock the place looked like this.

I wonder if anyone will be here tomorrow morning?

Empty spaces

It's astonishing just how much stuff there is to move out of a teenage girl's bedroom.


And some might say the same of my old workshop...

Anyway, it's all done now. Just the washing machine remains to be walked up to the old school tomorrow, where it will be plumbed in for the next few months courtesy of our very generous neighbours.

And here's our first 'Spot the Difference' question. Compare this picture with the similar view in the post of June 25th.