Feels like Christmas

Parcel from Derbyshire

Parcel from Derbyshire

 

 

 

I got home from work today today to find 2 boxes waiting for me which had been delivered from Derbyshire. This could only mean 1 thing.. The door furniture is back!

 

 

Open Parcel

 

 

 

With all the eagerness of a small child at christmas, I began to unwrap..

 

 

 

…and voila! After a 6 month wait, from this:

Original Lock

 

..to this..

 

Restored Locks

 

How excited am I!? I’ve since managed to find out that I think the locks were originally ‘Berlin Blacked’, but the new powder coating with brass workings seems to look a real treat to me.  Just have to fit them all back to the doors now and to figure out what to do with the doors themselves…

An interesting discovery

Well well well.. another twist and turn in the story of Render..

Whilst perusing rightmove, I came across a local ‘exhibition’ house which has been extended and altered by the new owners. Giving into curiosity, I thought I’d have a look through the original exhibition catalogue to see exactly what they’d done. Flicking past the “Balgores Lane” section – I noticed..

…which seems to suggest the other houses built around the time of ours were all cement roughcast rendered. Indeed some even mention “hollow walls”. I’d always taken it on the value of our original survey that we had solid walls – but now I wonder.

Since all the brickwork is covered with Render, I was suspecting I was going to have to drill a hole to figure out whether we really could have cavity walls. Then I had a moment of inspiration..

BrickworkTaking a photo of the front wall above the porch seems to suggest that all the bricks are facing the same way. If I’m not mistaken, I’m pretty sure this means we do in-fact have cavity walls!

So – sounds like cement render is back on the cards – and maybe roughcast rather than smooth? Back to planning then..