It's been making and doing of a whole different nature the last two weekends; our kitchen needed it's roof repaired and relaid. As with all things in this house, normal doesn't cut it. The tiles (dutch double romans pantiles, with the cutout bit, for those of you interested!) are so hard to find having originally come from the Netherlands in the early 17th C having been used as ballast in trading barges. They were then traded here as the barges stocked up with goods to take back home and so supply is specific and limited... trust the old owners to pick them for our extension! They are old and can be brittle, so prone to breaking and buying in replacements involves treks to the middle of nowhere. Having already run minor repairs on the roof, the boyf has now taken it all personally and so, as the pics show, is the one responsible for all the good stuff... anyways heights and I do not mix.
I, instead, ran errands, moved tiles from roof to ground and back up to roof again, cleaned them, tidied up, cleared leaves, make snacks and drinks, offered moral support and took the photos! In the process we found out that the back wall is red brick (and in pretty good nick, always good to know in a 600yr old property!) and also discovered, in the roof, the old porch roof, which had just been built around... always nice to find another piece of the house's history.
Today we rendered in the sides and cleared yet more leaves... the roof should now be good and watertight for the winter - fingers crossed! As the boyf mortered, the 10yr old and I cleaned the chooks out, mixed mortar, and cleared more leaves. I look at how our life has changed since we moved to our little house in the country, and the positives it's had for all of us, but particularly the 10yr old, and I am so very grateful for our life here. But, as I was having my little moment, I couldn't help but notice that the dobe has focused on the really important stuff and found a good spot to relax ;o)
In the meantime, I have also finished my little project, so pictures up next week, the 10yr old and I snuck out and browsed my favourite shop for some special Christmas presents and I'm now indulging in an marathon night of Aussie Masterchef on TV whilst doing some more Christmas shopping online; beats the crowds anyday!
How’s the roof holding out? I noticed that the larger roof has a lot of damaged shingles, and there is evidence of moss formation. Did you work on that as well? If you did, I bet your boyfriend needed more help. Doing that alone would’ve taken such a long time to finish. Anyway, congrats on your roof!
ReplyDeleteSarai has a good point here. But, it has been almost a year since you did repairs, so I bet you’ve looked into this issue already. What I’m interested to know is the things you have done afterwards. Replacing the roof is the best course of action here, as there are a lot of damaged shingles already. Looking forward to hear from you!
ReplyDeleteHi Sarai, Chantay,
ReplyDeleteApologies for the delayed reply, I'm not getting notifications of comments for some reason. The kitchen roof is doing very well thank you, the boyf did a good job!
The main, older roof is another story entirely :) It is very old and yes, there are some damaged tiles which we are trying to source replacements for, but they are over 200yrs old so it's a challenge! The house is a listed building so, unless something catastrophic happened to it, the roof cannot be replaced and any replacement tiles have to be a original.
We do try to keep the moss to a minimum but the tiles are so fragile that we tread a fine line between keeping the moss levels down and not further damaging the tiles when cleaning off the moss.
Our house is unlike any other I've lived in, it almost defies all of your expectations of what a house should be (don't ask about our damp!) but we love it and we love the challenge of keeping it as original as possible and also in good stead for the next few hundred years.
Thank you for your comments, Lucy
Your roof looks awesome. I really love its color. =) Anyway, you’ve got some really durable tiles there! Over 200-years-old? Now, it’ll be quite a feat to find replacement tiles for such a strong material! Good luck on your search and hope you update us. =)
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