Waterloo Farm: a self-sufficient blog

Well a big step in the building project today when the new concrete floor was laid!! I nipped across to the Farm in my lunch break to capture the progress, which I have included in the gallery below.

It was incredible to think that the whole amount (over 10 cubic metres of concrete was required - 2 concrete lorries/mixers) and it was all wheel-barrowed in and laser-levelled using a hand tamper. This means we have a single floor level now over the entire downstairs. (Apart from the existing kitchen which already has a DPM and we will keep the radiators in rather than install UFH).  It all went remarkably quickly, and saw the return of Lee Hart from Lamberts and also a few more new Lambert faces in Sean (aka Hoody) and Sam, the Lamberts Engineer who worked hard on the barrows and tamper.

There was no access for Mark and Dale to upstairs today via the normal route, so temporary access was provided through the bathroom window, which you can see Tammy climbing down from!

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I am now past the worst of the pain, and the body is starting to recover, having gone back to work yesterday! My two weeks of annual leave are now over, having spent 14 days solid working on the Farm. It has been a phenomenal two weeks of blood, sweat and at times, near tears! But it has been extremely rewarding to, and I can honestly say I would not have missed it for the world!

The ‘hard core Saturday’ saw tons of hard core being wheel barrowed back in! This then gets compacted using a ‘Whacker’, which I have to say is actually good fun, leaving the ground very hard. Next this is covered with sand and lightly compacted to protect a new membrane which will go beneath the concrete pad to form a physical damp proof.

We are planning to have the new concrete floor laid on the 18th December, and so far it is all looking good to hit that date.

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Mark and Dale have been busy today (this does not imply they are not busy on other days!) with some really noticable results. Firstly the cut through into the master bedroom to create the new corridor, needed to resolve the en suite bedroom issue and allow us to put our bed central to the window allowing us to wake up and survey ‘our land’ !

Also, the old stud partition wall between bedroom 3 and 4 is now cleared so the new studs can be put up allowing the old ones to be removed. It’s really exciting when ‘big’ things happen like this as one has a real sense of progress.

Not content with continuing to dig out the floors, Mark and Dale have removed another wall upstairs between two bedrooms to even up the size of the rooms.

The internal walls in the old parts of the house are incredible, being constructed of Norfolk reeds, lathes and plaster. You can see in the picture just how amazing these look, and can even see the reed heads still on the reeds themselves.

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Small break in the building works today when a good friend of Liam popped by to check out his new build house which is a stones throw away from the Farm. It turns out that his friend is famous actor Reece Ritchie, who happened to catch us on a short break from digging out earth and eating some much needed fish and chips!

Reece is a top guy and very down-to-earth and real. I guess that’s what you get from coming from good ‘ol Norfolk! (Though I should probably say Suffolk)

Reece has starred in the BBC’s Silent Witness and also The Bill for ITV.  He has also starred in the movies, as Moha in 10,000 BC, and The Lovely Bones and Triage. He has also just finished filming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a film based on an old computer game, recognised by old gamers like me!

You can see the official trailer for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time below:

It was great to meet Reece, and I could not resist a taking a quick picture of him with Liam ‘pretending’ to help push a wheel barrow of hard core back into the Farm. Right…back to the wheel barrows!!