On Monday morning I had both of my expected deliveries arrive before 08.30, a first!  The first delivery was the soldier course brick cladding system; the second delivery was our roof tiles and associated materials.  Stu and I installed the brick cladding system above the two windows to mirror image the soldier course brick work above the two older windows.  This was the first time we had used this system.  It is a bit of a cheat really, but it gives the image of brick work, but in reality they are just brick faces with a backing that then gets screwed to some timber baton.  They were really quick to install, and when you look at the finished article you can’t tell the difference, result.  In the afternoon we ran in the timber baton on the first half of the roof area that we were refurbishing.

On Tuesday John and Jay the plasterers were on site to do the scratch coat render, running in the new scratch coat to join up to the existing.  While they were doing that, Stu and I set about stripping the second half of the roof of its tiles and baton, and put down the new roof felt.  The sun was out in full force early in the week, and when you are up on a roof you have no hiding place.  So every couple of hours we had to do a ‘sun cream’ pit stop, which was good for sun protection, but not so good when all the black tile dust stuck to it.  Not a good look!

On Wednesday Stu and I ran in the last of the baton, and then got all the soffit and facia fixed into position ready for tiling.  John and Jay came back at lunch time to apply the render top coat.  When they had finished they had done a really good job as usual, and the front of the property now looked the business.  We just need to let it dry out before applying a couple of coats of paint.

Thursday and Friday was spent fixing in the new slate tiles.  The roof area wasn’t massive, but I forgot about all the fiddly bits that you have to do when laying slate tiles, so we didn’t get done as much as I was hoping for, but by the end of play Friday all the tiles were in place, and we just had the ridge tiles and gable end to point up on Monday so the roof would be finished.  As it stands, weather depending, we are due to finish on time in the two week time frame I had allowed.  Not bad hey!