As indicated in the last post the task for winter/spring was to create garages in part of what were the old pigsties; see the original picture above of how they were early on in our time here. There was an urgency to this as the space will be needed to store all the 'stuff' that is in the unrenovated part of the house prior to the work commencing on that. So I approached a number of potential builders who I thought would have been interested in having the work. It's a familiar tale now, as I noted about the barn roof in the post below, no quotes were forthcoming.
So in the end it was down to working with a friend to do the necessary work. Much slower going than I would have preferred as he had other social and family commitments to honour. On the other hand it was a very pleasant experience as we got along well and had fun whilst cracking on with the work on the days he was available. We were also fortunate that the weather was good on the days when the roof was renovated.
Talking of which our friend is none too keen on working on roofs, so as soon as we had completed the part over the front of the actual garages he stopped helping me. Which was what he had said all along. I was fortunate that my older son paid a visit just at that time and he helped me renovate the part of the roof which faces onto the road. And I have now completed the part of the roof facing into the courtyard from the garages to the house – this can be seen in the photo above.
The remaining work to be done therefore is the whole of the roof at the back, all seventeen and a half metres long of it. What causes a particular difficult here is that there's very little space between the back wall and the wall to the neighbouring garden which will make taking the tiles down and storing them a real problem. It is possible for me to do it but I think that I might wait till the friend who is going to help with the barn roof is on site and do it with his assistance.
Notwithstanding this remaining issue it is possible to use the garages and we are pleased with the way that they fit in 'seamlessly' with the rest of the property. With this space we can store all the things we need and get on with the renovation work in the second half of the house. Will this happen in summer/autumn? I sincerely hope so!
