The Renovation Diet

For as long as I can remember I have been overweight and in an attempt not to be I have followed many unsuccessful diets. There was the cabbage soup diet – a strictly prescribed eating plan for a week that involved, as you may guess, cabbage soup whenever you were hungry beyond the basic meal plan.

The cabbage soup diet worked at first shedding weight the first time I used it but second time around around saw zero weight loss. Until that is I went to the local hostelry to banish my blues, drank my body weight in lager, and was so ill for 48 hours I did indeed lose weight. Most unhealthy.

I had more joy nearly 10 years ago now when I tried the 5 2 diet. Eating sensibly for 5 fasting 2. But in the end with the regime abandoned the weight went back on. I have now though discovered the renovation diet, on which I have lost a stone in the last 6 weeks. Let me lay out some key points:

1. Move to an Island where there are no takeaways or convenience stores open for a quick fix when hungry or craving food.

2. Buy a house with 4 acres of land that you dedicate to clearing for waking hours of the day.

3. Buy 2 weeks food in advance, plan this to fill 3 meals a day for those two weeks. Place it in a freezer / fridge in a house approx 400 yards from the one you live. Only retrieve the food you intend to use that day to said living abode.

4. Ensure the weather in you chosen island is suitably wet and cold that you are not tempted to retrieve more when cravings hit in the evening. That’s it.

Back to the diary or the exercise regime for the last week or more. Two bigs jobs to tick off as progress.

Firstly, a big shout out to Paul who courtesy of storm Arwen stayed on island for a couple rather than one planned day this last week. Paul contributed to cutting back outdoors but had a huge input into ripping out the second attic room.

Back when we bought the room looked like this

Like the first of the attic rooms we intended to remove the strapping that was there to hold plasterboard. The remove the plaster from the gable wall to reveal the stonework beneath. As I often do, I’ll let pictures tell the story.

The exposed boards and skylight facing the hill

To have three of us concentrate on this task allowed us to complete the rip out in under 48 hours compared to days spread across 3 weeks for the other room. Karen and I the took a trip to the mainland to dispose of approx 30 sacks of rubble – again great exercise no gym required on the renovation diet.

The second task, I again must give thanks, this time to Donald and his chainsaw. With his help the front garden has been reclaimed. First Karen and I removed the dead buddlea and hydrangea before cutting the boundary trees to a height of 6 foot. The latter where the chainsaw came in handy.

The montage of pictures above shows the front garden when we bought. The reality was that over the summer, when concentrating on other areas, the plant life / weeds / bramble took over much more of the lawn by the time we started this task. There are pictures of interim states on previous posts and on Instagram @oldmansegigha but here is the result of which, we are very proud.

In front of the Old Manse the magnificent bay tree

The brown earth in front of the tree line indicates how far the garden encroached over the lawn

Some work to repair, but the drive is no longer impeded by overhanging bushes.

Most recently, to complete the inventory of tasks, we collected roofing sheets for the shepherd’s hut from the mainland. Our thanks to Ros for taking delivery at our old address and Dan for help in offloading in our absence. The sheets travelled safely in the back of the hilux yesterday to Gigha through wind, sleet and rain. All of which making me think I need a new waterproof.

Safely tucked away whilst more Christmas provisions bought at Morrisons Helensburgh.

It wasn’t all work though as I had the opportunity to indulge in no less than three of my favourite passions. In pictures below, first my photographic attempts to match present day Old Manse to photo archives of yesteryear. Second, my attempt at goose stew – those who know me, know how much I love to cook and a gift of goose breast prompted this meal. And third, but by no means least, a photo borrowed from @darkskiesgigha, of the recent planet watching hour. My friend Keith really knows his stuff and provided a fantastic tour through stars and time on the night.

Clockwise, the gift of goose, prep, 6 hours of slow cooker, the result

Blessed with clear skies for views of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.

Progress Report

Progress has certainly been made in the last weeks, seeing the render removed from the Old Manse and pointing going well with a team of five in attendance. We are loving the look of the stone and posts on Instagram suggest many others do too. However, it is apparent that there remains a certain amount of concrete residue on the stone giving a lighter colour than the original. To that end we are trying to find a solution to cleaning the stone further without damaging the pointing that has already been applied.

Work has also started on the restoration of the windows. We particularly loved that the original sash windows were present (with one exception) and wanted also to restore the shutters as they were originally intended. The shutters in the Old Manse, like so many other buildings of that age, are pinned back and painted over so they are non-functioning.

Apart from an empty space where the window once was or the board that now replaces it I cannot show a particularly inspiring shot. The windows themselves are being taken back to a workshop for individual restoration. So a no-inspiring photo of the plywood now covering the hole left behind.

We continue to fight against nature (and midgies) to keep the garden at bay. Paths are cleared to where we intend to site the beehive(s) that have now been scheduled for later in July and the site is prepared for the Shepherd’s hut. Friends again visited with us this weekend and tackled ivy removal from the outbuildings reclaiming more of the stone – there is definitely potential to bring these buildings back to life. How and for what purpose has provided much debate already.

The building of the shepherd’s hut didn’t go to plan however. It became apparent as we started to plan the foundations having built the axles that either a component was missing or we were holding the wrong instruction sheet. The issue is yet to be completely resolved and I fear that now the I have the correct instruction sheet, there is still a part or parts missing. Frustrating to say the least, as this delays the construction of our temporary home. Again I don’t have an inspirational photo but I always said this would be an honest blog that recorded both the ups and downs.

So an early return to the rental home to deal with paperwork for the remainder of the week and try and resolve the error of parts. It made logistical sense to get out of the way of the professionals working on the house and the dust created from both jobs. I did have chance before I hurriedly left to take a few photographs in the garden and one of a particularly pleasing sunset, although it’s true magnificence cannot be truly reflected here. I will leave you with those….

What lies beneath

I spoke in the last post about the dampness that has crept into the building and is our first priority to resolve. The reason for calling in the drainage experts was to understand if water was being carried away from the property correctly and we have asked for a proposal for further works to that end.

The roof and gutters are also a potential source of problems but we are not qualified to explore this at the moment and need to organize both scaffolding and a trusted roofer. We have this planned along with a request to remove the render when weather is likely to better in a month or two. The render itself though is visibly cracked in places and we are certain that it is trapping water ingress against the original stone walls.

All we have read suggest that old buildings need to breathe. They are designed to allow a certain amount of moisture in, but this is also expelled by heat from within the building and forced back out – a living breathing system. Concrete render was a product that was used to insulate buildings and theoretically stop water coming in, unfortunately when it fails it suffocates the building and this appears to be the case here. Cracks in the render have allowed water to penetrate the outer layer and the concrete layer now holds the water with no escape. With no heat in the unoccupied building this has seeped through the walls as the main culprit of damp.

A complicating factor in this is the buildings listing. While we would like to strip the render immediately we need to do some exploration first, with the building officer around what the listing dictates and what lies beneath the render by exposing more in small patches where cracks are already showing. At some point a vehicle has backed into the front corner of the property nearest the drive and gives us the first opportunity to explore further:

First thing to notice is that the stone underneath looks pretty good. As someone pointed out to me the stone that is fully exposed appears to be ‘dressed’ and not intended to be covered therefore. It is also a concern that it is evident that water has eroded the pointing of the stone. Potentially where it has entered between stone and frozen it has the power to move the block also.

Perhaps not the most interesting of blog posts but certainly important to setting the right foundations to the renovation.