The third Wise Man arriveth...

...after many weeks of travel the third wise man (actually Duncan my architect) finally arrives to complete a modern take of the infamous biblical scene - "And lo, the brickies were abiding their walls by night"!

Having worked on the technical drawings I think Duncan was pleasantly surprised how well the build had progressed in such a short time and finally could see in all it's glory the mass and "flow through" of the layout.  Naturally there were things that stood out, which on reflection could have been crafted and disguised a little better in the fabric of the design - the sort of things that only become apparent at this late stage.

Never-the-less the wise men came bearing gifts - one of which was a "fake arrow slot" solid -stone carved block feature to adorn the gable end (the pointy bit of walling at the front of the house directly above the bay window).  It seems to be traditional to put something within the triangular void to break up the stone walling.

Naturally I wanted to be the one to lay this feature stone so that in years to come I can say "I put that stone in" - a bit of history in the making.  Kez said that I should put in a "Date Stone" instead so people will know when the house was built - in fact he did say that Naylor Myers the local builders merchant had a good selection of  "2010"s.

Now I'm not saying that I'm tight or anything but the thought did cross my mind to leave a whole in the wall until the New Year...at which point I would then go to the builders merchant and ask for a discount on the "2010" date stone given that it would then be a year out of date - a bit like the change of car registration plates!  Besides it would help the budget position just a tad.

Well I'm pleased with the end result all the same!

I'm also very pleased with the chimney that Paul built for me on the fly using the odds and sods of stone we had left over from the quoins.  Believe it or not there is a lot more work involved in building a chimney than I had ever imagined - made all the more difficult by having the chimney breast and stack on the INSIDE of the building rather than on the external wall.  I'm not sure if this makes it more efficient in terms of heat loss though?

We now have the external walls erected to wall plate level.  Wall plate level is the final wall height on which the roof structure sits and the wall plates are pieces of timber screwed and fixed securely to the internal walls so that the roof literally does not blow off!  We've ordered all of the roof timbers/trusses and these should be on site w/c 19th July - the week I'm on holiday - so by the time I get back I hope to post some more photos of the roof structures and tiles.  Thank god I'm only away for a week - still the weather seems to have reverted back to the seasonal norm for the UK.

I really could have done with another week of dry weather to at least get the roof timbers up, battened and felted to keep the rain out.  Hope the forecast for next week isn't all rain because roofing is a dangerous occupation at the best of times - least of all when it's tipping it down!