No weekly challenges, no rewards and no nice surprises

It's been a half-hearted week. Despite taking Friday off again to keep the pace up, I've only achieved some small things.

Early in the week, I filled the gaps between the insulation panels on the west gable. Nice, easy work that makes that side of the room look even more Lego-like. Next step: sticking on the wall heating panels.

I installed a new post under the rotted beam in our bedroom.

Now it can't fall so far...

And the one thing that I had really wanted to do, but failed, is plastering the outer wall of the kitchen. At least I've gotten it to a stage where it's ready to be plastered, but to be honest, I'm half afraid to start. All the other walls I've plastered will be hidden behind wall heating systems. Not so in the kitchen, where we'll have underfloor heating, so it has to be perfect. Between two doors and a window, a mix of wood, old clinker bricks and modern blocks, it's a total mish-mash, so stuff like reinforcement mesh, to prevent cracking at interfaces between these different materials, probably needs to be incorporated, but I'm not sure should that go into the base coats, over the rails I've installed, or later, in the top coat. I'll have to ask an expert. So, no rewards for me!

The outer kitchen wall last Monday

The wall on Saturday, rails in place.

Regardless, it's pretty cold now, with Friday night being -11C. Inside the house, it feels remarkably warm (relatively speaking!), and till recently was about 6 to 8C. But now, without any heat source, it's dropping, and working in the kitchen at about 2.5 C is not ideal for plastering. Might be time to start doing the dry construction bits...

In the meantime, we've come across several old window frames belonging to our neighbour, which we're thinking of using somewhere in the house, one idea being to put one between the kitchen and living room, as a kind of hatch through which to pass snacks. I've no idea of the date of this, but the ironmongery is lovely, and it appears to have original glass with lead strips separating the panes.

The outside.

The inside.

Although this might make a nice feature in the living room, I'd worry a bit abotut knocking holes in this wall, as it supports the big beam running across the kitchen, which in turn supports a fair part of the house above, so maybe somewhere else.

Trying to imagine how it'd fit.

In the meantime, a pair of gratuitous snow-shots, the first from December 2010, and the second from this week.