Tower, farewell!

The tower – finally it’s back in pieces and out of the house. A suitable thank you gesture to the neighbours is due. The screw eye arrived, but its eye was too big for the pulley connection. Fortunately I was able to borrow the screw gate shackle from my drogue to to join pulley and screw eye.

Floor space is appearing, but that stack of bamboo flooring will have to be moved before much of it can be laid. In the meantime the stack has become a temporary work bench as my proper bench is still set up with fixed blocks to hold the wet cutter firm while cutting slate flooring.

The week has been a mixture of touching up paintwork in the bathroom; removing doors that needed a second coat of eggshell; finishing and hanging and adjusting the door between kitchen and hallway (and removing it and the shower room door to give them another coat of paint); and filling, sanding and painting door linings that somehow I’d left unpainted while laying the slate flooring beneath them.

The search for lights for the shower and bathrooms went on. The only lights I could find to go either side of the window had rocker switches – not allowed so close to the shower and basin despite their IP44 rating – which seems nonsensical when the switch bars them from use in the IP44 (splash-prone) environment. Ours would be switched outside the door. For the wall under the bathroom skylight, the answer finally seemed to be an ultra-thin (ten millimetres) illuminated mirror, rather than two lights and a mirror. It was cheaper too.

Ultra-thin mirror – Sensio Libra from Electrical direct – twenty pounds cheaper than other suppliers, delivery free.

Getting the power to the lighting would be a challenge because of the airtight structure which I mustn’t pierce, but the mirror would need only one thin low voltage cable; easier to hide. I’d have to make a new panel to mount the mirror on as it’s a bit taller than the available bit of wall…

I made the panel to sit on top of the splashback tiles and it took two goes to get an acceptable fit as neither left nor right wall is straight and both slope at slightly different angles. My plan for the wiring developed, the more obvious, direct route actually presenting a problem, making removal of the mirror impossible without ripping the new panel off the wall. The answer (arrived at on Friday) was to take the thin cable up into a void near the top where it could be accessed, plugged and unplugged beneath the removable shelf.

As well as starting the mirror installation, adjusting the fit of doors and preparing the last of the six doors, I continued the minor plasterboard repairs, ready for the electrician’s eventual return.

Colour has been on our minds again, colour and visual texture. Do we go with a couple of courses of white subway tiles in the kitchen or can we find a more interesting (and fitting) coloured tile? Tash has sent for samples and we’ve propped up what we have to gauge the effect. More on this soon.

Electricity: I’ve been emailing the electrician at least every third day, including an ascending number in the subject line, and phoning most days. On Thursday, to my surprise I received a response. He didn’t say why it had taken him so long, except that as it was three years since he’d originally quoted for the job he’ didn’t know where he was. I’ve raised this before – my slow build and how prices must have varied since his quote – but his subsequent silence hasn’t helped. More positively he suggested he might be able to come ‘sometime next week’ (now this week), fit the switch and socket back boxes and check whether anything has varied from the drawings he quoted on (I don’t think it has). He’d then give me a list of what I need to buy. If he does that, it will be a huge relief.

David arrived early on Friday evening on his way back to Islay. In the morning I spent a couple of hours with a photographer neighbour, seeing how he processes RAW digital images, then after lunch put up the backing board for the mirror and finished the amended layout (CAD free SketchUp program) for the remaining slate floor. For easy reference during the working day I copied what Chris had done and took a photo of it on my phone…

As David would be leaving on Monday, I decided we’d take Saturday off as usual but work on Sunday. Work we did, and on Monday morning too, laying slate in the hallway. Not much to do now! Sunday wasn’t too onerous a day and included a morning visit from self-builders Pete and Molly, down from their plot by Loch Awe for lunch with friends in Tarbert. They hope to be finished this summer, which makes me feel so incredibly slow.

Weekend, wildlife and visitors: the weekend was Saturday and it was good. We made our way back up to the osprey nest in the tall fir over the burn. They must be due soon but, as we wanted to build a hide, we were glad there was no sign of them. We worked out a circuitous but relatively easy approach, under cover of the dense canopy of the plantation, and hung a camouflage net. It looked good and I walked past it once, looking for it without seeing it, despite knowing where it was, but will it be good enough to keep the birds comfortable? Only they can tell us.

We heard our first chiffchaff on Sunday, the first ‘summer’ visitor, a diminutive pale greenish warbler that could have come from as far as west Africa.