Well not exactly – its muddy, its green and it will have electricity but that’s where the similarities end! Kevin was at cottage today and is putting in electricity. That’s really the extent of my understanding there. As he explained it, the process is for him to put in the meter box, then Frank has to dig a trench and put the red wire across it, then Kevin writes a certificate of completion which is sent to ESB. They then connect the meter and then Kevin reconnects it. This won’t be a full supply as there are no electrics in the current building, however, it does mean that I’ll be able to connect the pump, and Terry and Mike will be able to boil a kettle for a cup of tea. Sure what more could you ask for!
Finally decided what I’m doing with the thatch – it has taken so long! I first met with Joe Leonard, thatcher from Longford more than a year ago and had him booked in to do the thatch in August. Since then there have been discussions about the type of thatching (there are lots of different techniques), the form (gable, half-hip, hip roof), the material (straw, reed), the thatcher, the roof frame and whether to leave the galvanised roof on or off. The Heritage Council have been involved and while being very helpful, have not steered me in any direction. This made things a bit more confusing for me as the more options I have, the longer it takes to make a decision. I met with another thatcher back in May and he was considerably more expensive than Joe but had a completely different method. As it happens, his method doesn’t suit my cottage as the rafters are too narrow in mine and his method involves pushing large bundles of straw up through the rafters from the inside. So, I met with Joe again with a remit from the Heritage Council to find out what type of technique he uses and whether it would work on the cottage. Also I needed to confirm once and for all, whether the existing frame (which is very old) would support a new thatch and whether I should go with a gable roof at both ends, a hip at both ends or one of each. So, Joe arrived down in his swanky van (he has two but only one of them has the business logo on the side) and with his son. (Thatching appears very much to be a family business – its passed down from father to son. Not sure if the sons are too keen on this!). So, after a very quick perusual of the cottage and a few comments from Joe that the cottage hadn’t changed much since the last time he was down, we agreed on a number of points: 1. The existing frame is fine (and as it turns out slate or tiles are much heavier than thatch) 2. I am going to go with one gable roof (so I can keep the little window that is there) and one hip roof (which is in keeping with that end of the cottage and will protect the mud wall) 3. I will keep the galvanised roof on as it adds protection in case of fire and just means less messing about with the existing structure. With all my faffing about, though, Joe won’t be able to get to me until next Summer. Well at least that gives me enough time to figure out what I’m doing with everything else!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve been trying to get an extension built onto the back of the cottage. I received a quote from one particular builder who is local and specialises in eco-friendly building. I was quite happy with the quote and didn’t ask for any others as I trust him and I know him by reputation. Then someone came along and suggested that the quote was very expensive so I decided to shop around. Long story short, I now have 3 quotes – one is 8k, one is 27k and one is 65k! So, I’ve asked my architect to give them a ring and then let me know which I should go with. I don’t know enough about these things to make any sort of a sensible decision so I’ll leave it to the experts. Problem is, it delays everything. I might set up a new initative like the one they have around food which is called the Slow Food Movement. I think I’ll call this the Slow Building Movement!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have been busy socialising, but have been working away in the background, I just haven’t been updating my blog but decided to start up again. An update to follow shortly!
Been a bit lax with the old updates – not much happening on the cottage side of things. Met up with a conservationist architect Friday 2 weeks ago. Met her in Fenagh and she followed me up to the cottage. Have to say it was a beautiful day with the sun splitting the rocks and all of the flowers were out in bloom so it was really looking its best. Needless to say, it got the reaction I was hoping for – she was very impressed and when she walked in through the front door and looked up to the rafters her expression told me that she was on the same wavelength as myself. She took lots of photos and made some good observations about the cottage's origins commenting that it had probably been extended at some point and that the stone part may have been the orginal and the mud extension was built on later or vice versa. So its kind of back to square one and I'm feeling a bit of frustration – I felt like I'd made some kind of progress with the other engineer and now I'm starting again – this architect wants to bring in a conservationist engineer – in fact its the same man that worked on the mud cottage project in Wexford.
So she headed back to Co. Cavan and I stayed on to do some work myself. Managed to clear a lot of the mud around the back wall. Came up with an ingenious solution (!) for draining away the water – Aine and myself had "acquired" some gutters from a derelict building (well better that they get some use than just disintegrate) and I laid them down on the ground to act as a kind of funnel for the water away from the house. No idea whether it made a bit of a difference but it was good fun trying!
Must get down there this weekend and see how its doing. If I had a spare pair of hands (and maybe a ladder) I could probably put the gutters up. They're good steel ones – apparently quite difficult to come by these days – so want to make good use of them.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today I contacted my newly hired engineer/architect – he says he'll have drawings to me for late this week. He was out at the cottage last week and did a survey – I asked him what he thought. Well, he wants to thin down the walls, remove and rebuild the chimneys, completely remove the roof (all 200 year old rafters) because its ridden with woodworm and he wants to add a concrete ring beam to the building. Oh…my…gawd – its the classic modern engineering blunder that I've been reading about – basically, you bring in a modern engineer and they want to apply modern building techniques which are so bad for these houses. Anyway, the concrete ring beam was the final straw – I had a suspicion that my engineer wasn't going to be the best fella for the job and now I know for sure.
So, I have now contacted an firm of architects that were recommended to me by Dick Oram. I rang them and spoke to a lovely gentleman – I explained to him that I couldn't get a proper architect because they wouldn't take on such a small project. When I told him that the engineer wanted to completely remove the roof he said "that building is an antique and should be dealt with as such". Imagine if I had told him about the hooves! At last, I think I've found my man.
(Yes those are animal hooves in the roof – I think probably of the sheep/goat and bovine variety)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Went to Belfast Folk Park today (think its different to the Ulster American Folk Park) which is an area of probably a few acres with traditional cottages dotted around it – its beautiful. The cottages were located in various parts of Northern Ireland and were taken down and re-erected in the park in order to preserve them. Its similar to Bunratty Folk Park (I haven't been there). There are lots of cottages in varying shapes and sizes – all with the traditional layout and furniture in the interior. Each of the cottages has a leaflet with some information about the former inhabitants, for example, one of the cottages was renowned for its get togethers for card playing and music – the place was so tiny with just a main living room and a small bedroom that they must have been small parties indeed! It makesyou realise how little living space we really need and how materialistic we've all become.
The centre of the park has a reconstruction of a traditional village include the olde shoppe (my lanugage not theirs) as well as a tailor, a basket weaver (who I was interested in for more than his weaving I have to say), a farrier and so on. Its a really nice day out and obviously very interesting for us mad cottage people.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today I went over to Kevin and Sonja's thatched cottage in Monasterboice – I had heard lots about it over the years but this was my first time to see it. I have to say I was really impressed. It's beautiful from the outside – added to by the wall that Joe built which apart from having huge emotional value, is an amazing structure. Its a dry stone wall (so has no material binding it together) with long vertical stones supporting each other.
Then you get inside and its a pot pourri of colours and objects – but not in a busy way – it just seems right somehow. It mixes modern elements with traditional such as ethnic designs around traditional windows and doorways. Aine and myself shared the upstairs bedroom and as you can see in the photo its just doty! They have two photographs on either side of the bed which are of a real couple – the story goes that Sonja was going to buy the photo of the husband and then the guy in the store told her they'd been together for 70 years and she could hardly split them up now so she bought the photo of the wife as well!
They think that the cottage is a least 400 years old – Monasterboice is a very historical area (remember the Monasterboice cross that we learnt about in secondary school?) and the cottage is larger than most so suggests that the owners were important. Anyway, it gave me lots of ideas for my place and I'm thinking now that maybe clean, modern lines should give way to traditional…
Filed under: Uncategorized
I took today off to visit Mr. Richard Oram (Dick Oram) at the Mourne Heritage Trust in Co. Down. I had read about this place before http://www.mournelive.com/ and had purchased their homeowners handbook. When I spoke to Mr. Oram to get some advice he suggested I come up and see some of the work they'd done.
I never realised that Northern Ireland was so beautiful – I drove up the coast road, past Carlingford Lough, and it was a lovely sunny day so the views were fantastic. I arrived in Newcastle (a little late due to getting lost – yes there's a recurring trend here!) and met Mr. Oram, an elderly retired conservationist architect. He showed me around some of the cottages that are part of the Mourne Homesteads. I drove around following his directions and we visited a number of properties that have been rennovated under his direction. The scheme is fantastic – they buy up old derelict cottages, rennovate them using traditional methods and sell them on to confirmed buyers.
The houses were very modern in the inside with wooden or tiled floors, modern kitchens and plenty of room. Mr. Oram was a bit "disappointed" about some of the new owners' choice of materials but I think it is a compromise that he is willing to make in order to preserve these buildigns. Their goal is to make these buildings ready for modern living.
I was surprised at the number of those properties around the Mourne area – I don't recall seeing so many down South. There were also some differences in the styles of the Mourne cottages to cottages down South – mainly that many of them had been more modernised and many had larger windows (don't mention the light tax!)
All in all it was a very interesting day and Mr. Oram is a very interesting gentleman. He told me that he's actually retired but that he manages the trust as required. I hope that the British government continues to invest in it. Pity the Irish government doesn't have the same foresight – then again, I'm not really surprised!
I didn't take the picture above – its from the website and is of Rock Cottage which is one of the cottages that has been rennovated and is in the Homeowners Handbook.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Went down to Leitrim with Aine and John (brother) today. We had some craic! We seem to get very giddy when we're together – must bring us back to our childhood or something. So, having stopped off at the local Centra to purchase supplies, we headed to the cottage to do some serious work.
John is a big lad – over 6 ft anyway and he plays a lot of sport so pretty strong. Aine's no weakling hereself either. – she used to put on the concrete mixes for Joe! Between the pair of them they pack a punch. Combine that with 2 lump hammers and you've some serious heavyweights! My main objective was to get more of the concrete off the walls to allow the walls to start drying out. I've mentioned previously that the far gable wall isn't the most solid. When John started hammering I was sure the whole thing was going to fall down. Aine got bored with the gentle approach and decided to just go hell for leather with the lump hammer – to be fair she was getting results – but I was worried of the full impact that John might have with the same technique!
As is usual when I go to the cottage, I seem to spend more time getting organised than actually getting anything done. Only a few hours had passed and it was time to wrap up. In a few hours though we had removed a considerable amount of concrete from the outside front wall and most of it from the inside. Before we left we needed to protect the outside wall . This involved some serious planning and some less serious execution – the end result was a mish mish of galvanised sheeting, planks of wood, nails and plastic sheeting. Have you ever tried to hammer masonry nails into concrete? Its quite funny! In the end, we ended up with what looked like a Ghetto in Co. Leitirm – God only knows what the neighbours are thinking!
Mud Cottage - Where the Grass is Always Greener 