ajft

Ok, now that we've actually got the ladder into the attic we can start to use it! I'm not sure what I expected, maybe thought the installation would all be over by lunchtime yesterday and we would simply put all the stuff from the front room up into the roof space....

Looking around inside the roof of the 106 year-old half of the house revealed some interesting features. The ceiling of the front room — the room we never use — was covered by very thin insulation bats, but the bedroom and lounge — the two rooms that we do use — had no insulation! Unfortunately the carpenter hadn't told us this yesterday before he nailed boards down over some of the empty space or we would have put more insulation in ahead of him. As it was, today I spent most of the afternoon crawling around from rafter to rafter like a deranged monkey, dragging itchy yellow insulation bats into place and sweeping out piles of leaves, scrap timber, 50 year-old wiring, and all the other crap that the previous renovation had simply left inside the ceiling.

Last night an hour or two spent clearing enough space in the front room for the ladder to be installed, today I'd arranged to work from home for a few hours, from 9 o'clock until whenever the installation was completed.

Good news or bad news? Good news is that the front room is now as clean as it was last night when we finished tidying up. Second bit of good news is that I got in to work well before lunchtime.... The bad news, of course, is that the tradesman didn't actually turn up — a phone call ten minutes before he was due to arrive explaining that he had destroyed a wheel-bearing in his car and was being towed to the garage, he might make it in the afternoon, it might be Saturday.... Nothing is ever easy.