Another milestone reached

Me working on the yurt deck

Over the last week or so we've made a real 'do or die' effort to finish the yurt deck. By around 2pm on Sunday we'd finished oiling the floor, and we reckoned it would take us about four hours to take down the yurt, re-erect it on the deck and get all of our stuff back in. It actually took us over ten, and we fell into bed well after midnight, utterly exhausted.

Me in action nailing the floorboards with our new nail gun

All the stress and aching muscles were worth it, though. The yurt is a much nicer space to be in now, and we no longer have to worry about silage heap smells, mouldy canvas, mushrooms growing by the bed, or having to wear our wellies 'indoors'!

Iain cutting the floorboards to fit the circular beam

Now we've finished the deck we're free to concentrate all our efforts on the house, which is just as well. We got our first frost last night, and the prospect of living under canvas during colder weather doesn't appeal. We've already got two duvets on the bed -- it's only a matter of time before we'll have to resort to woolly hats as night wear.

Inside the yurt showing the finished floor

Iain relaxes in front of the yurt

Helen

Ten months in

I returned from my lightning visit to the UK almost a week ago. When I got back home I wasn't impressed to find that Iain hadn't knocked a single nail in on the yurt deck while I was away. However, I wasn't surprised. Like most men, he needs a boot up his backside before he'll do anything. :-P

We WERE going to spend last weekend putting the cladding on the house, but when we opened up the pile of cladding to take a look, we discovered that they'd delivered the wrong type. SNAFU. So last weekend was spent on the yurt deck instead. We've been working on it over the last couple of evenings as well, and we've almost finished the joists and the circular beam around the outside, which means the next step is the final one: laying the wooden floor.

The plumber came to do the first fix last week, which involves putting all the pipes in. The pipes survived the pressure test without leaking, and his work passed the initial plumbing inspection. Another contractor, aka The Drain Guy, is in charge of connecting the pipes to the water tanks and the septic system. Why the plumber can't do this I've no idea. We've been trying to get The Drain Guy to come and do his thing for the past week, and on a couple of occasions he's fobbed us off with 'Oh yeah, I'm on my way now,' and then he hasn't turned up. We may have to shoot him and chuck his body in the septic tank.

Here are a few pics:

A Spaghetti Junction of plumbing above the bathroom ceiling

Insert shower here

Iain taking a well-earned break on the yurt deck

Helen