2016 - works rear of the house

Here we are, already past Epiphany 2017 and we haven't recorded the works on the house for 2016! We have worked hard and achieved much outside, in the garden and around the house...as well as enjoying our comfy home, our bracing swims, our beautiful island and our lovely family and friends.

 On our return from Burma we were faced straight away with our neighbour's "problem" or should we say our "problem neighbour"? In our absence he had asked yet another engineer for his advice (at our expense) on the subject of his collapsing veranda (allegedly because of the excavations we conducted near his boundary...) We were still jet lagged when we were asked to discuss what we proposed to do to remedy this.

To cut a long story short, after hours of negotiations to come to a fair arrangement it was agreed Attrill would commence works at the end of July, building a retaining wall and renewing the said veranda and steps.

Despite the large gaps under the veranda and steps (which is what caused -in our view the settlement in the first place, we agreed to pay for nearly all of the works. Attrill in their usual efficient way took a week to complete the retaining wall, new veranda and new steps. our neighbour had gone away by then.

VERANDA AND STEPS

Before the works

Attrills at work

angle irons bolted to sheeters

Concrete footings

Blockwork retaining wall

Blockwork complete

Once the wall, veranda and steps were completed we turned our attention to the rainwater harvest tanks and the fence. We had agreed with our neighbour that it was to be 8 feet high at the bottom of the garden and follow the boundary. Luckily, Anna's boyfriend Tj is a fence erector and did a grand job.

FENCE

Putting cant rails on

Finished work

George inspecting the works

   

With the fence completed  it was time to finish the paving slabs (with the help of Tj) 

Fort Knox!