Update on the main house

Stupid Patio that broke the man's head....

Original tiled roof with Dallas-style patio (yuk!)

These thatchers worked like demons!

New full frontal of thatched roof and no frickin Dallas arches obscuring view - YAY!

Well, we are still in the cold cottage trying to fix the main house (which has THE most amazing fire place) and at the same time get the fishing lodge going so there's some income coming into this household. The thatching is done - HALLELUJAH! And it looks good. We're not sure what the previous owners were thinking when they TILED the whole roof OVER the original thatch. When we looked more closely at the whole house after we had bought, we saw that the roof was far too heavy for the house, and the walls were starting to buckle and crack!

So we took off all the tiles and brandering, and did a new thatch job. I am way impressed!

And we removed the stupid "Dallas" style patio. Again, what what what were they thinking? The patio roof sloped down at a really steep angle (the man bashed his head open trying to get under it - don't laugh or you're a bad person) and cut off ALL the view down the valley and up the hill. Made the lounge really dark - couldn't see a darn thing from inside.

And of course, every single pane of glass had been broken, and the chickens thought that our main house was theirs. Yip, that's where they roosted and played housie-housie. So we decide to replace all the panes of glass. Mmmm......after day two, the guys came to me and said "please feed your chickens!"

Huh?

Seems the chickens were eating all the putty out of the new windows as fast as they were being put in. Ate the putty out so clean that you wouldn't even know that there had once been fresh putty there! Ah, I ask you with tears in my eyes!! So the glass was put on hold for about a week while we built a chicken coop. And in the meantime, the biggest window simply fell out. Just like that. I guess that's what putty-less windows do - they fall out!

Still some miles to go, but at least we are seeing some progress. All good.....