Cabin walls with first coat of render + window and door alterations

The last couple of weeks we have continued working on the cabin to make it ready for the coming winter. So far the coldest night we have had has been down to around 4 degrees, but most minimum temperatures are still around 10-14 degrees C, so there is no reason to complain. The good news is that the difference in inside and outside temperatures have increased dramatically since we got the bales around the timber walls. Previously we usually had a morning inside temperature that was about 2-3 degrees C above the outside minimum during the night, but so far the difference has been about 8 to 10 degrees. On the night we had 4 degrees outside we still had almost 15 degrees inside at 7 am in the morning, and this was before any render came onto the walls. Since the first coat of render the minimum temperature inside has never been below 15 degrees and there has been no need to put on any heating.

Having finalised the baling of the walls, the next task was to move all the windows and doors to the outer edge of the wall. In addition to this, as mentioned in the last entry, we were also planning to put in some more windows, one in the living room, one in the bathroom and one in the bedroom. This all took a bit longer than we hoped - basically Geir has been working on this the last week. As could be seen from the previous entry we had the frames already in place, but these have now been lined with pine boards (to make it fit in with the rest of the inside cabin walls. After the lining was in place, a new frame had to be made and installed to then fix the windows that came with the cabins in the first place. As readers should know there used to be two cabins, but we now only call it "the cabin", having joined the two together to one building.

For the places with the new windows, the frames were already made and in place, but again the hole in the wall had to be lined with pine boards to hide away the strawbales. To be on the safe side we actually rendered the bales inside the frames with one coat of render before putting on the pine boards.

The results are like this:

Living room window to the north

The same windows seen from the outside. This is the same window as the one pictured in the 8. picture on the previous entry.

The new window in the living room. A bit overcast today so we are not able to show you the new mountain view we have through this window. Will take another picture of it some time in the future, when the mountain is visible.

Bathroom window - this really brings more light into the room.

Window on the southern wall out of the bedroom

And finally on windows, there is the new window in the bedroom. This gives us much more light in the morning as it is on the eastern wall.

The door out from the living area/kitchen. Here we just have to get a few extra materials to finish it off, that is, to cover up all the joints.

With the rendering of the cabins on the outside we have followed the same procedure as with the other  buildings. The first coat is quite wet, applied by hand using thick rubber gloves, and consists of 6 parts of coarse sand, 2 parts of fat sand, 2 parts of lime and 1 part of cement.

Northern wall after one coat

Eastern wall after one coat - also shows the new windows in the bathroom and the bedroom

Southern wall after one coat of render

First part of the western wall. Above the gas hot water system we have already done 2 coats so that we could put back the little house for our washing machine.

And finally the second part of the western wall. The reason some parts are darker than others is that we had rain this morning. It was lovely waking up to the sound of rain on the roof. In respect of the door out from our bathroom, we had decided to remove this and cover the hole with colour bond. On the inside we will then build some shelves to increase our storage space. We have found that the need for this door was not as high as we anticipated, so it will be better use of space to remove it. More pictures to come when this is done.

Finally today we have some more nature pictures:

Here is a collection of magpies that came to visit the other morning. There were 10 in total and they had a good time checking the place out. A lot of singing took place from the top of our irrigation tank and at one stage there were 8 on top singing together. No wonder Geir got a bit delayed in starting work that day.

This young Kookaburra came to visit yesterday morning. The grow quite a bit bigger than this, and there are quite a few on a hill nearby, but we have not had many of them here yet. They have a very nice laughing sound for those who are now used to having them around. A sound clip can be found by going here.

We always have loads of sparrows around and a little time ago, 5 of them sat on the scaffold just outside our window. They seem to have a habit of coming especially early in the morning for a breakfast feed and there must be at least around 50 to 100 of them at times.

And finally, just a small picture of the afternoon sun a few days ago:

Until next time, have a nice week or two !!

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