Barn Girl: Day 19 and 22 - Look, no hands! Barn's brick walls go!

Don't be alarmed. 'twas all in the plans....to fit the front of the barn with steel beams through its middle, lift it up and balance it on them, so the Barn Boys could remove the tired brickwork, which had done its job for the last 100 years. All to be replaced with deep, strong foundations and new brickwork.

It was, nevertheless, a strange sight to see this skeleton structure floating.....

Men at Work - Boss Jon and Smiley Tim removing the original brickwork, minus Matt, who decided to swap his rain proof day-glow for the Speedos, for ten days, somewhere in the Balearics.

'Hope Matt's having a good time'


'2 bricks, 2 cookies?'

Steel beam holding up the barn

Steel beam

Strap attached to steel beam and frame....holding it altogether

Time to choose m'bricks for the front and side walls of the north elevation. Unfortunately, cleaning and making good the original bricks was a costly exercise and had to go on the 'omit' list. Shame. They will, however, be saved and put to good use elsewhere in the barn.

The original bricks are apparently 70 'millers' (mm) and now cost anything from £1 - £2.50 a brick and are difficult to find. The newer bricks are slimmer, but since they'll hardly be seen, it's not a problem. As long as we can tolerate the 16 week lead time for supply! Yikes!

Boss Jon produced several brick swatches - just as you can imagine a paint or fabric swatch card to be, only bigger and much heavier - from which I could try and get the closest match to the reconstructed walls of the South Elevation.....which are staying. Phew!

From four different swatches of 'brick cards', Boss Jon and I thought this was a good match. The bricks supplied would be a combination of the colours and finish of ALL the brick samples on this card.

A pretty good match, don't you think?

The back wall planks from Bedroom 2 removed. Now all the timbers are exposed, it's inspection time! Architect and Boss Jon will be taking a very close look at every beam to see what stays and what goes. Before the inspection, I see a new figure on site, it's Howard, Boss Jon's shepherd, who's de-nailing and dusting every beam. Apparently, it makes the inspection process much easier.