Our fleecy friends

[H] We couldn't possibly create this website without referring to our fleecy friends. For most of the year we are surrounded by sheep on the village common and in the field next to our garden. They're taking a keen interest in what's going on at Cragside, looking up from their grass-munching every once in a while to stare intently at developments. Not to mention trying to get in every time the gate is left open. They don't miss an opportunity, although I can't see the attraction any more as the place is a quagmire of mud these days! But the grass is always greener on the other side...... So, whilst it's got absolutely nothing to do with the build, we may occasionally post some cute pictures of sheep and lambs. This lovely Herdwick ewe was being particularly inquisitive the other day so we took her picture and she's now our website 'logo'!

January 1st 2020

[M] What better way to start 'Dry January' than with a bit more house wrecking. So that's what we did. Today it was more of the same - taking down stud partition walls, stripping out electric cabling and removing fitted kitchen units and wardrobes in what is now a huge open-plan living space. If it weren't for the piles of rubble and dust it would be quite a nice space!

December 26th 2019

[H] The last month was rather taken over by other commitments so Cragside has been neglected for a while, but we're now back to work. The task at the moment is to strip out the interior of the house. We plan to crush the concrete components of the house and use the crushings as hardcore on site but this means we have to strip out everything else before the shell is demolished, which means removing all the bathroom fittings, tiles, kitchen units, doors, cupboards, all the joinery (shelving, architrave, skirtings, door frames), internal stud walls, all the pipework, all the cabling that's buried in the walls, the plasterboard, ceiling tiles, loft insulation and more. It's quite a job and is taking quite a long time. We had yesterday off (it was Christmas Day!) but were back at Cragside today doing more of the same. The copper and lead and even the cabling and other scrap metal is worth something so we're setting that aside, some of the timber is re-usable or suitable for burning on our wood stove, some of the doors, joinery and sanitary wear we can re-use ourselves and we've been putting quite a few things on freecycle. What's left unfortunately will have to go in a skip but we have tried our best to keep that to a minimum.