At last I’ve broken the strangle-hold that pointing has had on me! I’ve also gone back to being late making my monthly updates to the website (this one for November being written on the 15th of December) – swings & roundabouts I guess…

I’ve retired from pointing for 2010, probably in truth falling just a little bit short of the finishing line in relation to my original goals for the year. I have about a square metre to point at the top of the back wall and the gable end (6 or 8 square metres) to finish. We had a major (for Carmarthenshire) deluge of snow on the day that I intended to finish the back wall and the cold weather has put me off ever since.

Beyond pointing I’ve been busy in the bathroom, finishing the floor, mosaic tiling and boxing-in. As previously reported, we started some work on landscaping the garden, first with a digger and I then started to level the patio area by hand with a pick & shovel and plan to lay flag stones on sand in the area shortly. I’ve also started to build a small ‘hut’ around the external tap that stands rather proudly at the front of the barn. My ‘tap hut’ is another victim of the weather as it’s been too cold to play work with my new concrete mixer to mix up the mortar and aggregate mix I need to finish the ‘hut’.

I’ve also got a satellite dish to install, but that’s a job for December and all those Christmas repeats on TV…

Seems like I’ve been repointing for ever and ever…

Back in August I said…

I’m not sure that I’ll hit my end of September goal, but if I need a few more days in October then so-be-it. It’ll be a lovely feeling to get it finished and move onto something else (the to-be back garden is top of the list if the weather holds).

I’ve not managed to complete all the repointing by the end of September, or even by the end of October – but it will be done by the end of November…

Whilst it is not ideal to be lime pointing at this time of year, it’s not yet turned too cold – it’s still usually 10C+ during the day and no real frosts at night. Anyway, I think damp weather is far more lime mortar friendly than dry, sunny weather – and I really need to get this done, so I’ll soldier on.

I just have the top of both the back wall and the gable end to finish. I’m using a ladder to reach the top of the walls which is fine, a bit hard on the feet but otherwise more comfortable that standing on top of a step ladder as I have been. I’ve switched work to the back wall, that I’ve estimated as 8 or so hours work. Hopefully I’ll get that done this weekend (if fireworks allow!). As I’ve already said – We’ll see…

Beyond pointing I’ve very little to report – the final small section of the concrete path has been finished, so once the pointing is done, I think we’re ready for completion. I’ve also tinkered around with the edging of the oak flooring on the landing; I need some more wood of the correct thickness to make a neat job of it.

As much time as I’ve spent on pointing and all the ancillary activities such as moaning, evangelising and generally bumping-my-gums about pointing, I’ve just realised, I’ve not posted a great deal of evidence related to my actually doing any pointing.

To address this, I thought a range of before photographs, showing the walls of the barn in various states before being repointed was in order, to be followed by some evidential after photographs.

From Barn Conversion 2007

This picture from 2007 gives a view of the barn from the southerly end up and across the front toward the kitchen. No repointing, no lime washing, no new window openings, no new window frames or doors and no paths. The unadulterated version of the barn as we bought it.

The southern gable end had been repointed sometime in the previous few years.

From Pointing

Unfortunately, despite originally thinking that the pointing was good and sound having been recently repointed with what we thought was a lime based mortar, the repointing had actually been done with a cement based mortar that had cracked over time and so let in a lot of water. That end of the building catches the worst of the weather as it blows in along the valley and so is exposed to plenty of rain year round. So much water had worked it way in and dribbled down inside the wall that we had stalactites in our walls.

Repointing that wall would have been very difficult as the concrete mortar was very hard and virtually impossible to hack out by hand and the use of any machine was bound to lead to damage to the stonework. But something had to be done as the mortar was as leaky as a sponge. The solution we arrived at was to limewash it – a solution I’m pleased with for its practicality, attractiveness (well I find it attractive) and for the fact that it cut down the amount of repointing I needed to do.

From Pointing

I’ve left the other small patches of concrete mortar sprinkled around the other walls of the barn as they are – they’re sound and too hard to bother removing for purely cosmetic reasons.

The mortar in the long front wall that stretches away from the closest corner in the photo up toward the barn doors was the most rotten of all. In places it had rotted out or dissolved completely with lime loving plants growing out from the crevices.

From Barn Conversion 2007

This picture, again from 2007 shows the kitchen end of the barn, not long after the chickens had been evicted from their former home (they where relocated elsewhere on the farm, but apparently used to still come back to visit). You can see how rotten the mortar is in the lower left hand corner of the barn. The north facing gable end, in shade here, is the last I started work on. The original mortar on this wall was softer than on the other walls, I think partially due to the lack of sunshine ‘curing’ the mortar over the years. It gets very little sunlight, just some weak rays at the end of the day. I also get the feeling that as the least visible wall of the barn the original pointing hadn’t been done with as much care and attention to materials and technique as the other walls.

From Pointing

From Pointing

These pictures are more recent and show the walls at the rear of the barn having been prepared for pointing by hacking out old mortar. As you can see there were some very deep holes to fill.

From Pointing

Finally, a picture from 2007 of my first fledgling and somewhat messy attempts at pointing. Unfortunately I chose the most often seen portion of the barn walls that is passed by whenever entering or leaving the barn.

Seems like I’ve been repointing for ever…

Back in August I said…

I’m not sure that I’ll hit my end of September goal, but if I need a few more days in October then so-be-it. It’ll be a lovely feeling to get it finished and move onto something else (the to-be back garden is top of the list if the weather holds).

As predicted, I’ve not managed to complete all the repointing by the end of September, HOWEVER, I have completed the front wall — Horray! Photo’s to follow soon as I’ve not yet seen it properly dried out and therefore not had the opportunity to photograph it. Just the back and the gable end to finish in October (maybe more than a few days but I’ll get there). I think simply using a ladder to reach the top of the walls should be okay. I had considered needing scaffolding of some description, but the small amount of work I needed to use the ladder for at the front was fine – even more comfortable than my usual position at the top of a step ladder.

I did manage to drag myself away from the wall for an hour or so the other weekend and ventured into the wood to discover much to my disappointment that many of the trees I planted earlier in the year have died. I think a post-mortem is called for, although I suspect that not enough sunlight was reaching them.