A slight change of plan

The plan for this weekend was to finish the south wall and that's how things started on Saturday. This was as far as I got after about 4 hours when the sun went behind the clouds and it turned bitterley cold. On Sunday morning I'd intended finishing the job but a cold SW wind led to a change of plan.

The South wall almost stripped of render

A stone foundation which had been covered in render, is revealed beneath the south brick wall.

One piece of good news is that I found the first sign of a surviving brick arch above the door.

First sign of the (crumbly!) brick arch above the door.

On Sunday having gained a bit more confidence on the ladder (!) I decided to finish removing render from the two walls in the NE corner of the house, since these were sheltered from the wind. This was how they looked after I finished working on them a few weeks ago.........

The NE corner on Sunday, before work began

 And here's how it looks now that all the render has been removed................................

The NE corner with all render removed.

So, the only render left to be removed now is the small amount left on the south wall, the top of the North gable and the east wall above the lean-to. Next weekend I hope to get the south wall done up to the level of the eaves. The rest of the walls should be stripped, hopefully by the end of January, with a little help from a telescopic loader (for the east wall) and a scaffold tower for the top of the gable areas. Then it'll be a case of letting everything dry out over the next few months and waiting for summer when the real renovation work will begin!

This old house is starting to give us some hints of how it will look when restored to its original state.