More Work Weekend Information

Hello again!

I promised I'd be back with more details of the work weekend, and here I am. Although this is all subject to change, I just wanted people to have an idea of what we were going to be up to.

Below is a picture of me clutching the demented brilliant permaculture design I've done for the garden, further details of which will be in a future blogpost. This is what you'll be helping us to realise :D

Crinkled, but awesome. I promise it makes sense!

So, these jobs are all ones which don't cost any money, which after the palaver of the garden wall is quite a relief for us. These jobs are therefore more likely to happen than the costly ones.

- scrub left hand wall ready for painting (may need to buy a couple of stiff brushes)
- knock down breeze block wall to the right
- put breeze blocks in hole left by building the new wall (makes sense when you see it)
- break up concrete where compost bins are going to go
- save big bits for paving and put small bits in garden refuse bags to re-use on the green roof
- move compost bins
- break up as much of the rest of the concrete as we can manage, concentrating on the edges where beds are going to be
- mark out main parts of garden plan
- level lawn and create slope between lawn and patio

It's all brilliant stuff, and also all necessary before we can get to the really fun bit, which is of course the planting!

If we do find some cash to spend on the garden immediately it will most likely be on fencing as we currently have a couple of impressive drops from the new wall and steps. There may also be some painting, but don't hold your breath for that one.

What do you get in return? Besides a warm glow, you'll get lunch, dinner, somewhere to stay if you need it, and lots of love and gratitude from us. You'll also be helping to make an awesome permaculture garden which we hope will be used for open garden events in the future, and as a demonstration of small-scale urban permaculture, as well as a nice place for us to hang out with you when you visit.

So, who's coming? Email us at golem.coop@gmail.com and let us know.

- Hannah

WALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It exists. It's beautiful. It's FINISHED!!!!!!

I don't have a photo of the beauteous steps to hand, but believe me, they are beauteous!

Now that all the excitement of the wall building is over, we have the new, extra exciting excitement which is THE GARDEN. The first of what will probably be many work weekends will be on April 13th-14th. This first phase will involve much in the way of smashing things up, demolishing things, and lugging stuff about. For the less Hulksmash amongst you, there may be painting, and there will definitely be playing with the toddler and making tea.

We can accommodate people overnight if need be, and there will be lunch and dinner for volunteers. Please let us know if you're coming so we can plan food. You'll need sensible boots and work clothes, but we have the tools required. I'll do another post with more details about what we'll be getting up to before next weekend.

- Hannah

Onwards!

Well hello, and what an exciting blog post we have today! I'm excited, anyway, and so are the others here at Golem HQ: the wall is in progress!

A week ago our lovely builders appeared at the bottom of the garden and, well, just got on with it. They've been there every week-day since, beavering away, and slowly but surely, the wall is growing. The retaining wall itself is nearly built, and the curtain wall for the steps is probably done (possibly requiring another course or two once the steps are up. They're back-filling the retaining wall and under the steps tomorrow, which will bring an end to the slope of doom once and for all. We're getting a quote for a gate today, and apparently all the building will probably be done by the end of the week. I know! If you pay people, stuff gets done! We are very fond of this new - if rather expensive - approach.

Without further ado, I'll post loads of photos so you can enjoy the process for yourself.

Ta da!

Day one - Finn was in truck heaven!

Digging out the footings

Footings poured (the concrete's under the water at the back)

Blocks arriving - another truck!

Day one of wall building

Day two

Day four (I forgot to photograph day three)

Both walls are actually higher than that last photo shows - I took it this morning. They are now both comfortably taller than Sven.

So, you can see the enormous progress that's already occurred, and tomorrow we should actually find out what level our garden is now. The builders asked today and I just shrugged. I have no idea! Sven  and I did some clambering on the heap of rubble and dragged out a whole load more stone to use for the patio and paths.

I'll post again when the whole thing's finished, and we can take photos of us running up and down the steps with glee!

- Hannah

Foraging in Your Own Backyard

There was probably a point where I thought that the next blog post I put up would be about the glorious construction of the garden wall, with pictures of it gleaming in the sun whilst a Golem sprinted up the steps to demonstrate how wonderful it is to have rear access to the property.

Alas, as you can probably guess, the wall is still not started, and the slope of doom persists. Of course, it's been there for months now, but somehow this last few weeks of waiting for the builder to finish the job before us is dragging on spectacularly. The monster job which is re-roofing 3 tile roofs, installing one green roof (probably), re-roofing 4 flat roofs with fibreglass, re-cladding the dormers, repainting the front of the house and possibly replacing the entire guttering system awaits us, but we can't do a thing to start it (apart from working out the nitty gritty of how the hell we're going to do it) until the wall is done. Sad times.

There are a few things I've been doing in the meantime though, and being me they are all about the permaculture. Although my design for the garden is nowhere near completed, I've been trying to think of positive things to do to while away the waiting for the wall, and what with Spring having Sprung, there are all the lovely plants which will one day grace our garden to think about.

My garden design will focus heavily on perennials, partly because they're a vital part of any productive permaculture system, but also because they are resillient enough to cope with changing tenants and changing priorities. A garden of annuals relies on a gardener with the time and energy to get it up and running every year, but in a house where the tenants may change relatively frequently, and where the work needed on the house might drain energy and attention away from the garden, this can't be relied on. Perennial plantings are relatively neglect-proof, and should produce edible produce even if they're completely left alone, and in years where there are people here who fancy applying some TLC, the plants will quickly respond and become more productive.

Our current plantings are all perennials in pots

So to add to the perennials we already house (mostly herbs and berries) we now have a sea beet, some mountain sorrel, and some water dropwort. Finn and I will soon be planting seeds of globe artichoke, fennel, watercress and nasturtium (not perennial, but a prolific self-seeder) to add to them, and whenever the chance arises I'll be adding plants to our pot collection so that when we're in a position to start on the garden, the plants are ready and waiting.

Sea beet with a (when it gets established) groundcover of mountain sorrel

Water dropwort ('Flamingo'), which tastes like a cross between celery and something else...

We'll soon be foraging for co-op meals from our diverse and low-maintenance garden, and in the meantime we get the enjoyment of hunting for plants in the wider world, and scouring the slope of doom for materials for paving and raised bed building. This is our current crop, and it's nothing to what we might be able to forage out before the builder backfills behind the new wall and buries it all again.

Bricks at the back and stone at the front.

And it still looks like this!

Just to balance this post out with news of what some other people have been up to, Rob and Flick have been painting in the spare room, and barring a second coat on the cupboard and some touching up, it's done. The tiles have been bought, but aren't up yet. If anyone out there adores tiling then feel free to rescue me from this task - I've taken it on but I'm rubbish at tiling! There's almost certainly lunch and some baked goods in it for you :D

Sven and Cass fitted the extractor fan to the kitchen window, and both the prepayment meters have gone so we're in the process of switching to Good Energy for gas and electric. We had a maintenance workshop and now have a much more holistic maintenance plan which will hopefully ensure that when we do work on one element of the house, we do as much as we can at once (hence the slightly daunting list of work to do while the house is scaffolded). Games have been played, tea has been drunk. House life ticks on.

Hopefully my next post will manage to feature our good and glorious wall, but we shall see. Wish us luck ;)

- Hannah

All The Small Things

So we're into our first winter living in the house, and only 4 months away from finishing the first year here. Christmas was a low-key event with some co-op members and some guests present, and we had a separate co-op Christmas day when the rest of the co-op were back. In general people were home lots, and this meant that things got done. A lot of the things were small, annoying jobs which have somehow lingered for months and months, so it was very exciting to get them out of the way!

Firstly, between me and Sven the kitchen floor is now entirely tiled! OK, so the wall behind the door isn't done, but it's still progress. It actually looks quite smart, and will look even better when the grout dirties up to match the rest of the floor.

Everyone realised they'd been stepping over this gap since we moved in!

Sven and I replaced the pane of glass in the kitchen window, which got cracked in August. We've had the glass since September, but it's only just been done - shocking! There were huge amounts of putty to hack off, and it turned out that the window had been interestingly altered by a previous bodger, so we had to bodge it back together in our own way. It's looking good now though, and when the putty's hardened we can paint the outside of the frame to protect it a bit more. Alas, we're still awaiting an exchange on the extractor fan which broke very soon after we got it. I wonder if manufacturers will ever learn that making moving parts out of tiny bits of plastic is a bad plan?

It's destined to look a lot less scraggy, I promise!

I finally finished altering the kitchen plumbing to include a pipe for the boiler condensate outlet thingy. Fun times!

Sven made a blackboard for the kitchen so it's easier for us to see what the next stage of different jobs is, and I think it's really helping.

Made out of stuff lying around the house by Sven's fair hands!

Between a number of different Golems, the spare room is now painted! Well, the cupboard isn't, and the doorframe needs doing, and there's tiling to do too (once we've picked the tiles) but still, yay! Although it is in need of furniture, soft furnishings and things on the wall to make it homely, this still feels like progress. So much so, in fact, that Sven has finally moved the bed out of the tool room, so anyone staying from now on won't have to sleep amongst piles of tools and random timber. Huzzah!

Guests used to have this lovely pit to sleep in...

... but now they will have this beautiful pit instead!

The bed is a temporary measure, just so you know!

We've had one of our pay-as-you-go meters taken out, and the gas meter should be going in a week or so. This is exciting for two reasons. Firstly, no more running out of gas or electricity at random hours of the night - yay! And secondly, it will mean we can switch our power supplies to Good Energy. Win!

The last small thing I can think of is less practical, but still feels like a major achievement. When we moved in, we did a rough estimate of what we thought we needed to pay as a contribution to bills. Everyone decided it was easier to pay a flat rate payment each month so we could budget better, and we came up with a payment of £36. This was to cover gas, electric, water, internet and TV licence (council tax is included in our rent), but we soon discovered there was also enough money to cover washing up liquid, washing liquid, toilet rolls, toilet cleaner, teas of various sorts, coffee, sugar and milk of various sorts.

Even with all of these things being included, we discovered we were paying too much, so from February our bill payments will go down by £10 to £26. £26 for all of those things! Although it might need adjusting upwards in the future, this still seems fantastic to me, and it's all by virtue of having a lot of people living in one house. Even with our total lack of insulation and draught-proofing (not forever, but at the moment it is a leaky old house) none of us are struggling to pay energy bills, or having to decide between food or heat, and I think that's a pretty awesome thing.

So this is what even a young housing co-op can do: provide affordable rent and affordable bills, the knowledge that neither will go up without warning, and the income to keep improving the house so that our bills become even more affordable. Now I think about it, I don't think that's a small thing at all.

- Hannah

A big update

I promise we're still here, and still plodding on in our own way. It's just been a blog-free-from-me plod because I've been distracted. Luckily Cassian has been keeping you a bit up to date with wall-y shenanigans, and who doesn't love those?

Here's a little round up of other events chez Golem in recent months.

Toby came to stay for a week unexpectedly, and to make up for imposing on us so horrifically*, worked like a dog on the spare room. The removal of the tiles on the walls left hundreds of holes, large and small, and he filled them all up. Every last one!

B.T. (Before Toby)

A.T. (You get the idea)
 

This room has been patiently awaiting a paint job ever since, mostly because after Toby left, we filled it with bags full of broken up plasterboard from the hallway walls, and had to wait for that to be disposed of before we could even get through the door! It's clear again now, so will hopefully soon be looking swish and ready for a big reveal.

Speaking of the hallway walls, we have now gone from this, to this, to this!

Apologies for the rubbish shot, but you get the idea!

The hallway which gave this house it's original nickname (Labyrinth, for those who may not remember) is now wider and much, much lighter, and in the course of this big improvement we have made both Joe and Cassian's rooms bigger. Win all round! Their new walls are still at the plasterboard stage, but will hopefully be lovingly plastered soon. There is an enormous amount of making good to do, both in their rooms and in the hallway, but the big layout change is at least done, and sound insulation fitted in all the new partition walls. The studwork is staying here to be recycled, so we'll be taking it down in a leisurely fashion at some point soon. Toby came for another week and worked for days on this too, and very grateful for his help we are too.

This whole corner is now in Cass' room and not the hallway. Woop!

Outside of the house, there have been no big changes. We have finally accepted that rebuilding the wall is beyond us, and in mid-January a builder is coming to do the footings (and possibly the wall too). Although this is going to be a much more costly route, we have decided that delaying some other work in order to get this huge, lingering and in-the-meantime-quite-dangerous job done is something worthwhile. Personally, I can't wait for it to be done so we can start Operation Clean-up in the garden, which includes knocking down the breeze block wall which someone has plonked, very badly, on top of the Victorian stone wall between here and next door, and lifting the concrete. So much to do!

Speaking of paying professionals to swoop in and majestically fix things, we recently spent less than the cost of one new window to have six windows repaired. Between them they needed new hinges, handles, internal gear-y bits and panes of glass, and in the space of a few hours they were all as good as new. I swear the house has been less drafty as a result, Flick can now  see her wonderful view at last, and the frames should be good for a long time yet.

One of the hardest things I am finding about the work is that we are constantly delving into things and discovering over a century of tinkerers like ourselves and their weird ways of doing things. The house is not in a bad enough state to rip everything out completely and start again with bare walls, far from it, but I almost wish we could sometimes. This has obviously always been the case as lots of others have been there before us, adding layer upon layer of their own best efforts. The handrail of the stairs is a good example. It is completely different on each floor, and being me, I'd love to continue the small section of original handrail on the top floor back down to the bottom of all the stairs, and try to find some suitably authentic-ish spindles. Alas, someone has removed a key part of each stair on one section in order to fit their own bodge, so this would be much harder than it sounds. In order to make the handrail make sense, we would probably have to rip it all out, including the good bits, which seems to be the dilemma we arrive at in every room of the house.

Our financial year ends in a few days, so amongst other things we will be re-jigging all our work budgets, and re-planning out work priorities to match. Once the garden wall is done, we will probably be re-doing three of our four roofs, a thought which fills me with terror and delight in equal measures. Knowing the roofs are all in good nick will be the most wonderful thing, and we are hoping to re-roof the dormers and bay window at the same time. There's just the small matter of spending a few wintry weeks up four storeys of scaffolding to deal with! If that sounds like your thing, then please get in touch and we can let you know when we know more about dates.

I think that's everything, or everything major at least. I'll endeavour to update you more often, and will hopefully soon have a fabulous garden wall to show off. You never know!

- Hannah

* I jest, of course. He's been invaluable :D

Holes! In the wall!

I know, right? Awful picture. The house is wonky, but not *that* wonky; that was my laptop webcam being awkward to use.

However, it shows how different things are looking. That doorway to the right wasn't there before; this is the view from my bedroom door, which is also soon to move, and I previously was unable to see any of this. It was just wall. The studwork is pretending to be banisters for the time being.

Those pesky previous landlords, of which there is often at least one, decided that splitting our house into two flats was a good idea. So there were lots of funny shaped rooms and doorways in odd places. Coming down the stairs seemed like an epic mission to me, the sleepiest Golem, because to get upstairs from my room involved a weird U-turn detour thing.

It is now starting to open up and become glorious. The lightbulbs shine over a bigger area now, which saves electricity and makes the hallways safer, I feel. It would've become even more glorious today, except my lovely housemates held off on the work because I've been asleep all day with some kind of hideous stomach bug. What a bunch of legends.

The longer I am here, the more I get over my living-with-people grievances and love the place and its inhabitants.

This has gotten rambly. My point being, we're going to need to deal with an awful lot of plasterboard waste soon. At least it gets recycled, eh?