Thursday 15 December 2011

Continuing progress

I've always been in a believer in the maxim...  "Start with the end in mind"

It contains two parts of what is required for all creative work .

1) "Start" .  The most exciting day of any project when you are full of energy, determination and hopefully some resources ! On this latest mini-project (rebuilding the kitchen )  within the main project (the farm restoration)  I'd already dived in headfirst as seen in the last couple of blogposts . I'd even made some healthy progress, getting well past "starting".

click to enlarge any photo

 2) "The end in mind" . Which can sometimes be as much fun as starting - the truely fluid part of making anything - visualising what could be . This part however always gets compromised by the inflexible realities of time and space, money, enthusiasm and energy reserves and it is knowing where the line must be drawn between the ideal and the "realistic" that enables any project to succeed. After much late night frantic kitchen designing I came up with the layout for the new kitchen using SketchUp
 
Which, unsurprisingly perhaps, looks quite a lot like the last kitchen!

The maxim, true as it may be, misses the most important and difficult part of the process, the part which slots inconveniently in-between starting and ending. The maxim  should of course be... "Start and continue with the end in mind".

3)  "and continue". For the last three months ( I started on 15th September 2011) I have been mainly "continuing". And continuing and continuing and....



 ...slowly, slowly , hour by hour I have been getting there (and bear in mind that I have chosen to do EVERY different trade myself). 

Its easy to forget the work that goes into the smallest parts of a build
 One of the jobs I dislike the most is plastering - I gladly paid someone to skim coat our last house. This time finances were different so the neatest option open was to use Ames taping on the plasterboard (also known as drywalling).  Three coats of plaster followed sometime later by 2 coats of paint just about did me in mentally ! Trying to be a perfectionist is hard work ,not always required and slow ! 


not forgetting the sanding before painting which is THE worst job

Times like this often remind me of a quote from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", not "The horror, the horror!"  (its not THAT bad working on your own house!) but the equally insightful view of the stoic riverboat captain Charles Marlow...

“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”




I suspect he'd spent time plastering when he wasn't exploring the dark heart of Africa.

Meanwhile,  "time, tide and buttered eggs wait for no man".  
 
The apples ripened ,got picked, eaten ,given away or fed to the mules...
From a tree we planted only last year
Hallowe'en came and went , decorated with home-grown pumpkins from the site of the demolished silo shed...

Eeek !
The autumn leaves fell and were enjoyed...

Willow playing in the Edinburgh Botanics
 Wooly hats were knitted and modelled in readiness for approaching winter...

"Can I have some wooly socks next Mum?"
and still the kitchen job continued. New enthusiasm was forthcoming with the arrival of the kitchen bits and some brief extra help...


Dad helping
...and continuing and...
but enthusiasm is a fleeting thing and hard to maintain !

not looking enthused !
Still, there was light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, when I got to the flooring I would  get someone in to fit it.

A stylish Amtico vinyl 'plank' floor was found and priced and ...

"Bloody hell I cant afford that!".   Momentary despair and then some lateral thinking resulted in the same solution as always. "I can just afford the materials only- but I'll need to learn how to fit it!"

Off I go again...

But first it was sheeted in ply and nailed by hand every 6 inches square. Urgh !
Thick as two, short,vinyl planks me !
 in fact it was even quite entertaining occasionally...  (very short video)


Elsewhere on the farm, teeth fell out...

The tooth fairy currently pays £1 a tooth. Now thats price inflation for you !
...trees fell down...

storm damage on the approach drive
...barn walls fell down...

the brick was already like this when we bought the place

...the barn roof blew off...

the big barn roof viewed from above towards the drive
over 50 sqm of roof came off !
... the wood we'd chopped up got wet...

...lucky thats the small pile !
... and yet more wood got chopped up...

Sam dispatches the tree that blew down on drive

...the glasshouse took a slight 'de-glazing'...

about half a wheelbarrow full came off
...Dads'  caravan got pole axed by a flying 8"x3" beam and he nearly got decapitated as the windows broke either side of him and the wall buckled inwards...

 ... and it snowed, which was at least opportunity for the kids to be creative...



Lundy's first ever snowman looks like Les Dawson !
All the while, for three months, April bravely organised all the meals  in the caravan

awaiting the day when "continuing with the end in mind"  would eventually become "the end that was kept in mind".

Well that day is almost here...



The end.

Nearly !






"

4 comments:

  1. Well done, Reuben. Where do you get the energy from?

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  2. I read your post, saw your post, and immediately got tired and needed a beer. Good work, my friend, take it easy or I will get fat.

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  3. They (they?) say that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive - but I don't know - you can get mightily sick of the journey! Well done for what you've achieved so far! Meanwhile, I think I'll have a nice cup of tea ...

    ReplyDelete