Stone Fireplace, Stone Staircase, Limestone Fireplaces

We have a friend who worked for us about 25 years ago. He’s now divorced and retired and living in Mallorca. Trouble is, he’s a bit uninspired (bored) at the moment, and needs something to fill his days, but not really a full time job. Spain of course has the same unemployment problems that we have, so neither country really offers better chances. We’re very busy with our stone fireplaces, but this lad is not a stone mason, so can’t help us there. It’s a difficult dilemma, but I’m trying to convince him that being at a loose end in Spain, is preferable to being in the same state in the uk. The warm weather alone makes that choice better!

We’re very busy at the moment, but we always are it seems. We’ve loaded up a couple of vans first thing, and we’re now all working out in the stone yard. Two masons are away this week doing a stone staircase installation, or at least the first part of one, and in total they’ll probably be away for 4-5 weeks as it’s a very big and complex job. They’re staying in a lovely little B&b though, in a lovely little Surrey village, so I think they’re got the best job for this month!  The client is also a chef, and he cooks them great little lunches every day, and they keep texting the rest of us and telling us about them, so we may have to ignore them soon as we’re all getting very jealous!

The farmer wants us to help him catch his cat, or one of them, as it’s young and he’s not sure what sex it is, and he wants to get it neutered before his sheds are full of kittens again. Trouble is, it’s a bit wild, and I’m not sure it’ll be very keen on getting caught!

I went to look at some stone work at a house in Warwickshire yesterday, and the owner is a classic car enthusiast.  He had a lovely old barn and workshop in which he had 6 lovely old english cars from the 40s and 50s. There was an AC; an Austin; a daimler and a lovely open two seater called a Lea Francis.  The guy’s hobby was just gradually restoring and ‘fettling’ these lovely old cars, and he was looking forward to the spring/summer as he wheels them out of the barn and works on them in the sunshine. He wants us to make him two stone fireplaces, and a stone fountain.

We’re all out in the stone yard, but it is a bit damp and cool, but still nice to be outside. We’ve got a lorry coming in a few minutes with a big load of stone, and we’ve got the forklift going already, although it is actually a good starter in anything other than sub zero weather.

The farmer is busy at the moment preparing for lambing. The ewes have all been brought back from the various fields, and are now in lovely straw-bedded pens in the farmer’s buildings. He has done traditional lambing in the fields in past years, but it is much harder to moniter what’s going on, and inevitably used to lead to the loss of more lambs so he now always lambs back here at the farm.

We’ve got a few local deliveries to make this week. Some stone fireplaces to Melbourne in Derbyshire, and some stone stairs to a house in East Leicestershire. Because they’re relatively close to home, we’ll deliver it ourselves, and use whichever of us has a spare hour to do the driving!

Although we do a lot of stonework for contemporary projects, the majority of our work is probably done on restoration and renovation projects of period properties. It isn’t just natural stone that is widely used in these projects, but also other natural and traditional materials like oak; wrought iron; other old timbers and associated metal work.  We recently worked on one very lovely house, that had been gutted by fire, due to some faulty old wiring (what a tragedY!) and the interior was so badly burned that all the oak had gone and much of the stone had cracked or crumbled in the intense heat. There was probably only about 20% of the original house that was salvageable, but because it was such an important building, the listed building officer and the planners decided that the 20% should be preserved and built around, rather than demolishing and building completely new.

The joiners on the site were incredibly skilful, and they made new internal doors from oak, but aged them and put on blacksmith made door furniture that looked like it was hundreds of years old. We were fitting a stone fireplace in the property while they were fitting the doors, and we were very impressed with the skills of the joiners.

We’re all out in the stone yard today, although it’s not very sunny. We’re making a large stone fireplace and also a pair of stone gate pillars to go to a customer in central london. The fireplace has to go onto the 3rd floor and there is only a fairly narrow staircase, so it’s going to take some muscle to get it up there!

The stone gate pillars will be easier, but they have their own problems in that the house is on a busy road, and we’ll need to hiab the stone blocks off a lorry, and that will probably take at least half an hour, so it may result in some congestion. I find installations in cities a little claustrophobic because there is so little room to move, and the traffic can be a big problem.

We’d got a pair of buzzards sitting on the roof of the stone shed when we arrived this morning. The looked like a couple of cartoon vultures sitting there apparantly ‘having a chat’. Anyway, they didn’t stick around once we arrived and they flew off down the field.

It was a lovely day yesterday, with clear blue skies and sunshine and it got up to 18 degrees! It felt like spring! It looks like it may be similar today, as there isn’t much cloud, and the sun is peeping through. We’re all in the stone yard and are getting on really well with the big stone staircase. We’ve been on it for 4 days, and I would say we’ve got a couple more days to go.  We had a very interesting stone fireplace enquiry yesterday: A couple drove up to us from Cornwall, as they’d seen some other work that we have done down there. They are restoring what sounds like a lovely old farmhouse, and they want us to make them two stone fireplaces, and they also want us to supply some stone stone for a folly that they’re going to build on the edge of a wood that belongs to the house. It’s going to be a sort of temple in appearance, and they’ll use it for picnics, as it sits up high, and apparently you can just see the sea in the distance, and also they get very impressive sunsets, and this is a great place to view them from. It sounds idyllic!

It’s a bit of a ‘buzz’ subject at the moment, but I’m not convinced that it is the right way to go? Even in rural leicestershire, we have a few people seeking permission for wind turbines, and I really do think they are an eyesore.  The area where I go in Spain; the Sierra de Gredos north west of madrid is not blighted with hundreds of massive wind turbines along the top of every ridge. What was once a beautiful rugged mountain range, now looks terrible, and I think there must be better alternatives. Solar is the big thing at the moment too, and with the generous feed-in-tariffs (ending next month) it is probably a viable option for the customer, although again, the panels can be a bit unsightly on a house roof, and of course, we don’t get much sun in this country.

In Spain, they have massive fields of solar panels, and that seems to be a very good idea, as they’re not very visible depending on location, and also Spain gets a lot of sun, so I imagine they produce a lot of power. But now economical are they really. Will they last for years or will they all go faulty before they’ve ever produced enough power? There are so many uncertainties!

Certainly there isn’t much solar power today! It’s very overcast here, but much milder, so we’re all working out in the stone yard. We’ve got all the stone fireplaces from yesterday finished, and are just laying out the blocks to start carving the big stone stairs. It’ll take us all working on this stone staircase to have it done for when the client wants it. He ordered it rather late, but he’s a very good customer, so we don’t mind putting in some extra effort to accomodate him, and the delays (he’s convinced us) are more to do with difficult planners than his own bad organisation!

The Brian Cox Universe programme is being shown on Sunday nights again, and I find it rivetting. I don’t pretend the understand all the physics that are described, but his presentation is such that one does begin to understand it a little bit. Last night’s programme was about the death of a star, and the processes that happen during that event. As with all things astronomical, the timescales are big… the death of a star may take millions of years, but that makes it no less amazing.  I’ve tried to convert the masons to watch it, but they’re sceptical, and would rather watch trash tv!

We’re all out in the stone yard, but it’s gone very cold again, and so we’re well wrapped up. We’ve got three stone fireplaces to finish for a collection tomorrow, and so we’re hoping we don’t get any rain today. We’ve also got a big stone staircase to start this week and the stone for it is arriving this week, hopefuly we’ll have the stone fireplace work done by tomorrow, so we can all work on the stone stairs.

I went cycling with one of the masons yesterday, as I’m determined to get a bit fitter this year.  It was a bit of a mistake though (for him) as I could only average about 12 mph for the 18 miles that we did, and he normally keeps up about 15, so he was getting very frustrated at my lack of pace (and lack of energy) When we got back, he looked like he’d not done any excercise, whereas I looked like I’d run a 100 miles!

The ducks from the farm have followed the chickens this morning, and are all over the stone yard, and in the stone shed. A couple of the smaller ones, I think they’re ‘call’ ducks, have managed to squeeze under a stack of stone blocks that are intended for stone fireplaces, and are messing about in a little pool of water next to the back wall of the stone shed.  It’s gone cold again this morning, but everyone bar one mason is working out in the stone yard. We did our early despatch, and had the lorry back off down the lane by 7.30 on its way to Ireland.

I’ve just been planning a kitchen (on the computer) for a client. It’s a lovely room, but he wants us to incorporate some stone supports for his breakfast ‘island’ and also he wants us to make a sort of canopy out of stone to go over his aga/range. There are some great kitchen companies in this country, that do some very understated but beautiful kitchen furniture, but I’m stunned by how expensive some of it is. It’s not difficult to spend £60k on a kitchen, and you can still get a  house in some areas for less than that. Talk about a Rich/Poor divide!

Over the road from us, in the fields, a local club are doing some metal detecting. Apparently someone approached our farmer recently, and told him they thought his field was once the site of a medieval manor, and that they’d like to look for any artifacts. It’s all quite exciting, as I think everyone is thinking that there may be a big pot of gold somewhere, however unlikely that is. We’re more interested to see if there are any stone foundations or suchlike from this mythical manor.  I don’t suppose they do any digging unless they get some good ‘bleeps’ or find some interesting items.

I’ve js

We’ve just got our van stuck in a field. We were delivering a stone fireplace to a farm and it needed to be taken round the back of the house, but there was so much building rubble in the way, the only access was by going through the field. I had a feeling that now the ground had thawed, that it would probably end this way, but I had noticed that the customer had a tractor on site and sure enough it was needed. Tractors are great aren’t they, it pulled our big van out without any apparent effort, and we were soon on our way.

We’ve all been out in the stone yard today. It’s very warm.. well 8 degrees, which feels practically tropical after all the recent cold stuff. I haven’t even needed the fan heater on in the office! We’ve got another big stone fireplace to pallet up tonight for someone who’s coming to collect early in the morning. We’ve only just finished carving it, and it is a lovely piece of Cambray stone. Very nice texture and lovely colour.

Just had a lovely customer at the stone workshop. He was after a stone fireplace for his house, and said he’d seen ours on the net and said he loved them because they were classic. What a compliment! I mean we’ve always tried to make a simple, plain and traditional product, and in that sense I suppose a lot of our products are of classic design, but whatever the truth, this guy was very complimentary about our designs, and said we stood out when he searched the net for what he needed for his project.

We’ve been very busy today, and have been visiting several sites that are near to us. Some involving ongoing stone work, and others that we are in the process of quoting for. I’ve done about 200 miles since 8.00 am, and am now feeling a bit weary, but still have lots to do.  We’re all working out in the stone yard, but it’s a bit chilly. The farmer has just had a new tractor delivered, and it looks incredibly sophisticated. He’s probably just had his RPA cheque I suspect1

Tomorrow we’ve got another busy day, as we’ve got a lorry coming first thing to collect a load of stone steps for a walled garden project in Ireland. The customer has been working on it for years, and just doing a little bit more as he can afford it. The good thing about that is that he’s not rushed anything, and so he has time to ponder every piece of work, and has hardly made any mistakes or done any thing that he regrets. The only downside is that he’ll be about 100 by the time it’s all finished!

Well, not warm, but definately warmer!  No frost on the cars, and we’re all working out in the stone yard and will many few layers of clothes on. Mind you, there is still a lot of snow on the fields, and so the ground must still be very cold.  We’ve got a busy day as we’ve got a big load of stone blocks arriving around lunch time, and we’re also despatching the big stone fireplace that we were working on last week. We’re just packing it on pallets now.

I went a lovely cycle ride on Saturday. It was very cold, but clear and sunny and I wrapped up well (not a pretty site but prob I was unrecognisable!)  The intention was to go on the local mountain bike trails, but as soon as I turned off the road and onto them, I found there was still 3 to 4 inches of frozen snow which was nigh on impossible to ride as I was either in danger of going splat, or just spinning my wheels and going nowhere, so I gave up and stuck the the tarmac. Did about 11 1/2 miles and felt much better for it!

On friday night, went to see a great little band in Derby. They’re called Micro Jupiter; write all their own songs; have great talent and are the nicest most polite group of young lads that you could meet.

It’s clouded over here now, and so we won’t be getting much sun by the look of it!