Ceiling Progress!

The first element of the work on the ground floor has been to treat the beams for bugs, beetles and all manner of fungii etc etc (not a nice job at all) , and to insulate and board between the beams. The current barn area is made up of the original barn and then a further barn that was added we are not quite sure when. These are agricultural working barns, where the animals were on the lower floor and the hay and feed-stuffs above, with trapdoors to send these down to the animals below ...... 

.... outside the barn you can see the ramp used to bring the food-stuffs in -  typical of the Tarn region, coming in all shapes and sizes. On the right-hand side you'll see some 'sails'  -  these cover the outside eating area, where use has been made of the space under the barn ramp, with a large window, so there is shade, shelter and views to the garden. You can see some photos of this in the Photo Album.

Anyway, inside the barn we have been placing insulation between all the beams and then pinning boarding (placoplatre) to hold this in place. 

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Many of the beams are huge, basically whole tree-trunks  -  but with very irregular shaping, so cutting the insulation and boarding is time-consuming and demanding. Once the main lengths are laid and screwed into place, all the edge spaces need to be filled in with tailored boarding, often allowing some of the more eccentric pieces of beam to feature:

So, who is that glimpse of a person in the photograph above? That is our very good friend and builder, David, without whom we would not be progressing the development so well .... more of him later!
Before the insulation and boarding are in place, all the electrics wiring has been put in place .... careful planning and labeling required. 

We've made good progress in the first 10 days  -  next week we start work on the walls and flooring and this will really start to create a sense of the overall layout that we're aiming for.

More news next week then ...........

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