Snakes and Ladders

The latest work on the house includes stone cleaning (inside and out), mortaring (between the stones) and putting in pipes and conduits for water, electricity and central heating. What a mess!

The stones are cleaned with high pressure water. This is no real problem outside, but inside it's made everything very wet! Still, the stones come up looking great, and we've decided to leave more stone visible than we originally expected to. Here's the west wall of the house; the workers are up there finishing off the mortar between the stones:

Ladders and scaffolding up the side of the house as the stones are cleaned and mortared

The electrical and pipe conduits are really amazing. It's incredible how many are required. I don't think there's anything particularly special about our house -- we have a couple of sockets in each room, a light or two, one small and one larger bathroom, and a radiator in some rooms -- but the amount of conduiting is almost mind-boggling. I've tried to keep records (photographic and on paper) of where everything runs, but in the end I'm sure I'll miss some details. Drilling holes in walls or floors, or trying to find pipe runs for future repairs, will be a fun task indeed!

Snakes in the first floor bathroom! Note how many of the hot and cold water pipe conduits and drains run under the floor; next step is to set them in solid concrete!

Pipe and electrical conduiting for the kitchen. How am I going to hang wall cabinets on those walls without piercing something?