Fourth site meeting

Fourth site meeting today. All seems to be going well. Young people from the WEYES project have met an interior designer from _space to select colours. They also chose floor coverings, paving and railings for the front garden. Some of the staff have visited the site too and suggested some minor changes that will create some more storage cupboards from what would have been 'dead' space.

All the windows are in place. The new frames for the old building at the front had to be 'coaxed' into spaces which are no longer 'square' due to the age of the building but look nice and neat. All the stonework on the front is going to be repaired with some 'super substance' which is painted on and fills in the gaps.

The brick parapet on the front is a bit worrying. It leans forward a couple of inches so it is proposed to tie it back with 8 long metal rods secured to the parapet at one end and the roof at the other; but then also drill vertically downwards into the brickwork for a metre or so and insert steel rods there too. We wondered if the old bricks would take that or whether they would crumble. Anyway the plan is to try it and if it looks too dodgey to stop and instead take down and rebuild the parapet reusing the original bricks.

Inside the health rooms are taking shape, the downstairs one in particular at the front looks set to be a lovely room complete with one rounded corner. The upstairs health room also has 'character' - the floor slopes slightly due to the age of the building! The kitchen is a huge room and set to become the heart of the whole place. The new group room in the extension is a good size room too. Upstairs many of the rooms and the stairwell have been plastered. Many of the windows have large, deep sills.

None of the ceilings are in place yet, they are all going to be suspended ones with tiles and they will be put in place at the very end after all the decorating so nothing gets splashed on them.