It's finished (or very, very nearly)

So, here is the new two-part barn:

Very nearly finished, because the galvanised doors have to be painted juniper green at some point to match the cladding of the rest of the structure.  The lower pair are sliders and the higher pair side-hinged, and amazingly everything seems to work well despite the sloping site.  We now know that 80 tons of stone went into levelling the floors - it will be great to have our first level working sites, and under cover, too.

What a lot of stock items I'm going to be able to fit in!

Amazing progress

Exactly a week ago this was our view in the field towards Moel Arthur:

And this is what our great team of four erectors from Cerrigydrudion have achieved in just five working days:

It's all the more surprising as the first day was 'just' demolition and the second ended with nothing to show above ground, as the site had been measured and holes dug for the concrete bases which now support the steel posts.  Offsite pre-fabrication helps, of course, but much of the cladding and timber has to be cut on site, and the idiosyncracies of the sloping site have to be managed.  A huge amount of topsoil has been excavated to provide the (now stone) turning semicircle in front of the new building, and, perhaps most spectacularly of all, concrete panels - the largest 6m by 1m by 100mm - were inched into place yesterday to act as retaining walls for the levelling of the two floors with further supplies of stone.  It's impressive to see a group working so well together, with all of them able to control the large machines with a delicate touch, able to weld, able to block-lay, work timber, etc.

We are in awe.  They could well finish this week.