Week 5/21: 5th February 2021

The Weekday Warriors continue to impress with their stamina, enthusiasm and ability to get down and dirty! Another busy week has seen them almost finished with the clearing out of the areas needed for our new kitchen. With the demolition work now nearly complete the next phase, construction, will be starting very soon.

Another wall, another chance for the Warriors to "modify" it.

Tony gets everywhere! There are lots of jobs that need to be done all round the site - some small and some slightly larger. Think you can help? We do need Weekday Warriors to help us continue with the renovation.

This was The Room of Doom with the alleged tunnel under the staricase. The Warriors have taken down the non-load bearing wall, taken up the floor, levelled the place and ensured that there was no re-occurrence of the rot of several years ago. This is now incorporated into The Store Room.

As well as having far too much fun in the process, our busy Warriors have shifted a great deal of rubbish. All the rubble that has been removed from the kitchen, stockroom and cold store is now in the courtyard awaiting removal.

Whilst this work is going on in The Kitchen area, The School House is closed. The School are using the IT Suite and The Bar for lessons for the students who are attending. Everyone on site is regularly checked for Covid with our own testing provided by The School.

Week 6/21: 12th February 2021

A vital step to secure the structure for the kitchen space and no easy task. The photo shows the team positioning the two steels before bolting them together. All they then have to do is lift the entire steel into position! Definitely a team task utilising brains, brawn and some nifty lifting gear on hire for the day. We look forward to showing the results next week.

Putting the two steells together is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Check you have all the bits, orientate them the right way, check that they actually fit, and then go for it. And have the lifter ready to mount your creation in the right place.

And it's up as quick as a blink. Well not excatly as there was a lot of sweat and tears to get the steel up there, but as you can see, the guys have made huge progress in just a few hours.

If you have been following what has been going on, the Warriors have been digging down and stabilising the floor in The Kitchen and other backrooms. They have also demolished the wall between The Store Room and The Room of Doom. All that debris was removed during the week. Some very skillful driving was required to get the tipper truck into The Courtyard!

It's not just The School who were braving the cold; the wild birds of Clewer were taken care of by students who turned a pile of old Swan floorboards into nest boxes. At least one of these will end up in The Courtyard as a new home.

Week 7/21: 19th February 2021

Time to start putting it back together! The Weekday Warriors have been joined by the 'brickies' who have started rebuilding the walls to secure the steel beam and new lintels over the doorways.

The wall at the back of The Kitchen is being rebuilt by our contractors.

Next the fireplace wall will be completed, and the pipe work for services are being planned out before the floor is filled and laid. The plan for the kitchen has moved forward significantly and initial drawings look exciting.

Do you have some time to donate? Can you help and be a Weekday Warrior? Why not get in contact or simply go down to The Swan. No experience required.

A huge thank you to Steve and his team at Permagard for their incredibly generous reduction in prices for the damp proof membrane kits required for our kitchen install. They were so supportive of the project and have offered their assistance with any advice we may need.

Week 8/21: 26th February 2021

Over the weekend, the team and contractors cracked on to finish the back wall of THe Kitchen. You can see the difference between the newly installed breeze block and the original wall.

Earlier this week the team took down most of the Acrows that have been supporting the metal beams that were installed. These are no longer required.

Next they took on the back breaking work of barrowing in tonnes of screed material to level off the floors in the backrooms and The Kitchen itself.

This has left some opportunities for the team - who said it was going to be easy? With the total removal of the chimney, that leaves a gap between THe Kitchen and The School House directly above which now needs to be filled in.

Team work has been essential these last couple of months. Do you want to join them? We could do with more Weekday Warriors to help progress The Kitchen so that we are open as quickly as possible. Come and see us!