Open House Surgery

They say bad news comes in threes and I've made another blunder, only this time there was no easy way out.

I wrote in the previous post about how the two houses are attached, but not quite as I presumed, at the front.

Well, there was a nasty surprise lurking at the rear.

All through the process I've been working from a set of digital research pictures we have taken over the years.

This is one of the images I have of the back of the houses and I think it's pretty clear from looking at it that they are joined at the back, wouldn't you agree?

Wrong!

There was an area at the front of the buildings that I was still puzzling over and I knew that somewhere in a drawer I had some prints (remember those?) from one of our very first visits to the site, and I looked them out to see if there were any better views of the bit I was unclear about.

It turned out there were, and it answered the initial query I had, but I also found some pictures taken at the back and they contained an unwelcome surprise.

I think it's pretty clear from the image below what I discovered.

Yes, that's right. They are most definitely not attached at the back.

Drat!

So how was I going to get out of this one?

The only option was going to be to take a chunk out of the side of number 18 - the model that is allegedly finished - to create the passageway.

Well, there was nothing else for it but to get on with some judicious destruction.

The roof was eased off and then half of the side wall had to be removed.

I had a stroke of luck here because right at the start of the build I messed up this wall by accidentally slicing it in half.

I'd put it back together with an almost invisible joint and that meant it was easy to snap it apart again.

The last thing to be ripped off was the patio door frame that I'd so carefully built and then I could start the reconstruction by fixing the replacement wall in the altered position.

I quickly knocked up a new window frame - and as is the way of these things it's actually a more simple and robust structure than the original one.

Once that was glued into position the last big job was to trim the slates piece to the new size and slip it back into position.

I've still got to put the foundations in again and stick the brickwork back on but I feel relieved to have been able to successfully  correct this glaring error.