As we return to work following our Christmas break, we have almost completed our complete renovation at Cavendish.

We are just waiting for granite worktops to arrive, then we will have a good blitz through to finish off. It’s looking fantastic already. We will post more pictures once it is complete.

On New Year’s Eve, the master of the house would open all the doors and windows throughout the house, even if it was freezing cold! This was done so that the burden of the old year could be let out, leaving everything fresh and new for the incoming year! We think a few people might agree with this one after 2020! Happy 2021 from all of us here at K.E. Jones & Son Builders Ltd!

Here's the last in our series of Christmas blogs! It has long been a tradition to put Christmas decorations up around the home. In medieval times evergreen boughs  called kissing boughs were decorated with fruit and hung from the ceiling, and later on this was changed to mistletoe as it was believed that mistletoe brought good luck and fertility.

All of us at K.E.Jones & Son Building Services would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas! Eat, drink, be merry and stay safe! 

We've been scouring the internet for Christmas traditions to do with buildings and found this one! In Finland, the majority of homes have their own sauna built in. On Christmas Eve, the sauna is designated a sacred space associated with dead ancestors. This has been a Finnish custom for many centuries. Tradition states that Finns must strip naked and take a long, respectful stint in the sauna. This is called Joulusauna in Finnish. After this they must head out to evening celebrations so that the spirits of their ancestors can take their place in the sauna!

Following on from our blog about topping out, another ancient tradition on Christmas Eve was to bring a large oak log into the house. This had to be one that was too heavy for one man to lift alone. It would be put in the hearth, and if it was still smouldering on Christmas day, then it was said that those living in the home would have a prosperous new year.

We are thrilled to share the latest progress on our complete renovation in Cavendish. All the plastering is now done, the flooring is down and the second fixing is about to begin. We think it's looking great!

Our job in Bures Road is progressing really well. The oversite is now complete. This is a layer of concrete that seals the earth and creates the ground floor of the building.

As we enter the festive season we decided to look at some Christmas traditions associated with buildings. The first one is called ‘topping out’ or ‘topping off.’ This is when an evergreen tree is placed on the highest point of a project to bring luck to the building, and also signifies the finishing of the structure. Drinks and a meal were also provided to the workers as part of the celebration (we like the idea of this one!). This tradition originated from Scandinavia, where it also symbolised the structure’s connection to the forest, and was said to appease any tree-dwelling spirits that were displaced during construction. The tradition was spread through northern Europe to England by the Vikings.

The tradition has also been absorbed into other cultures, for example in America, the native american belief was, ‘that no building should be taller than a tree.’ Putting trees on top of buildings was a way to get round this!

In Germany, the tradition has evolved so that laurel branches are hung around the chimney of a building to celebrate the ‘birth’ of the building and also in memory of anyone that died during construction so that they may have eternal life. 

As we woke up to snow this morning, and people are beginning to feel festive, we wanted to share how we’ve been doing some very important Christmas work this week, getting chimneys ready for The Big Man himself! We have sorted out three chimneys in Cavendish! You can see one of them before we started - the mastic was not great.

We have redressed them in lead and repointed them with lime mortar.

We have also done a lovely red-brick one in Honey Tye.

So here’s to K.E. Jones & Son Building Services - helping you get Santa-ready! Ho Ho Ho!

Another property that we were called in to help with, had insufficient support, which meant that there were cracks which had formed due to movement. We installed tie-rods throughout the building. These have been used throughout history to reinforce the masonry structure and to absorb outward pressure. Long metal bars are installed from one side of the building to the other through the floor joists in order to connect walls back together.

You can often identify a property that has this by the S-brackets which are anchor plates on the outside. These also come in other traditional decorative shapes. In addition we also had to stitch-in brickwork. This involves putting helical bars into the brickwork which are secured with a specialist type of mortar. This is a solution for weaknesses and cracks, and gives the brickwork more strength.