After a late afternoon premeditated outage, all systems are back on line and the barn is finally operational. This smooth transition was carefully planned through a number of complex spreadsheets, and the configuration of the electronic multitude documented to a level of precision, one could proudly call military.

A slight logistical oversight caused the plan to be somewhat rationalised to something along the lines of turn it all off, lump it up the garden, mutter a small prayer, turn it all back on agai”?. You see only once I was awash in a sea of disconnected cables did I realise that all the planning stuff was stored, unprinted, on the PC. That’s the same computer now lying dormant with it’s life-giving umbilicals savagely ripped out. Oops.

Never mind, there’s only nine plugs, seven USB connections, a rather complex music system and various connections I’ve never really understood but do in some way seem integral to a happy and humming system. There’s a certain satisfaction when an errant connection finally clicks home confirming that your installation approach of stabbing it blindly in the general direction of an appropriate sized hole is, in fact, pretty damn efficient. Worked for me before in, er, other situations so it seemed appropriate to try it here. And at no point did the PC sigh for God’s sake, if this is your idea of foreplay, I’ll turn the TV back on“.

Too much information again? Sorry.

Here are a few pictures to take your mind off that disturbing mental image.

The line above shows before and after taken from about the same place separated by about 9 weeks.

This line are a few random more. I’m really happy about the alarm system. It is truly idiot proof – trust me I’ve tested it.

It wasn’t all beer and skittles. Until some bright spark develops wireless everything including power, there’s a rats nest of cables spoiling the clean lines of the wall. I examined my bothered pocket but there was nowt in there, so in the executive style of BARN CEO, I reckoned it was good enough.

The sofa however was quite another matter. When we moved house, the removal guys whistled long and hard over cups of tea and roll ups when we diffidently asked if it was possible to get it upstairs. Not without taking the windows out apparently. It is rather a large item but through sheer bloody mindedness we shoehorned it into a spare bedroom and vowed never to move it again. Except in firewood sized pieces. The cost of the redecorating of almost every wall in the house is still a painful memory and this was nearly three years ago.

So reversing the process was a tad wearisome. At one point, my insanely frustrating and sweating form could be found kicking the offending object while offering the following advice You get stuck one more fucking time and I’m fetching the fire axe” I” KICK am” RAM WITH ELBOW not” SHOULDER CHARGE Fucking” HEADBUT Joking” COLLAPSE IN WEEPING DESPAIR.

All this achieved was creating a rather stylish if totally useless chimney in what was previously pristine paintwork. After a couple of days effort and the real possibility of a Rooney like Metatarsal injury, we cracked the code by improvising in the fifth dimension and applying time lapse string theory. It’s behind me as I write this and it’s bloody grinning. FIREAXE” yeah that’s showed it who’s boss.

Needless to say the entire house needs redecorating yet again including replacing an inoffensive five foot floorboard that got in the way”. I was not a man to be trifled with at this point let me tell you. It would have been cheaper to buy a new sofa but it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that if there is a stupidly expensive way to do a job, I’ll intuitively come to that solution. I’m thinking of it as a gift.

There’s still much to do on the workshop side including the ceremonial hanging of the tool wall. However, when the builder finally returns from the cup of tea he popped out for a few days ago, his first priority will be the office floor. After three coats of woodstain so thick we had to chisel it out, it still has the shielding properties of gravy. I’m all for a bit of natural weathering but already it has the appearance of hosting a 24 hour roller skating contest for fat people.

Having whinged on for about 700 words, it is worth saying it is a bloody ace place to work. Once the beer fridge is re-installed, all shall be well with the world.

Until I break the next thing. Stay tuned, it won’t be long.