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Blogs

Canalside Bungalow Renovation

Give your head a wobble

Combine the chaos of building work, attempting to project manage various tradesmen and coordination of items, living and working in a caravan and not knowing where we were going to live in 3 weeks time with a stressful period at work and I finally had a complete meltdown. I've been pulling my hair out (literally) so have 2 inch pieces of hair in places where I've ripped it out through stress, I look like a lovely female version of Freddie Kruger (great ? attempt) due to a stress skin reaction an
Little Stud Barn

Nov 4th - It's not good being a woman at times

This week I have been getting price estimates for everything I need, the list is getting very long and it's taking ages as I'm trying to get multiple quotes, I may give up on that idea. I am also submitting this to estimating companies / builders merchants, but want the control of also doing it myself.   This morning the roofing company man rang me, asked some stupid questions and didn't listen to the answers as he talked over me. He then said, I'll be there at 11.  At 12:45
  • LSB
God is in the Details

Adapting a House for People who are Frail, Elderly or Disabled

I have written a number of articles about adapting a house to be more suitable for use by people who are frail, older or disabled.   This is a list so that anyone interested (or not interested) can find them slightly more easily.   Converting a Downstairs Bathroom into an Accessible Shower Room   Cost for this was just over £2k, including about £1k for the Fitter Labour and £250 for a shower seat and grab rails etc. A full replacement would have cost about £2500, wi
Little Stud Barn

Oct 28th 2020 - Estimations and dumpers

This week I have been going through each room of the build and looking at what it needs, not furniture, but sockets, lights, floors and painting amongst the list. I have never in the past appreciated just how much is involved in creating rooms from scratch, despite doing multiple renovations & extensions. Before I can send off for estimates I still have the family room to complete, I've been avoiding that one as with the kitchen, multiple doors and outside access it will be quite d
  • LSB
Back on the self-build waggon...

Master Bedroom renovation

Wasn't going to post this one, as in the grand scheme of things its fairly regular and a bit boring, but there is a few interesting points which may be of use to others...   The photos are panoramic, don't worry the floor isn't bent! ? This was a before photo once all the fitted furniture was removed   Everything stripped out, and underfloor fully cleaned and hoovered   New timber put in which has been post-delivery treated (bloody builders merch
Canalside Bungalow Renovation

And then there was windows!

Overall it went swimmingly well, couple of minor issues but soon resolved and need to return to sort out a handle issue but John Knight Glass were, IMO really great and for final sign off we wait for contact over next couple weeks when someone else comes to site to check everything with us so enough time to raise any snagging issues hopefully.   Despite some panic on the canal bridge when the trailer was about 8 inches off the floor, everyone held their breath when the glass got over s
Little Stud Barn

No gas here - well probably not anyway

Today was the penultimate of 6 gas monitoring check as part of our phase 2 contamination survey.  They dug 6 bore holes of 3 m deep and then left 2 with gas monitors in situ.   I noticed today though that the one on the left has some dying plants around it, which is slightly worrying as it used to look like the other one.   But, at their last check they have not found any gas at all in their holes, mainly because where they are looking is subsoil where a building us
  • LSB
Canalside Bungalow Renovation

GRP Part 2

So.... Old roof off this week, firings sorted so our roof has a fall on it and the professionals arrived today for the GRPing, thank god it's dry. On site at the moment and just had a sneak peak.   We are so pleased with this compared to previous.   This is the fall, not sure how the builders are going to deal with the exposed wood yet.       Credit to the guys who were on site before 8am.        
Druim nan Darach

Final external works

Following on from the last entry we had our final inspection and were on the cusp of getting our completion certificate. A few final documents were uploaded and a certificate was received from building control.   We had built a house.   A few final jobs were completed following the last blog entry.   I order 20 tonnes of gravel from a quarry on Skye and then barrowed it down the access and spread it around the house.   I also had enough to put som
Little Stud Barn

Another week, another plan change

14th Oct 20   I have spent less time than usual in the last week looking at the build and layouts, probably a good thing. But, I still worry when other commitments get in the way, it doesn't really matter at the moment, but it will do once the action really starts.   Once thing we have done is look at buying a digger rather than hiring. The issue we have is the back of the barn only has a very narrow passage way between the existing wall and a steep bank, so this ne
  • LSB
Building in a woodland on the Isle of Wight

Dodging the rain while wielding a slating hammer

Progress has been made intemittently between the various storms. The guttering is getting a thorough testing some days. My friend Jeff has returned to site for a week so we have a chance of getting ahead in the inevitable race against the bad winter weather. Some jobs just go better with more people on site...   Like moving hundreds of slates around!   The 15 metre long north roof very close to completion. Just the top row left to go, and we'll do this from t
  • dnb
Canalside Bungalow Renovation

It's not a roof update . . .

To those who commented on our GRP, this is not an update. The next installment to that will hopefully be at the end of next week when the crap roof will be off and a proper company coming in to sort after we insisted on an insurance backed guarantee. I shall update then, watch this space!   Flat roof aside.....   All our new extension had insulation laid and our existing flooring excavated for insulation too. We had the UFH pipes laid and there was A LOT.    
Canalside Bungalow Renovation

It's not a roof update . . .

To those who commented on our GRP, this is not an update. The next installment to that will hopefully be at the end of next week when the crap roof will be off and a proper company coming in to sort after we insisted on an insurance backed guarantee. I shall update then, watch this space!   Flat roof aside.....   All our new extension had insulation laid and our existing flooring excavated for insulation too. We had the UFH pipes laid and there was A LOT.    
Little Stud Barn

PD Planning Permission and Pitch

Another week of not really achieving anything. Due to our class Q PD planning we have to keep the dimensions exactly as they are, well I guess we could be smaller, but definitely not bigger. This is up, down and side to side. I have been looking at the roof, the main one as we have 2, which is huge at 24m x 10m and a single roof, i.e. not a pitch. This is how the barn looks now, we want a zinc or at least metal roof, but the minimum pitch is 8 degrees and I hadn't realised, a
  • LSB
Little Stud Barn

1st Oct, layout decided at last

At last, after a huge amount of discussion and lots of 'what about this.....' we have decided on our final layout. Due to cost constraints, the windows are smaller than originally hoped for.     As the rear of the barn has a low roof I have a ground worker coming on Sunday to look at digging down. The floor currently has 4 different levels, I want them all taken down to the lowest so we can basically start from scratch. We want UFH, but as the roof and ridg
  • LSB
Little Stud Barn

Size does matter

I have been using some layout software to layout my barn conversion to see how to layout my rooms. I have been doing this gradually for weeks now without finishing as furnishing and moving in is probably years away.   But, today I went back to my original plans showing the barn dimensions and realised that I have been doing the external size totally wrong in my layout. The architects proposed layout didn't have any dimensions for the individual rooms and we changed those anyw
  • LSB
Canalside Bungalow Renovation

GRP (God-awful Rubbish Period)

I'll start with the GRP roof but I'll dedicate this whole blog entry to which I will deem the God-awful Rubbish Period. This probably seems like I'm over exaggerating but there's just been a lot of things combined with work, personal etc and I have really been feeling the pressure.   Intially, as they started laying the fabric the GRP looked OK but, despite what I would say is perfect conditions for the GRP going on from what I know through reading on here we, were appalled by the qual
Little Stud Barn

September 16th

Over the last week, although we can't start building, I have been starting to clear the site of brambles, nettles and other growth that we don't want. Cutting it all down and burning is fairly easy, stopping it all coming back is not. I checked with CIL and planning that I could do this as I don't want to fall foul of anything whilst the phase 2 is being carried out.   I'm also starting to try and get my head around building regulations as I need to understand what is being s
  • LSB
Building in a woodland on the Isle of Wight

Have Slates. Prefer not to travel.

A lot has happened on site in the last month. But nothing really seems to look different yet.   We start with the soffit and fascia. A 15.1 metre run, in 4 pieces. Why the house grew that extra 100mm I don't know. I blame the boss and the architect! It can't possibly be anything to do with me! What a pain this was to get straight - the process was to cut the splines down to the right size, both at the edge and bottom (the 'alien' was good for this) and then insert some reinforceme
  • dnb
Druim nan Darach

Finished interior

We had our final inspection yesterday and building control were happy with the house. Just awaiting on an EPC certificate and we should have our completion certificate next week. We had a little tidy up before the inspector arrived so probably the ideal time to upload a few pictures.                                        
West Sussex Forever Home

Decisions, decisions, decisions

It's been a while since we obtained planning permission and my last blog entry but we've not been idle. it seems that the last 3 months or so have been a constant stream of decisions that need to be made to get this project started. It's also been a period where money seems to be going out but we don't have much to show for it!   The majority of the decisions have stemmed from the architects needing to get the detailed BC drawings finished. here's a nice summary of our decisions so far
Druim nan Darach

Ramp and decking

Hello,   It’s been around two months since we moved in. After a brief period of enjoying the summer and the new house we have made a push towards getting our completion certificate.   We got our air test which came back as 3.33.   We got the property registered for Council tax, pleased the assessor rated the property as a band D.   The last bit of major building work has been the construction of the ramp and decking. We always knew that because of the grou

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