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Blogs

Mr and Mrs Triassics New Home

Scaffold Down

Why are scaffolders so difficult to deal with, my ex-scaffolder took to texting me at 5:30 in a morning and demanding updates on progress. In the end I’ve shown him the door, mind you, I’ve had value for money out of him. In the future I’ll be using my own to finish off the few bits.   So here’s the photo of the house without the scaffold.     In the next couple of weeks we we start putting in the rest of the windows, the scaffold was in the way previously, making
Druim nan Darach

First fix plumbing, ducting and stove blockwork

The sparkie had done his bit and we were now waiting on the plumber.   Not much to see here just your standard first fix plumbing.     We had a couple of dust sheets removed before the scaffold went down. It was great to have our kitchen view back it had been almost a year.     Moving onto the ducting I had previously ordered.     A 45 degree bend was deemed easier to fit so now I got to get that ordered.    We al
Druim nan Darach

External painting

With the rough casting having completed its two month cleansing period, I was keen to get painting.   I started with a roller but found it to be ineffective in getting into all the nooks and crannies, therefore this was going to be a brush job. Most of the time was spend dealing with the edges near windows, cladding and soffits. The use of insulation sheets provided a good screen to any paint gone in the wind.   I concentrated on the gables first and was able to use trestles
1970s Chalet-style house renovation

Trade-offs

Because of our budget, there's some hard decisions and trade-offs to be made. Grateful for any constructive comments!   Remaining garage size It's a double-length garage - 9m. We could just convert half of it, leaving the front part as a regular-sized garage, but that will leave us tight on space. Instead we're leaning towards taking around 5.5m, making the front part just a workshop and store (and hopefully, micro-brewery ?. Floor will be raised by 100mm using PIR with 18mm chip
1970s Chalet-style house renovation

The grand plan

Apart from a lick of paint and a recent bathroom, the house is pretty much unchanged since built: Gas warm-air heating (ducts, and lots of 'em) with electric immersion heater for hot water Parquet floors to lounge, hallway and dining room which needs resanding, filling and sealing (plus filling the gaps left when we remove the warm-air heating outlets) 1970s kitchen, including sliding-door cabinets!   Our aspirations are: Immediate - Convert current tiny utili
Self Building two in North Wiltshire

The Design

Well lets say it has evolved and been shaped by the titanic forces of nature and the planning process. Its not quite what we initially wanted and has been compromised and compromised over its various iterations and has sadly lost some of our ‘must have’ features. But it is kinda cute, and we do really like it!   The site is about 1/3rd of an acre slopping up from the road and has a shared driveway to our neighbours at the rear. In the middle of the plot is a 3 bed 1960’s bungalow which
Self Building two in North Wiltshire

The Back Story

A very very long and difficult history to our self-build that we will compact into as short a space as possible to save readers much of the grief we have been through.   We have always lived in (and renovated) old, cold, draughty and character-full houses, and our last house (a Victorian vicarage) had lots of glass and double aspect rooms and was full of light. We wanted to downsize but couldn’t find anything with similar light and space, and some of the new build ones we looked at
A woodland house

Foundations, frame and posi joists delays

Been a busy few weeks. Following the groundworks, the slab was set out and poured. It was a bit of a warm day, and there was a definite sense of urgency as it went off fairly fast.     Now we've got a local joiner putting a frame up for us. It's being built from I-beams on site. I'd planned this all as best as I could, expecting our posi's next week based on what the supplier told us about lead times. It now turns out it will be another 4 weeks. While I'd rather not leave th
South coast ICF build

Scaffolding down - windows in

Scaffold down and windows in...big dose of euphoria....feels like a real milestone. We can now get a sense of the completed project. With the scaffold removed the house now looks far more suited to the plot and we hope our neighbours will be as relieved as we are. The window install went well. Our windows are Velfac and we opted to use an approved installer as it extended the warrantee to six years. It cost a bit more but the standard of install was good with great care being taken. A
God is in the Details

Accessible Ablutions 6 - Costs and Components

This is the last post in my series, with details of a couple of finishing touches and details of what I bought and what it cost.   Summary   For drive-by readers, the total cost came to just on £2200 including VAT, or about £2500 if the project had replaced everything - I kept the washbasin, vanity unit, storage unit and mirror.   There is also potential to reclaim VAT on the approximate £200 spent on specific accessibility pieces such as the shower seat and grab ra
God is in the Details

Accessible Ablutions 5 - 3d Printing

This post is a brief interlude in my "Accessible Ablutions" mini-project, and will be followed by one more post reporting the costing and sourcing detail of the project.   I found that I needed to hold a hinged shower screen firmly in place against a slopoing ceiling, and needed a custom part.   Through the good offices of Buildhub and @Temp, that was able to be done in a few days to the custom design required. This is a short description of the process, taken from the thread
South coast ICF build

Standing seam roof

Since our last entry we've been concentrating of getting the standing seam roof covering on. It's one of those jobs where it would be nice to do someone else's roof before doing your own. We're using a roofing system from Blacho Trapez, broadly similar to the Tata colourcoat.  It requires no crimping and minimal special tooling. It's around half the price of Colorcoat. The HPS200 coating we chose comes with a forty year guarantee. Our first impressions is that it's a quality product that's
God is in the Details

Made to Make Your Eyes Water

Something I ran across today, relating to Grand Designs S 12 Ep 6 - the conversion of a Recording Studio in W11 (Holland Park). The full programme is embedded below.   The project was done in around 2008/9-2011 (ie probably before the recession) by a couple who are a fairly senior City Trader, and an Interior Designer,  Jeff and Audrey Lovelock. They bought a ground floor studio flat in Holland Park, which came with a 3000-4000 sqft ish basement, including an .. er .. squash court.
Druim nan Darach

Electrical first fix/Ducting order

We are now working our way through first fix for the self build.   Our electrician has been busy drilling holes and threading many reels of cables around the house.       The other area where we have made some progress is the ducting system.   I’ve never ordered ducting before and it took me some time to order all of the parts and then have them to delivered to Skye.   This came into two deliveries, both times some of the items were d
God is in the Details

Accessible Ablutions 4 - Finished Photos

Here are a few photos of the refurbished bathroom when done, including the 'ease of use' items such a shower seat, except for a few finishing touches.   (There are a couple of 'before aids added' photos which I have left in.)   There is one more post to follow in this series, which will talk about a couple of final touches, and detail the costs of the project.   [Edit: Added bonus video from the "Recommendations for Bathrooms for Elderly / Disabled" forum thread cre
A woodland house

It starts!

Progress this week. More photos than words for now. HQ is set up, including the shower.   After felling the trees on site, a few big machines visited to get the logs out.   Leaving the site looking like this:   The last few days have then involved a lot of muck moving and getting decent material out for the tracks and base, leaving us looking something like this:   Next stop, foundations!
Self Build NE Scotland

Part 1: Site Clearance

Hello folks, finally about to start my new build in Aberdeenshire so thought I would try and document it. I’ll do my best to keep it updated. It's been a long road to get here but the builders are due to start very shortly so the site has been stripped ready for them. Electricity is due to go in mid July, Scotframe kit in August and water will be getting dug in after herst. Below is a photo of the site plan so you have an idea of whats happening. Couple of photos to sh

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