Trenches filled and blockwork starts, about 1100 blocks to be laid. We spent a long time making sure the profiles were accurate, taking diagonal measurements across
each rectangle.
A lot of material to remove even though the house follows the natural slope of the field, we dug an additional 2 metres out on each side to make building work easier. Its on 3 levels with a 200mm and 800mm difference. Trenches dug, fortunately great soil conditions and was very dry back in March.
We started. In fact it was mid February so I have some catching up. Planning took a few years....
First job was to move the PV from the big shed to the little shed then remove large shed. The large shed took a week because I had help with the right kit. It has a new home to go to. We will miss it as it was the party shed but we get a replacement dwelling, the Bungalow has to go.
How long can it take to build a timber partition wall? One that is only 16ft long, in a straight line, no curves, no fancy materials.
This one has taken me well over a week, which has become a little frustrating. The reason is partly due to the complex shape, and partly due to my design having changed significantly just before I started the wall. Having switched to a more open plan layout, the wall now has multiple different ceiling heights all tying into it which led to a lot of hea
Some of the plaster of the bedrooms was very loose and severl months ago, I stripped these areas, leaving any sound plaster. However, this has left me with very uneven walls.
The plasterer suggested that we apply plasterboard to the walls and then he'd come in and skim over, making it all look nice (hopefully). But before we could apply the plasterboard, I had to get the walls to the same depth or the dots/dabs would be huge in some areas.
So I decided to use the piece
We are now looking at getting the services into place before June when our SIPs should turn up. I've found both water board and electricity folks to be really helpful and approachable thus far when I've asked for advice or clarification. I also think their charges are not excessive actually, which I know is not the experience nationally. That may also be because we are very fortunate in having the water running 1 metre away along one boundary and the electricity main running underground 1 metre
Rendering and all cladding completed. Couple coats of paint on the render and we'll probably give it another towards the end of the summer when we hopefully finish the build.
Also Cecil the Lion is in place, this stone lion head is on every house that my family (my Grandad, Dad and now me) has self built, 4 in this town currently, 3 of which are still owned by the family. The story of how this tradition began is a little lacking in detail, but I did enjoy placing it 50+ years afte
I know there is no such thing, but this blog is supposed to be about Details.
How to build an attractive looking bin store to deal with dustbins that breed like Statutory Consultees in the Planning process?
Here is one option used locally. They have used traditional perforated blocks that we are all used to from the 1970s.
Here is something similar from Kevin McCloud's The Triangle development, using Gabions.
(Photo Credit)
I thought I would post a plan of a terraced house I ran across recently.
The small estate of houses was built in 2004. Typical but pleasant modern houses, but this 2.5 storey terrace has a notably efficient layout.
In the overall footprint of 5m by 9m (including external walls) includes 1047 sqft, and includes:
Large lounge 12' x 16'.
Dining room 8' x 10' attached to 10' x 7' kitchen
Three double bedrooms (one ensuite)
Family bathroom
Having gone through the process of considering then discounting travertine as our floor covering of choice, we eventually settled on a porcelin tile to cover those areas (kitchen, utility and vestibule) that were not having oak flooring laid. Unfortunately for us, the person who we believed was going to be doing our tiling (and does virtually all of the builders tiling), at the last moment refused to undertake the work in our house. Quite why I've not been able to establish, nor has my builder.
We seem to have made huge strides in the last two weeks with both of us spending a good amount of time at the house. The pipes have been laid ready for the radiator as well as the lights for the downstairs lights.
To try to get the rooms ready for skimming, we needed to sort out the bedroom floors. they were a mish mash of old boards, some damaged where we'd lifted them (tongue and groove is hard to lift without lifting them all). So we took the decision to replace t
We were making good progress with the architect; we had agreed on the new external look and received an updated internal floorplan, which was a big improvement over the layout that came with the plot.
We received the first draft from the architect on 7th July 2016, and agreed on the drawings to submit to Planning on 18th August.
During those 5-6 weeks, my wife and I sat with the plans, "walking" through the house, working out how we’d use each space, and going back to the
Based on our brief, our architect had taken the original designs that came with our plot, utilised the same house footprint, and had come up with a new set of designs and internal floor layouts.
We had two choices for the external design - a flat roof or two mono-pitched roofs. After a little discussion between my wife and I, and with to the architect, we agreed on the two mono-pitched roofs design.
The house to the west of us had an almost flat roof (they initially submi
The first decision to be made with the new architect was how to change the external house design to remove the lack of head height in the roofspace, but stay within the existing footprint.
In the napkin sketches, the architect had suggested two mono-pitched roofs to replace the existing dual-pitched roofs and we immediately liked that design. However, he didn’t immediately just go with that design and at the start of July 2016, he sent us through a couple of options, one with a flat
Its nearing the end of May 2016, and we’d owned our plot for 10 months. In that time we had:
Pretty much decided on a builder, although we’d not signed anything contractually
Cleared around 1000 tonnes of soil off the site
Found out that the approved plans that came with the house were unworkable for anyone whose ancestors originated from somewhere other than The Shire, Middle Earth
Come to the conclusion that while architectural technicians are great at CAD,
Well the kitchen wall has gone and we love the extra space - shame its only for a while till the bathroom wall gets put back. Our neighbour needed somewhere to store her old sofa and asked if we could keep it for a while so the room is now half full with that. It gives us somewhere comfy to sit in front of the wood burner but it is a pain wehen we have to move it back and forward. Luckily we are concentrating on the upstirs so its not getting moved often.
Most of the last couple
I just realised that I missed a couple of things out from my previous post.
In December 2015, a boring rig was on site to do its thing for a mineral report. This was required (in addition to the coal authority report) to identify whether there were any coal seams in the area, and also to get a general view of the underground minerals which would feed into decisions on the preferred foundation design for the structural engineer. This was arranged through the builder.
The d
It’s September 2015. We had our plot, we had approved planning permission, we had a builder who was about to start a build in the plot next door to ours and who had provided a build estimate that fitted with our budget. What could possibly go wrong?
18 months later, and I’m still not sure I can adequately answer that.
On the positive front, the 120 year old Farmhouse we’d put on the market a few months earlier had sold for a price we were very happy with. We were less enamour
It’s May 2015 and around 4 months since we first saw the plot and 3 months since we decided not to buy it. There were various reasons for this:
The was a train line running along the rear of the plot, serving the local power station
There was a BP pipeline running through the border of our plot, imposing a 3.5 meter no build zone on our plot
We’d never done anything like this before. We were not self-builders. Buying a plot was for people on Grand Designs or Building
In my previous post, I explained how we came across our plot when out walking close to where my mother-in-law had moved over from Dublin. It came with full planning permission for a modern house built into the hill, as shown on the boarding on site. Interestingly, the boarding was from a local builder (which I’ve blurred out here)
This is the image shown on the boarding:
Here’s another sample image of the house:
“Our” hou
