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Da Bungalow

A blog by G and J in General

  • Entries

    19

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About this blog

Self build 2: The Sequel…

Entries in this blog

The house itself.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda…

And yes, that title is a nod to the wisdom of the Beverley Knight song.  But it also applies to self building, methinks.   [Health Warning: The following diatribe focuses on the 2% that’s not gone perfectly, and risks massively underplaying the 99% which has gone right.  But maybe that focus is what makes selfbuild what it is, and why for normal people, it just doesn’t add up.]   We are now in, living at no. 11.   Well, not this exact moment in fact.  Right now we are cooking
The house itself.

Happy anniversary darling…

Should I even call you darling?   Probably not, but as you (not you specifically, sitting there in your ‘should have been put in the wash weeks ago’ dressing gown, I mean the buildhub fraternity) have been so great a moral support I can’t help feeling some degree of affection.     Anyway, there’s no chance of me drawing breath this week, or any week till we move out of the ice box (AKA rental - and thats the polite version, I now have a dif
The house itself.

Post house sale stressy disorder…

Once upon a time a deluded wrinkly, his much less wrinkly wife and their noisy little dog left their almost fairy tale rural retreat to live in a freezing rented bungalow while they buggered about trying to build a new semi-urban retreat nearby.  (How clever am I avoiding the word suburban!).  Everything would have gone swimmingly but for the fact that the head of the wrinkly was just too full.   It sort of still is I think.  In the four months since the last post (stop thinking of a b
The house itself.

Leaving our first build…

We apologise for the interruption in our scheduled programme.    Normal service will be resumed shortly.    Lots has happened on the build which is great and as it should be and all that, but I just can’t write about that right now.    Instead my head is full of leaving Bramble.  34 years ago, over a third of a century, we put flesh on the skeleton of a house and we breathed life into it.     And it’s been a constant ever since.  Now we finally decided to
The house itself.

If you want to get ahead, get a hat…

That was an advertising slogan from the 40’s and 50’s, which persisted in popular culture into my childhood in the 60’s (I’m a wrinkly, but not that much of a wrinkly).  And oh boy, with the recent downpours we desperately needed a hat on the house.     As kids we used to turn the phrase around - “if you want to get a hat, get a head”.  That’s what counted for humour back then.  But like all my frivolous tool purchases over the years that turn out to be really useful if not vital durin
The house itself.

We need to be trussed up…

Blogging: an activity where the perpetrator converts trivia into prose and in doing so reorganises their own otherwise disordered mind.  Possible side effects: perpetrator enhancing feelings of self importance; boredom amongst those reading; history being rewritten.    I find it interesting to contemplate why I don’t have quite such a burning need to blog at the mo.  I’ve always enjoyed working with wood and metal and power tools.  And that’s what I’ve been playing at for the last thre
The house itself.

Nearly a complete walls up….

On your marks: Get set : Wait!   Day 1 of panel erecting was rained off.  Humph.  I tried to pretend to be human again by popping into town with J for a spot of bargain hunting (for stuff we don’t need, natch) but inside I’m still a self build automaton.  My recovery won’t really start till we move in methinks.   Next day we start the day by admiring my new paddling pools. The previous week I carefully swathed the piles of panels with tarps before it rained oodles.  Good theo
Groundworks and Foundations

Still not quite to damp…

Forgive me holy Bill Dub, it has been many weeks since my last confession: and in that time I have uttered much profanity and at times, I have edged a small way towards despair.  I used to think I was good at working alone, and I sort of am when I have confidence that I have a good idea of what I am doing.  The other thing about working alone is that it’s dangerous - especially with net access and faceache marketplace.  Guess who now has a fridge freezer in the site hut (vital, darlings) and a b
Groundworks and Foundations

A pause for breath… (& to take stock of cost of foundations…)

Well, sort of.  Working physically hard is sooo emotionally easy compared to the frenetic whirlwind of strip foundation digging and filling.   If that means that to you, I sound an emotional fruitbat then I commend your perceptivenes.  I find it impossible to predict in advance the bits that will be most stressful.   In the last two weeks I’ve had all but two days on my own on site, as Steve has been on his hols.  So it’s background organisation tasks and planning for the most part.  T
Groundworks and Foundations

Choose your panics with care…

We start the week with the latest quandary: how to show the warranty surveyor enough trenches so he can confirm he’s seen 50% of them.  He saw some last week and if we dug the rest of them then that would add up to enough.   However, if we did that we’d have a massive issue with spoil and we would not get the concrete lorry on to pour, so it would be barrows.   Apparently pumping is an option, but we’d need to close the road which is a lot of cost and a great deal of time wasted.   So,
Groundworks and Foundations

Scraping and digging and filling.

Clearing the site…   (Last weekend I didn’t think there was enough for a blog entry.  But this weekend, after a week and a half at groundworks it turns out I had more in my head to clear out than I realise, so it’s a bit longer than expected…)   After the grunt and sweat and fatigue of manual demolition it felt like one big ‘Hurry Up -Wait!’, the wait partly imposed by Steve (semi retired builder) being on holiday.    The plan was to start groundworks at the beginni
Da Bungalow

Demolition summary and costings…

The trouble with allowing contingency is that when you don’t need it then it feels like time wasted.   I guess it’s a bit of a drawing of breath really, much needed, but one’s natural bent (in my case anyway) is to automatically reach for my spade and start work - thinking not required.     Oddly, we aren’t in a rush, in fact, the faster we go the quicker we run out of money unless our house sells, which in this market is looking unlikely.   So taking time out is a good thing, it’s jus
Da Bungalow

Bungalow down! Bungalow down!

(There’s way too much verbage here - sorry - but it reflects the deep spring clean my head needed.  Will try to make time for a demolition summary in another post which would be far more useful for others).   Each Monday morning, since we started demolition on the 17th of March, at stupid o’clock, I shuffle round the kitchen getting breakfast ready trying to assess how my body is doing, physically.   Well, sort of.  What actually happens is I slowly get my knees and my back working whi
Da Bungalow

Last Dunny standing…

The week starts with the removal of the external walls on the rear half of da bungalow.  That’s the fun bit.  I’m armed with two chainsaws and a reciprocating saw (aka sabre saw, for some reason).  I bought the sabre saw as Steve the builder recommended one for demolition.   When I bought it I knew it would be useful, but I knew my trusty chainsaws would get more done quicker and easier.  It’s not easy working with someone who’s right every damn time.  Sigh.   So the chainsaws re
Da Bungalow

Bungalow recycling…

Week 13.   Or at least, my body thinks it’s week 13, whereas the calendar says it’s week 3.  It’s really odd looking back on the demolition.  Starting to strip tiles off seems so much longer ago than 20 days.  Most odd.   The week started with a tidy up day, as Steve wasn’t there.  Almost all of the wiring for da bungalow ran through the loft, and was set to be in the way so out came my new and wonderfully sharp side cutters.  About 5 minutes in they went back in my pocket and were rep
Da Bungalow

It’s so warm we’ve gone topless!

Da bungalow that is, not us mortals.  We carry on sweating in our hi vis.     We were pleased with how the timing worked out - planning to demolish during cooler months so all the neighbours will be wrapped up warm indoors away from the dust, plus it’s hard work so cooler temperatures help comfort.  So much for that plan with our mini heat wave!   Steve took pity on me by leaving me recovery time on Monday and Tuesday.  Good news from a site clearing and tidying point of view
Da Bungalow

The (not so) secret diary of two self builders, one aged 62 and a half…

After what feels like forever we finally started real works.  We’ve done lots to the plot, tree clearance, root removal, digging out beds, planting, etc. but little to da bungalow itself.   We held off stripping out ‘til we were sure the project was viable, which was über cautious but that’s us.  Selection of timber frame supplier wasn’t straightforward.  It came down to a local-ish company (ETE) who supply a panelised frame for manual erection on site or stick built on site under the
Da Bungalow

Skoobie joins an anxious team….

Introducing Skoobie, a Skoda Fabia and the newest member of the team.  Not the first purchase towards the build, we’ve already bought a twin battery Makita chainsaw and Trevor the trailer to help clearing trees, but they were back in January. Skoobie is not in the first flush of youth so fits in well with my (G’s) seventh decade creaking knees, but we are hoping she (yes, this Scooby is female) will do great service in pursuit of our new home.   So where is the project now?  We have full p
Da Bungalow

Action stations!

Back in ‘91 we self built the house we now live in.  Block, render and pantiles.  We were both working full time in those days and we did as much as we could, but that doesn’t include groundwork, blockwork, structural carpentry or plastering.  Rural location, fields front and back, nice big garden.   A third of a century later, at the end of September ‘23, we found ourselves in the back garden of a small, run down 1920s or 1930s timber framed bungalow.  It’s in easy walking distance of

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