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General

Structural timber 3

Some day for it.   Today was one of those special days where suddenly years of work starts to come together in front of your eyes.     No machinery here just elbow grease.       It was all going so well until the building inspector turned up.       A few internal load bearing walls to be finished and then on Monday we have the telehander coming to stay for a couple of weeks, followed by the delivery of th

The Build - Timber frame erection

It has been 3 weeks now since the last post and the TF arrived as planned. Sadly the tele handler didn’t!! It was two hours late and thankfully, didn’t impact on the delivery of the TF, although the driver was less than pleased being held up for so long. During the second week of erection, we saw the arrival of the large crane which really did pay for itself as it made light work of the roof timbers. A long day for all, but worthwhile. The final week saw the sarking and dormers being

Structural timber 1

Following the completion of the foundations, we now moved onto putting the kit up.   After putting together a list for our timber merchants we are now ready to start. The materials for framing and sheathing arrived last week.   The house will be stick built by a team of two joiners, with prefabricated trusses arriving on site in a few weeks.   Today marked the first day of joinery. The first job was attaching the wall plate followed by cutting the suspended timber f

Financing & Insurance

I've been spending the last week or two chasing banks because of a clause in the Self Build Costing Template - "*Standard Timber Frame Structure with traditional block exterior". I've found they nearly all have a timber frame line in their stage payments due to front loading of the mortgage when using a factory built house, but they all without exception carry the clause above. I'd not queried this up to now but decided to chase it. I've enquiries out now with several banks but so far only 1 per

self build book

Howdy, my self build book, selling OK thanks, costs quite a lot as an 'on-demand' exercise (£10 printing and binding...maybe a touch more but I have a friendly printer)  £3 post + £2 packing...one those secure and snug commercial, folding jobs!)...anyway I'm not complaining though I do resent the commercial outfits that don't even reply or acknowledge the free copy for comment...you know who you are!...how much energy or cost does it take to Email 'thanks but no thanks...good luck' ? The realiti

It's Business Time

It's been a long journey, but our little cottage is finally up and running as a holiday house. First guests just checked out and left us with some very kind words having thoroughly enjoyed their stay. Of course it's not exactly 'finished' but it's certainly usable. I'd have liked to have had a few extra days to tidy things up, but all the essentials are in place. There's decking still be be built out the front, I'm hoping to get this done in a gap between changeovers soon.  

It's been a while....

I didn't realise quite how long a while since the last blog entry so time for an update as I'm on an admin day today, not least for the electricity supply which I'll come onto later.   So, what's occurring?  I'll start at the bottom and work my way up:   Groundworks - the groundworkers arrived on site the day after the last May bank holiday, 29th May.  They took the roof off back in April to sort out any potential bat issues and now they're back doing the main job.  The old c

The Build - Scaffolding ahead of TF arriving

By way of a quick update as the TF arrives on the 29th May -  The Car port now has a slate roof on it - the sides and enclosed shed will be finished once the scaffolding comes down, hopefully the larch cladding will be complete within the next 10 days or so. The scaffolders have erected the main structure in readiness for the TF. You will see one section has been left "open" to allow the panels to be fed inside. This will be closed off upon completion. I'm told the TF will be ready for the windo

The Butterfly Effect

“And?” I prompted, ”that’s it” she said. Thus a corner of a green English field enhanced by some royal snowdrops was destined to become a Welshman’s first self-build.   The unexpectedly abbreviated list was a list of life-sustaining features she deemed absolute move-in must-haves for our minimum viable new home. When a woman falls in love with a building plot it is surprising how few luxuries she deems essential to swing the deal with her master builder to be.   I have been a

Small garden ideas from Pinterest

I attach some thoughts from Pinterest about small garden spaces. The key is the three dimensional nature of the designs...a clue to success. A clue to garden design is to itemise/list nice to haves, needs and wants, taking into account views, overlooking, climate and seasons, indeed not dissimilar to house layout, and of course changes in fashion, plant growth etc. Another must is to observe sun angles (OK that's climate and seasons) but it's easy to make assumptions. Obviously think about famil

Foundation 4 - Final stage

It's been a quiet few weeks on the house site waiting for the contractors to come back,  but we have done the following:   Building control and quantity surveyor inspected the works carried out to date The plumber supplied our the internal drainage. Anchor straps fitted. Alum clad, triple glazed windows order finalised and placed Attic trusses design reviewed and finalised    We are now commencing the final stage of the foundations. In filling the

Planning Permission

My planning permission is now submitted and I've a reference number and everything! So, there's about 5 weeks waiting for objections and then 3 weeks where the planners will come back with questions / start examining the submission. Then you get a preliminary approval with a 4 week cooling off period before the final official permission is granted, with their contribution bill! Once granted, I'm planning on some preliminary groundworks on the current old house to realign the driveway and access

The Build - Ground works - Final part

The ground works have moved on considerably, no doubt assisted by the fine weather we have experienced since  mid April. The dwarf wall and base for the car port was always the priority as the frame itself arrives to site on Monday 14th May. The main house sub structure is almost complete – the ducting for the electricity cable and water pipes are in as are the drainage outlets. Over the next week or so the sub base will be completed. The TF is due to arrive Tuesday 29th May. You will see I

Back to Buildloan (groan)

Well, all the outside is done now except for some weird small bits the builder has not yet done for no reason I can work out - the stone above the porch window (1 layer about 6" thick) and the ground floor bathroom window sill, and the bottom of the porch doorway.   They are coming back which is fine and there is no panic, but I don't quite know why they left those bits undone.   Anyway, as is the way of these things, we ran over by a good few thousand - mostly because both t

Are we there yet?

One final push today saw all the furniture and curtains put in place- a big group effort with much input from the in-laws. I'm very fortunate to have a MiL who is an ace seamstress and who has a bit of a thing about Harris Tweed. To say I'm chuffed is a bit of an understatement. It's been over four years since the concept of this project first appeared, and three years since work began in earnest. Today we finally saw the culmination of all that effort as the building site was transformed i

Book mini Chapters

In a recent blog, I listed some of the chapters on garden design and ways to approach...clue, 'The same way as a house layout'!   So it seems reasonable to list some of the chapters and book reviews in my book...'Self Build Design...the last thing you need is an architect', not a sideswipe at architects, but a review of your way forward before the architect/designer's fee clock starts ticking. The book is equally appropriate for bespoke/custom designs, as well as renovations, rebuilds

Draft plans

We've got some initial ideas together, image attached.  For anyone interested, we've used an architect to help us.  The picture roughly shows the situation, the current plan is to take out some of the conifers in the background and place the house there, replanting some other areas with natives.   To give the attached a bit of context, this is a house which allow us to work/restore an area of woodland, hence why the main entry is through the utility room.  Overall we're looking for a f

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