Wild Weather

Last night was a hideous experience. Scotland is suffering from a deep low pressure system with wild hairy winds which buffetted us yesterday evening, through the night and only this afternoon is easing. Gusts were 60-80mph and I didn't sleep more than 30 mins last night. The children did well sleeping til 3am and 5am before coming to find Mum (Dad being ensconsed in a London hotel!) We cuddled and snoozed, wondering if it could get much worse.

As daylight arrived there was debris all over the place but no obvious significant damage. The house has little building paper remaining and the roof sheets were off which means water penetration yet again but these are remediable. A friend phoned to see if we needed rescuing which was very thoughtful. The notable shock was that the hen house was on its side about 4metres from its previous position. I opened the door with trepidation expecting some unpleasant scene and can thankfully report no casualties. Poor devils must have got a bit of a shock. We've put the house back on its feet and replaced the bits and bobs.

This afternoon the storm has abated but there are some very active clouds with an awful lot of wind still blasting around. If it gets worse then we're staying at a friend's house tonight!

After refixing some of the building paper the joiners were inside today continuing with the roof insulation. The barn load delivered the other week is rapidly disappearing and the house is getting 'cosy'.

Blogging......and a revised completion date.

We are pleased we have set up the blog as it is probably the only way we'd keep any sort of record of the build and its been good fun for us to note our achievement as well as to keep family and friends up to speed. My friend Jane's blog was the first enounter I had with blogging and I still love reading her chat surrounding life in her organic flower business (take a look at http://snapdragongarden.typepad.com ). Our blog started at the same time as the build on site although we had owned the farm for a year by then and had first viewed it 6 months prior to then. Since owning the farm we obtained planning consent for the new house and spent many hours working with the Architect on the design detail. So much work takes place before a single physical thing happens on site. The devil is in the detail. It is a year since we had the main dairy demolished having obtained a SEPA licence ourselves to dispose of the asbestos roof. One of our salvage exercises from the dairy resulted in 35 stone sinks some of which are being and will be commissioned as planters. The demolition of the main farmhouse took place in April 06.

At Christmas we loved hearing from those of you we know who look regularly at the blog, it was exciting to get a bit of feedback so we just want to say please feel free to write your comments online. Its nice knowing you're out there!

Site is back to full strength today. Its quite chilly but the heavy snowfall is on the hills rather than here at 70m asl. The builder's current estimate for completion is end March/mid April which gives us a guide for the next few months. So we will be back in the caravan mid-March. We'll also be available for housesitting!!!!!!!!!

Brochure management..!

Now we're on a mission to make sure we're ahead of the game on 'client supply items', we're starting to get rid of the accumulation of brochures as we actually bite the bullet and start buying stuff!
So far we've bought the sanitaryware for the three bathrooms, external insulaton system, chosen the wood stove and heat pump, and ordered and fitted all windows and doors - all of which we separated from the main build contract to retain maximum freedom of choice. Today our fridge freezer was delivered (Liebherr A+ rated) marking the first delivery of kitchen items.
The focus now is on the overall kitchen as Debs mentioned in her last blog, with Magnet and John Lewis very much in the running and we should have costed designs from both by the end of this week.
With regard to the overall build program, the joiners we're back last Friday fitting the internal airtightness/vapour membrane and tomorrow we should have a full crew including the slaters who probably have around two weeks of work to do in order to complete the roof. That said, we have snow and gales forecast tonight which might make roofing work a little tricky in the morning!

Shopping and snowmen

This morning we went to check out kitchens at John Lewis. There are quite a few elements of the build package we are responsible for supplying, kitchens and bathrooms being two of the more visually obvious but other things such as the ground source heat pump, pavatherm and internal flooring rest with us. This gives us more control over the final result although the whole design and build process is all consuming and full of decisions to be made. Being on site every day is cause and effect of that.We are keen to have a bright red kitchen as the whole room is incredibly light and could easily take a strong colour. There are a few on the market but our current favourite is JL's colour collection in high gloss burgundy. We know their quality is good and that is the key to a good kitchen. We went to MFI the other day who had a nice looking kitchen too but the units and drawers wobbled as you opened and closed them, the fittings were plastic rather than metal so not sure they would have lasted terribly long.This afternoon we made 3 snowmen before the blizzard took over.The joiners were fixing the air/vapour membrane to the internal walls but headed home as the weather deteriorated.