One week to go?

Just one person on site to day, Billy the tiler has given the slate floor its final coat of sealant (Lithofin) so its looking quite smart. He's also sealed the showers so we'll test those out this weekend, after some serious cleaning as its pretty thick with dust inside the house.
There has been no action on the replacement chimney which is a shame as it has a knock-on effect for reslating that part of the roof, finishing the joinery in terms of boxing out the area in the bedroom and painting thereafter. As the builder is away on holiday we'll need to do the chasing. We received an invoice from the architect yesterday which is quite amusing/bemusing as we haven't seen them for some time now.
We're at the stage where there are a lot of small things to finish off but its all going very slowly. We're still moving in to a couple of rooms next Friday come what may!!!!

The cleared area where the huge dairy shed used to stand was originally going to be gravelled for car parking but we have realised how large this area is and how ridiculously expensive it would be to gravel. We really don't need such a big area just for vehicles so this is where we intend to start creating the raised beds for our veggies. We're going to use the remainder of the reclaimed roof joists from the original house (the 5m x 2m woodshed is utilising a few) to lay out the area and start filling it with last year's matured horse muck. We have presumed linear beds to follow the line of the wall but after seeing this evening's Gardener's World I quite fancy a more interesting layout, be that triangles, diamonds or some other such whimisie.

The on site compost producers...... our friends' horses Danny and Lily.

The Contura wood burning stove in place in the main sitting room. We sourced this through EcoLiving who also supplied the ground source heat pump. The photo below is of the less attractive connection through the main bedroom to the chimney but this will be boxed in when the fitting is complete. This will still be a few days as the lower section of the external chimney and roof flashing need to be replaced because they have been damaged on site and a good seal with the internal pipes can't be achieved.

The slate tiles in the hallway will receive another coat of seal this weekend.

Just a short while left in our temporary home - we moved in here in mid June 07 and we're moving out next week. Its been pretty hard work at times and I can still feel the cold of the week before Christmas but being on site while the house has been built has been fun and essential.

Today the tilers are here enjoying the peace of the weekend to get on with their work without a dozen other folks hoofing their way over the floor. Its looking good. We can't quite work out when we'll be in..so close but not certain. One of the most inspiring things is the view from the windows. We've had beautiful weather this morning and threatening clouds this afternoon; majestic skies all day.

Lots going on both inside and outside yesterday. The 24hour rainfall we've had is a reminder of the testing conditions for a house in an exposed location. There is a little water seepage under the doors on the SW corner so we've contacted the supplier to get a maintenance bod out. It is clearly a window issue rather than a building one but strong winds driving rain at that corner are as testing as you would expect in the UK.
Outside we've got a local contractor ripping up the concrete which formed the base of the old dairy shed, its an area of approx 28m x 8m and is being carted off to use as hardcore somewhere else. After its bashed down we'll be buying a lorryload of gravel to finish it.
The builder's groundworks crew have dug the trench which will carry the LPG pipe and the elec cable from the woodstore to the house. We are only using LPG for cooking but wanted the bottle away from the house (for visual reasons) and the cable is for the solar PV to connect into the house. The 1.08kw solar PV array will be mounted on the south facing roof of the woodstore and the roof is being constructed to a 36deg pitch to maximise production. The theory is to take your latitude (ours being 56degN) and subtract 20degrees. Work starts on the construction of the woodstore today and is being done by a local joiner using wood we have salvaged from the old house. They are setting up a workshop in one of the barns.


As you can see the staircase is in place and the slate flooring continues (picture of the dining area)