Earth Hour

I've spent part of this evening contributing to a National Park meeting on renewable energy and sustainable building design and feel quite fired up on the whole subject. I came home, had a great discussion with Steve (before he went to Ikea for late night house shopping), then watched Grand Designs revisited about an underground house which essentially didn't need heating even in winter.

The construction of the 'commute' between the office and the house is underway (above) and the patios are being formed around the south gable (below).
Internally the kitchen is on its way. The installers are great, very flexible in their approach which is good because there's a few bits and bobs of adjustment to sort out as well as an evening trip to Ikea tonight to change the handles! The measurements in the utility room don't stack up properly so there's amendments needed there too.

The staircase is 'in production'......not sure what stage that means or when it'll arrive.

We walked up our local hill the Dumpling this morning which is always a pleasure, the view of Loch Lomond is awe-inspiring every single time. We've had lovely weather this weekend with tiny specks of dry snow sneaking in from the east. Yesterday was tiring as it was spent in town at various furniture/plumbing/DIY places so everyone was grumpy and fed up. Today has been filled with fresh air and sunshine with walks and outdoor activities. This afternoon we used some spray paint to mark out the areas immediately outside the house which will be hard landscaped for footpaths and patios, it wasn't too difficult (away from the cold easterly) to imagine summer evening barbecues. We then salvaged trailer-loads of wood from the site which are surplus to the build but will provide fuel for the wood burning stove for many years to come.
This week is massively busy with the kitchen and utility room fit-outs starting tomorrow, the external hard landscaping including sorting out the levels around the house will be underway, lighting is being fitted and the tiler continues with the ground floor slates.
There's no staircase yet, the design was in theory signed off in December, delivery 5 weeks thereafter, some apparent communication issue between architect and timber frame manufacturer whereby one expected measurements from the other which didn't happen, builder expecting delivery, calls not being returned.

local wildlife

Its noisy here tonight - half an hour ago there were 2? foxes shrieking outside, I haven't heard that noise before and thought someone was in trouble or an animal was being killed, it being such a piercing shriek. I managed to catch them in the beam of the big torch so they scamped off. An amazing and most unpleasant noise. Then a barn owl has been hunting and there's a whole lot more shrieking going on.
There is some woodland 100metres east of the farm which provides plenty of cover for foxes and deer. Two weeks ago a young deer was killed by a vehicle just past the farm entrance, 20 minutes later it had been reclaimed by a neighbour for lunch and dog food (sorry are you eating?).
The huge greylag geese population we have locally over winter has significantly moved on to pastures new, the curlews are here with their wonderful call and a 'swarm' of starlings were doing that fabulous sweeping dance through the sky.
A magical sight yesterday was watching two brown hares boxing in the field below the house and caravan. There is a big population of brown hare here, they are beautiful creatures. Springwatch here we come, I'll be Kate Humble rather than Bill Oddie though!

Hens eat fries!

The apple trees in position - if you look closely you can see 2 McDonalds fries on the cardboard, the scaffolders thought the hens might like a snack

The exterior revealed

The scaffolding is just about down after a day and a half of disassembly and the render is dazzingly white. The polythene over the ground floor windows will be removed after the renderers have finished covering the grey you can see at the bottom of the house, this may happen tomorrow depending on the extent of rain forecast. We haven't had rain for a week now I think.

Feel Good Day

We're back in the caravan now and love being at the heart of it again. Glorious weather here at present so I spent the early morning putting cardboard 'mulch' circles around the newly planted apple trees to keep the weeds at bay. There was no wind so it was really beautiful being out in the Spring sunshine and I was thinking of putting a bench seat in the new orchard. It's a bit rich calling it an orchard yet but Steve and friend Allan planted 12 apple trees yesterday. I chose mainly Scottish heritage varieties from Butterworths organic nursery who are renowned for the quality of their stock and for the range of species they grow. Very kindly the nursery added an extra tree to the bundle but I haven't worked out where that should go - should I just pop it in with the others and ignore the separation distance they're meant to be or put it in the ground elsewhere and hope it pollinates, ether way its temporarily heeled in nearby.
Here's my list of species:- Dessert Apples are White Joaneting which dates from before 1600 and produces early fruit from August, Thorle Pippin (2 of) a Scottish apple first described in 1831, Charles Ross which fruits from Sept to Dec and is a cross of Peasgood Nonsuch and Cox's Orange Pippin, Golden Pippin (2 of) which was described in Scotland's first gardening book in 1683 as the 'best variety for Scotland', Wheeler's Russet which is originally English but was grown in the big Clydesdale orchards in the late 1700s and is a late cropper from Jan to March, Maggie Sinclair is also probably from Clydesdale and finally for the dessert apples is the Ribston Pippin which I chose as it heralded in 1707 from Knaresborough which is the nearest apple connection to my place of birth. Culinary apple choices are Stobo Castle which is an early cooker from Stobo, Golden Spire which originally hails from Lancashire (as does Steve) and is a good cider variety so we can dust off our apple press in seasons to come, Scotch Dumpling which has particularly attractive blossom apparently and is another Clydesdale species, Scotch Bridget which dates from the 1850s and crops from Oct to Dec.
I've spent quite a few hours reading up on the subject and working out the best species for our site (wet and windy west), its conditions (fairly shallow soil with rocky strata), the pollination days of each species to ensure they remain fertile and cropping times so we that we don't end up with too many apples at the same time. Obviously we'll have far too many apples but it'll be fun to see it all grow over years to come.

Brickbats and Bouquets

Life is immensely busy so when we get great service from someone it is terrific and of course when we have to spend lots of time chasing people or doing someone else's job its a real pain. One of our future projects is the development of two holiday lets (more another time on those) so we're building up bank of people and places we'd like to use again. This list isn't exclusive, maybe at the end of the project we'll compose a list of the best products, people and places.

Internal and External Finishes

8.30am long view towards the farm from behind our local hill, The Dumpling

Tiles 'R' Us

We've now sourced, and agreed on, tiles for all three bathrooms. My able assistant is showing the accent tile for the ensuite shower. For those of you who know the Hillington industrial estate in Glasgow you will appreciate the number of tile showrooms there are available and the angst of then getting the man of the house to approve selections. I bought the tiles for the ensuite and family bathroom this morning and just need to go back with accurate measurements for the downstairs bathroom as the dimensions of that have altered recently. The tiler is booked for next week so we'll see big changes inside. The white goods for the bathrooms are all in place now. I also swapped the shower tray for the downstairs room because of last minute adjustments there ensuring the door width complys with disabled access regs. The change made the shower tray larger than plan.

Friday

Our camera has gone awol so unfortunately there are no photos again today. Its looking good though on another sunny chilly day! It seems fairly quiet on site today (only 2 white vans!), the joiners have plasterboarded the kitchen and dining room today and the electrician is tidying up/routing the masses of wiring to the consumer unit in the utility room. It looks like mission control in there. The BT cable is being fed into the house before the external render is started which is due to happen from Monday.

Hello again after another week has passed in a flurry of activity. The weather has changed significantly for the better and it has been dry for nearly a week which is quite remarkable after at least a month of driving storms. We spent a lot of time outside at the weekend, I was planting bulbs and Steve was building the climbing frame. With the advent of fine weather after such a long spell of hibernation it seemed that many of our local friends were out for walks and cycle rides so popped by for a viewing and it was a real pleasure to have so much progress to show people.
The big event of last Thursday was the switch on of the heating system and by Friday the builders were over warm and had all the windows open. We were mightily relieved and feel quite chuffed that it is already performing so well - partly because some observers are unsure of our reliance on renewable energy so its good to have an early positive response and mainly because we're desperately looking forward to living in the house. The system is being commissioned tomorrow. It will be interesting over the course of the first full year in the house to see how the comfort levels change and what running costs we encounter.
We need to have paint colours decided and bathroom tiles purchased by the end of this week for the upper floor so feel slightly under pressure. The bath and washbasin are fixed in the family bathroom and most of the other goods are in our en-suite if not actually plumbed in. I'm collecting an alternative shower tray tomorrow whilst on the way to order the kitchen and utility room cabinets.
Externally the brickwork is complete and I think the rendering commences next week. There appears to have been a change from the early days when Steve and I thought we were getting a smooth white render and the current drawings specify wet dash. I think this is being resolved but to be honest I can't remember where we're at with this..........just about sums things up as we juggle house building needs with the business and family. Plenty of evenings of work for us and lots of scraps of paper and lists here and there.

Getting there....

The final window in the house has been fitted and is this triangular piece to the south west corner of the master bedroom window. This is one of those architectural details which just adds something a little more to the overall scheme. Originally it was to be 50% larger and would have been the better for it but it is still a refreshing detail. One of the balances in self-build is to order goods in sufficient time to avoid delays so we had ordered (and now own) the original 50% larger window. Unfortunately it transpired that the architect's plans did not concur with the timber frame manufacturer's and...the client picks up the tab, hmm. We have thought to use the spare window in one of the holiday lets but its not a great idea to design a whole building around one window just 'cos it happens to be spare...but we'll see if it fits somewhere.

In amongst the quagmire, building rubble, scaffolding and general building site detritus we have signs promising the return of life to the land. There is very little planting to speak of here (so far) but the rhubarb last year was gigantic and gorgeous so its exciting to see new growth. If I get my act together I'll get some buckets over a couple of plants to force some early crop. However as its driving rain and howling wind just now and there's a huge dump of snow forecast it'll certainly not be happening this weekend.

Inside the building the heat pump is being installed. It is a heavy piece of kit and took everyone here today to move it into the utility room. We've agreed its final position and from there Steve and I can order the utility room cabinetry. In a few days time the heating will all be connected and set to work. It'll take quite few days to come through as the pipework is deep in the slab but this will help dry the concrete before we look to putting flooring down. It'll also help to warm the rest of the house. Before the electrician left earlier he switched the heat recovery system on as it is now in place. We're pleased to report it is silent in its operation.

Still raining in Scotland

Where to begin? Like many 'phone conversations and chats if you speak to someone often enough you catch up on lots of news but if you haven't spoken to them for a while you can't think of a thing that you've done. As we've been in our friend's house for a week and have now moved to a holiday house nearby we're not on the internet so blogging has been sporadic in the past 10 days. Activity at the farm has been considerable so we'll let photos explain where we're at.
One of the past day's issues is the internal wallhead height in the upper rooms. As the house is 1.5 storeys the trick is to achieve a well-balanced room which is usable without looking like a triangle and providing lots of awkward corners. The architect has proposed 1.55m wall head in the master bedroom but we personally have huge difficulties 'wasting' all that floorspace behind the joinery/plasterboard. The elevation shown looks west; here we've agreed with the joiner not to put any internal joinery on that side, other than boxing out the flue which can be seen, but to reduce the wallhead on the east elevation to 1.35m. This still entails the 'loss' of floorspace but provides proper walls for placing a bedhead against. The second photo shows the framework in place for that. On one of the landings we're creating an eaves storage cupboard. We're hoping to achieve optimal usable floor space and create a desirable room.

We've spent the last three nights in our friend's house and it has been really lovely! Terrific to have warmth, spacious bathrooms, properly hot water, a real fire and plenty of space. I cooked a gorgeous roast dinner yesterday, the first for 7 months at least and it was much appreciated.