Not quite there yet...

The sensibilities of moving in tomorrow aren't really there as progress has been quite slow since our builder went on holiday last week. He's a very good project manager so I think it would all look a little further advanced if he'd been around. We perhaps 'ought' to wait another week but....the jobs fill the time available and Steve and I need to move in. The kitchen is messy but there isn't much left to do there and we could reasonably use it at the weekend after a good clean. The childrens' bedrooms are being carpetted tomorrow so we'll get their furniture in and blinds fitted on Saturday if possible with a view to that being our first night.

The granite worktop was fitted last weekend, just 2 weeks after templating, and we're very pleased with the result. The team were a very pleasant trio from Estonia and Lithuania. The plastic protective wrap on the doors and drawers is coming away on this photo and together with the general high dust and grime levels doesn't inspire but we reckon on using this kitchen this weekend. The caravan hob is just about adequate and the oven ok only for warming stuff. Last summer it took nephew Tommy Boy nearly an hour to part bake/part burn a pizza. We have managed to cook a good selection of food over the past 9 months, we've even entertained a few times, but a real kitchen is now beckoning.

Here's the wood shed (the biomass store!) which has been constructed from salvage timber, notably the joists from the original house and an oversupply of sarking board.

The roof elevation will be approx 2/3 covered by the solar panels.

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)

Latest.....

The patio area around the southwest corner of the house - sunspot for summer days and evenings. It will be topped with black limestone slabs which are due to arrive on Wednesday-ish.
After much delay the American blond oak staircase has arrived but is needing some adaptations by our onsite joiner. The timber is beautiful though and despite the general mess in the house is one of the final landmarks in the building of the house.
The above photo is of the porch area by the front door. We've continued the larch cladding in this area which looks good with the height created by the continuation of the roof line. Jim the electrician is fitting the lights we've bought in the next day or so and this includes one to uplight this area, low energy of course!
Herewith the slate flooring in the family room which attaches to the kitchen/dining. I felt most sorry for the tiler who is trying to lay 82sqm of slate tiles whilst all around are busy with their own trades, typically on Friday this numbered around 12-15 people. At one point he locked the front door so no-one else could come in. The above slating has not been sealed but the bathroom has and the finish looks super. The floor will need resealing every 3-5 years but as this can be done with a mop and bucket it doesn't seem too onerous.

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.

Paint colours - redcurrant glory and simply pearl in the sitting room.

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.

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.

Next week we'll work out the design on the ground for external hard landscaping close to the house. The architect drew a rectangular area of paving on a plan but the levels on the west side need a bit more thought so we're just going to work to our own design in conjunction with the groundworks crew. Some number of tonnes of hardcore are arriving tomorrow afternoon to start that process. There's always something arriving on site, today's delivery were the 122 boxes of kitchen which the fitters will commence construction and installation on Tuesday. The appliances arrived yesterday, the kitchen sink last Friday but we still need to buy taps...a job for the weekend.
Two days ago the vinyl flooring went down in the 2 upstairs bathrooms so Willie the plumber has now fixed the sanitary ware in both those rooms. The gorgeous bath tub is in the ensuite.
In the ground floor bathroom Billy the tiler has started fixing the slate tiles, setting up the lines took a while as this slate will run through the majority of the ground floor.

Turning Chillier part two

A continuation of the previous blog - the technology sometimes prevents such things.

The step shown left was finished on Friday. The stone for the whole wall and the step has been recovered from the demolished farmhouse save for the coping stones which have been bought from a nearby farm where the wall had fallen down.

The weather forecast for later in the week is distinctly cooler with daytime temps nearer zero and we have had our first conversations around the subject of 'how long can we/will we stay in the caravan'. No decisions to move out yet as most of the time its really not difficult. Naturally we would prefer more space and a lovely big bathroom but that is, quite literally, a work in progress. The office is in an old toolhouse adjacent to the barn which adjoins the house and with its high level of insulation it is a very pleasant place. Steve has been insulating the water pipes within the caravan and we need to tackle the ones outside where they are not underground.

Dry stone dyke

With work continuing on the house portal frame, the finishing touches to the dry stone retaining wall are well underway. With the wall having been substantially completed a couple of weeks or so ago using stone from the old (demolished) farmhouse, our friend and expert wall builder came across a source of coping stones from a derelict wall at a nearby farm. No sooner as a price was agreed these hand-cut half-round stones were picked out of the ground and brought the couple of miles to ECF to top off our new wall.

Complete with moss and lichen the 'copes' are well weathered and match perfectly with the old stone from the house. Behind the stone wall is a 150mm dense concrete block wall which will do most of the work, such that the coping stones are laid across the two on a bed of mortar to tie the whole lot together. At the back of this the soil will be cultivated to form a raised bed that will completely hide the concrete blocks as shown in the photo.