4 May 2015
Parapet capping and watergoods
The vertically-hung slates were on, so the parapet needed capping before we dropped the scaffold. I had got numerous quotes for folded zinc capping and the prices were eye-wateringly high mostly around the £4K mark. There was no allowance in the budget for this. Andrew came to rescue by suggesting I contact Cladco in Devon, who supply agricultural and industrial roofing. The price difference was amazing we had dropped from quotes of £4000 excl VAT to under £700. They could fold sheets of galvanised steel to the dimensions required in 3m lengths, and were happy to cut the off-cuts to size so that they could be used as flashing on the building too!
It had been designed to have a minimal, barely noticeable appearance, capping the depth of the roof upstand. For more info about the roof read Building up the roof and The roofing membrane is laid. Andrew and I both felt very smug about the cost-cutting achieved.
It was also Cladco that I asked to provide the folded window metal reveals for the family bathroom as that would be less than £60!
Then we had a over a week's delay whilst we waited on failed deliveries of our Lindab hoppers. Poor Andrew drove all the way up from Somerset solely to take receipt of and fix the hoppers (we were desperate to get rid of the scaffolding and the extra costs) but had a wasted journey, they hadn't yet arrived at the distribution depot, which was actually in Somerset anyway. It eventually turned up.
Done! Quick call the scaffolders, take the scaffold away...
Slates go up, we are no longer naked
As some of the cowls had been fitted, but not all as we were waiting for the corrected pieces to come back, the slaters were finally able to begin on the entrance side of the house. Their schedule had been pushed back again and again as the cowl palaver (see The Cowls) dragged on. It was now September (they had originally been booked in for March).
I probably spoke to over 15 different roofers in my attempt to find the right guy. This turned out to be Pete Allard of P.L. Allard Builders from nearby Painswick.
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| Pete taking delivery of the reclaimed welsh slates. |
For a good slate rant check out my earlier post More Belgian Inspiration - Slates. As my supplier had fallen through Pete heroically sourced the required slates from a local reclamation yard in Gloucester, at a better price than I had anticipated - HOORAY, something is going well at last. The slates arrived, we were all a little bemused by the fact that the slates had been crated and stored flat, slates should be side on for obvious reasons, but hey ho, forward action.
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| Lots of lovely weathering |
First the battens had to be fixed.
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| Notice the bit of cowl on the scaffolding waiting to be fixed - the usual story of everything having to be done around each other. |
Then the slating began...!
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| The slate clips looking great. This will hold the slates more securely and also allow easy replacement of broken slates. |
There was a week or so delay in the middle as schedules clashed when the cowls were further delayed. When they finally arrived Andrew and Paul fixed them in place (see The Cowls) but by then the slaters were off on another job and we just had to wait for breaks in their work to allow them to come back and complete it all.
Look how gorgeous though.
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First impressions
Joolz from CLD, reminded me to note down my first impressions of the house when we moved in. Here they are...
The light, the light, the light! The light is amazing. The light from the big window, the light which travels through the centre of the house and then the light from the roof-lights which pours in from above. The ever-changing views have become part of our daily life as we watch the weather and light change the valleys and hills around us.
The house is exceeding all our expectations.
It is much more generously proportioned then we knew.
The bedrooms are more spacious than we thought they would be, especially our master bedroom.
The ensuite doesn't feel cramped and the shower is positively luxurious- the hinged shower screen was the right solution.
The paint colours are lovely, I really love the 'Tusk' upstairs- so gentle and calming.
The kitchen is amazing, even better than I hoped for and a pleasure to cook in.
I am so pleased.
The light, the light, the light! The light is amazing. The light from the big window, the light which travels through the centre of the house and then the light from the roof-lights which pours in from above. The ever-changing views have become part of our daily life as we watch the weather and light change the valleys and hills around us.
The house is exceeding all our expectations.
It is much more generously proportioned then we knew.
The bedrooms are more spacious than we thought they would be, especially our master bedroom.
The ensuite doesn't feel cramped and the shower is positively luxurious- the hinged shower screen was the right solution.
The paint colours are lovely, I really love the 'Tusk' upstairs- so gentle and calming.
The kitchen is amazing, even better than I hoped for and a pleasure to cook in.
I am so pleased.
Final week - Moving in
I have compared building your own home in the past to having a baby, the two processes have many things in common. No more so than the final couple of weeks before you move in. It's like being overdue by a couple of weeks. You expected that baby to be out 14 days ago and now you are thoroughly fed up. You are exhausted, uncomfortable, emotional and stressed. All you want is to get that baby (or house) out and get on with the rest of your life!
We had hoped to move the final week of August but in the end that was put back to early September which meant that in the meantime the children had a lengthy commute to their new school.
My demeanour utterly changed. My tolerance was zero, my goodwill disappeared. It ended up being a ridiculously tight schedule of work with zero tolerance for any mistakes/delays. The cowls were nowhere to be seen so work was focussed internally. The painters arrived and spent a week painting the house, including the weekend. As finances were getting ever tighter a number of jobs now fell at my feet. Seal the concrete floors, finish the Dinesen window boards & staircase, and stain and varnish all the birch ply joinery. The bathrooms and bedrooms were pretty ready. The kitchen was installed. What more did we need? Come on already...
The scaffolding around the door was moved to allow the removal guys to get into the building.
In we came.
We had hoped to move the final week of August but in the end that was put back to early September which meant that in the meantime the children had a lengthy commute to their new school.
My demeanour utterly changed. My tolerance was zero, my goodwill disappeared. It ended up being a ridiculously tight schedule of work with zero tolerance for any mistakes/delays. The cowls were nowhere to be seen so work was focussed internally. The painters arrived and spent a week painting the house, including the weekend. As finances were getting ever tighter a number of jobs now fell at my feet. Seal the concrete floors, finish the Dinesen window boards & staircase, and stain and varnish all the birch ply joinery. The bathrooms and bedrooms were pretty ready. The kitchen was installed. What more did we need? Come on already...
The scaffolding around the door was moved to allow the removal guys to get into the building.
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| This picture was taken a few weeks after we moved in, there were no slates when we moved in, but you get the idea - scaffolding everywhere, a ply sheet for an entrance! |
In we came.
At last we were living in our new home.
Curtains and Blinds
Or a long story of changing my mind. Originally I wanted curtains. Then I changed my mind to roman blinds. In the original design brief I had asked for recessed curtain tracks for inconspicuous design. However by the time we had got to the plastering stage I thought we were putting Roman blinds everywhere, also things were a bit rushed on site so there was no time to discuss fitting the tracks.
As moving in became nearer decisions had to made. Our windows are huge, both wide and tall, and it became apparent that I would need at least 3 huge blinds just for the large window. I had wanted to sew the roman blinds myself but I quickly realised that there would be no way I was going to have enough time to do them, even for the just the bedrooms. New EU regulations have come in regarding Roman Blinds and their cord lengths (the aim is to prevent child strangulation) which means the cords hang quite high up and so the whole thing was becoming difficult. I also realised that more clean lines wasn't really what i wanted, I needed to soften the visual lines.
I undertook my usual programme of weeks of research looking at all the options and found the Silent Gliss 1200. It's simple and elegant with a minimal aesthetic, and, on top of all that, excellent value for money. The 1200 could be used in all the bedrooms (6 floor to ceiling windows and doors). I really liked the fact that the curtains will glide silently and smoothly rather than being persuaded along the pole! It's the little things that bother you in daily life so it was important to me that the tracks are built to work well and last - no false economies. Silent Gliss have an reassuringly outstanding reputation.
Emma, the regional Silent Gliss rep, was brillant and offered to come to site. We discussed the suitability of the my preferred options, looked at colour samples and discussed stacking space, we measured up and finalised the order as all the tracks would be cut to fit exactly. Silent Gliss 1200 in the lovely warm gold colour in all the bedrooms.
Upstairs I needed a solution for the HUGE window. Unfortunately nothing can be fixed within the reveals as the top part is non-structural and couldn't support the weight. Also, as I had previously anticipated blinds, we'd designed the kitchen to extend almost to the window, leaving very little stacking space. We decided to use a ceiling mounted Wave system, the 3840W. It's pretty minimal and unobtrusive. The Wave system also allows my stacking area to be reduced as the fabric stacks evenly in front and behind the track reducing bulk.
The curtain choice turned out to be relatively straightforward. Ikea's linen ready-made curtains, AINA, are fantastic value for money. They were in the middle of changing their range but I was able to buy up their remaining stocks of white and light grey linen curtains (this involved an unplanned dash from the Bristol to Cardiff Ikea!).
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The plan is to dip dye the curtains in indigo if we start to find them too plain. Right now the simplicity of the single colour is working really well.
As moving in became nearer decisions had to made. Our windows are huge, both wide and tall, and it became apparent that I would need at least 3 huge blinds just for the large window. I had wanted to sew the roman blinds myself but I quickly realised that there would be no way I was going to have enough time to do them, even for the just the bedrooms. New EU regulations have come in regarding Roman Blinds and their cord lengths (the aim is to prevent child strangulation) which means the cords hang quite high up and so the whole thing was becoming difficult. I also realised that more clean lines wasn't really what i wanted, I needed to soften the visual lines.
I undertook my usual programme of weeks of research looking at all the options and found the Silent Gliss 1200. It's simple and elegant with a minimal aesthetic, and, on top of all that, excellent value for money. The 1200 could be used in all the bedrooms (6 floor to ceiling windows and doors). I really liked the fact that the curtains will glide silently and smoothly rather than being persuaded along the pole! It's the little things that bother you in daily life so it was important to me that the tracks are built to work well and last - no false economies. Silent Gliss have an reassuringly outstanding reputation.
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| Silent Gliss 1200 |
Emma, the regional Silent Gliss rep, was brillant and offered to come to site. We discussed the suitability of the my preferred options, looked at colour samples and discussed stacking space, we measured up and finalised the order as all the tracks would be cut to fit exactly. Silent Gliss 1200 in the lovely warm gold colour in all the bedrooms.
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| Silent Gliss 1200 |
Upstairs I needed a solution for the HUGE window. Unfortunately nothing can be fixed within the reveals as the top part is non-structural and couldn't support the weight. Also, as I had previously anticipated blinds, we'd designed the kitchen to extend almost to the window, leaving very little stacking space. We decided to use a ceiling mounted Wave system, the 3840W. It's pretty minimal and unobtrusive. The Wave system also allows my stacking area to be reduced as the fabric stacks evenly in front and behind the track reducing bulk.
 |
| Silent Gliss 3840W -two sections as the sliding door comes through the middle. |
The curtain choice turned out to be relatively straightforward. Ikea's linen ready-made curtains, AINA, are fantastic value for money. They were in the middle of changing their range but I was able to buy up their remaining stocks of white and light grey linen curtains (this involved an unplanned dash from the Bristol to Cardiff Ikea!).
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The plan is to dip dye the curtains in indigo if we start to find them too plain. Right now the simplicity of the single colour is working really well.
Concrete floor
Once the plasterwork had been finished (see Render and plaster) we were able to sweep away the protective sand covering and get a good look at the concrete floor. If you remember this is, in fact, our power-floated foundation slab (see Finishing the slab) which, in the end, didn't get power-floated quite enough. To protect our finished floor during the blockwork and plastering we decided to use sand as a breathable protective covering (see Up we go).
It was looking good, the colour varied from greys through yellows and greens to browns, it looked quite organic and stone like in places.
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| Can you see the trainer footprints? |
Around the edges it was a little rough but nothing a bit of sanding couldn't fix.
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Paul tidied up the edges with a sander and then I hired a rotary sander (hand-held one) and over a couple of days went over the whole floor until it was pretty smooth.
The place where the concrete was roughest was in our ensuite bathroom area. Andrew had a go with a monster, heavy duty sanding machine with diamond-studded disc, but the results were disappointing - it had taken away the grey colour and left scratch marks everywhere. Back to the drawing board.
Sealing the floor was a disaster. I used ECOS Organic Paints Concrete Sealer. The first coat was applied thinly using a roller, as directed, and left to dry for more than 24 hrs but after this time was still tacky. The coverage was very poor, uneven and mottled looking, despite a fastidious and careful application. So after 48hrs another coat was applied this time using a lambswool applicator. This appeared to go on much more evenly.
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But again the tackiness was a problem. We thought that perhaps if we just used the floor as normal, everyday dust would eventually bring it down to a dry finish. However the floor remained sticky. Anything left on the floor stuck to it- stools, carpets, paper, etc. Also when water spilt on to it the coating seemed to dissolve back to the unfinished concrete.
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I asked politely for some customer support from ECOS but was disappointed. I was told after numerous emails, including being told that my application of the product looked like a joke (!), that they had never received a complaint about the product before so there must be an issue with my concrete...won't shop there again.
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| Looks yellow and green here but isn't! |
It worked out fine in the end.
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