future simple passive

The sliding doors

The sliding doors were made in the workshop, like the majority of the birch ply joinery and then transported assembled to site (see Internal joinery)

They are very big and very heavy.

Lovely simple, clean lines. Unfortunately none of us had taken account of the fact that we had created a finger guillotine. So retrospective action was taken to make a cut out, so that everyone can keep their all their digits.

Cedar Cladding- fully dressed now!

The slates were on, the scaffolding gone, we were on to the timber cladding.

I'd got a great price from Hillbarn Sawmills, based in Snowshill further north in the Cotswolds.

Andrew and Paul got on with putting on the Tyvek UV façade. It’s a vapour permeable water proof membrane. The cladding design is a rain screen and has spaces between the planks, so the membrane will be visible which is why it has to be UV stable.

The house looks super-cool with a black skirt, we all had a moment of wondering whether black would be the way to go...

Andrew insisted on less easily available red treated battens which he swears will last forever, the standard green battens are a lesser grade of timber. Yours truly stained them black -now that I was living on site Andrew put me to use where ever possible!

Charlie's original concept was that we could have the planks cut from cross sections of trees, and we could minimise any cutting waste by having all different sizes of planks. Lovely idea, and I really liked the fact that the planks would all be different widths. Reality was different though, saw-mills told me that that is just not how it works, they rarely process a whole tree like that and given than the timber needs to be dried it wasn't going to be realistic option. They just wanted to know what dimensions I wanted and the quantities of each.

Looking at the random width layout

Andrew begins the fixing using the more pricey stainless steel screws and cups, necessary as cedar sap corrodes anything else.

It was Paul that did the layout and fixing and he'd found his calling, he'd got a really good eye for it.

Beautiful! Over the next couple of years the cedar will silver. The planks are 50mm thick, really solid and I'm told will outlive me.

Goodbye scaffolding

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.

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.

Lots of lovely weathering

First the battens had to be fixed.

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...!

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.

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.

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.

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.