The blog has taken a back seat lately as it's getting busy on site - no bad thing! A quick summary of where we are is:
The American White Oak front door and the back door have arrived. They can't be installed just yet as there's too much muck around. But they look good.
First fix electrics have started, and the plumber is due to start anytime soon. The inside of the house is a mess with the changes to the internal layout almost complete, but it's resulted in brick dust and debris everywhere!
The lead valley gutter is inplace so the rest of the kitchen/diner roof can now be covered in shingles and clay tiles.
Meanwhile, the final smooth coat of render has started outside and we've even painted the fascias ready for the guttering to be installed.
There are now loads of questions from the various trades for us so we're juggling being on site with scouring the 'net for materials and visiting suppliers to check that we like what they're offering. So the next couple of days off work, using up my annual leave, will be spent trying to finally source the best cedar cladding along with lime based render paint.
Good to see so much happening!
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
Restricting the wildlife
Feel a bit guilty today as we've had a negative impact on wildlife habitat.
Firstly, we've just installed caps onto the three chimneys that we don't use. The caps are made from aluminium, so they're recyclable, and are clamped onto the existing chimney pots. They'll prevent the Jackdaws from nesting, hopefully! As it is the pair of Jackdaws that seem to have adopted the front bedroom chinmey as their likely nest site for this spring didn't look too impressed today when they found their entrance blocked off. The other benefit of the caps is that they will prevent rain ingress into the unused chimneys, and should help in solving the damp problem in the stacks. With the last two years being very wet, and with the chimneys not used, they have seen a lot of damp ingress which has affected the house.
The other habitat that has been destroyed is a huge wasps nest. Last summer it was obvious that a load of wasps were living in the porch roof, but they didn't affect us so we left them to it. This week Paul the brickie demolished the porch roof and exposed the huge, and thankfully dormant, nest. It was full of dead wasps so may have been unlikely to be reused, but not being an expert on wasp habitats I wouldn't like to say. All I hope is that they don't come back this summer looking for a home as they could be disappointed, and a little annoyed. And I'm no big fan of annoyed wasps!
Firstly, we've just installed caps onto the three chimneys that we don't use. The caps are made from aluminium, so they're recyclable, and are clamped onto the existing chimney pots. They'll prevent the Jackdaws from nesting, hopefully! As it is the pair of Jackdaws that seem to have adopted the front bedroom chinmey as their likely nest site for this spring didn't look too impressed today when they found their entrance blocked off. The other benefit of the caps is that they will prevent rain ingress into the unused chimneys, and should help in solving the damp problem in the stacks. With the last two years being very wet, and with the chimneys not used, they have seen a lot of damp ingress which has affected the house.
The other habitat that has been destroyed is a huge wasps nest. Last summer it was obvious that a load of wasps were living in the porch roof, but they didn't affect us so we left them to it. This week Paul the brickie demolished the porch roof and exposed the huge, and thankfully dormant, nest. It was full of dead wasps so may have been unlikely to be reused, but not being an expert on wasp habitats I wouldn't like to say. All I hope is that they don't come back this summer looking for a home as they could be disappointed, and a little annoyed. And I'm no big fan of annoyed wasps!
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Eco kitchen
We finally seem to be getting somewhere with sourcing a sustainable kitchen.
The UK high street has proven very willing to sell us plastic wrapped flat-pack units but finding something more sustainable has proven difficult. We've been looking for solid wood kitchens as a result, but unfortunately these tend to be at the top of the price bracket from companies like Crabtree. Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic kitchens made by true craftsmen. It's just that our budget can't cope with the price tag.
But we think we've found an acceptable compromise. We've ordered 1/3 of the kitchen from Harvey Jones, not quite in Crabtree's league but very nice wooden kitchen units nevertheless. All the timber is FSC and they're made in the UK. They even deliver the units pre-assembled and wrapped in blankets to cut down on packaging.
The island will be recycled. We've found an old piece of furniture at the Ministry of Pine http://www.ministryofpine.com/images/kitchens/kitchen_islands/c153front.JPG that, with a little heigh adjustment, will make a gread island unit. We may renovate the existing pine worktop and reuse that in the short-term, depends what it's like once we sand it back. Otherwise we'll be installing a new timber worktop onto it.
The only other units that remain to be sourced are the sink run - we have considered making do with free-standing IKEA units but we'll probably do the ultimate in recycling and re-use the old Hillside kitchen units. Once sanded down, with the ironmongery replaced, and the cupboards possibly repainted, they'll hopefully look great.
So we may not end up with the sleekest kitchen ever,but it should come in within budget and will be inline with our sustainable ethos.
The UK high street has proven very willing to sell us plastic wrapped flat-pack units but finding something more sustainable has proven difficult. We've been looking for solid wood kitchens as a result, but unfortunately these tend to be at the top of the price bracket from companies like Crabtree. Don't get me wrong, they're fantastic kitchens made by true craftsmen. It's just that our budget can't cope with the price tag.
But we think we've found an acceptable compromise. We've ordered 1/3 of the kitchen from Harvey Jones, not quite in Crabtree's league but very nice wooden kitchen units nevertheless. All the timber is FSC and they're made in the UK. They even deliver the units pre-assembled and wrapped in blankets to cut down on packaging.
The island will be recycled. We've found an old piece of furniture at the Ministry of Pine http://www.ministryofpine.com/images/kitchens/kitchen_islands/c153front.JPG that, with a little heigh adjustment, will make a gread island unit. We may renovate the existing pine worktop and reuse that in the short-term, depends what it's like once we sand it back. Otherwise we'll be installing a new timber worktop onto it.
The only other units that remain to be sourced are the sink run - we have considered making do with free-standing IKEA units but we'll probably do the ultimate in recycling and re-use the old Hillside kitchen units. Once sanded down, with the ironmongery replaced, and the cupboards possibly repainted, they'll hopefully look great.
So we may not end up with the sleekest kitchen ever,but it should come in within budget and will be inline with our sustainable ethos.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
What bathroom?
The builders have seriously trashed the house now. Not only has the back wall to the old kitchen disappeared to make room for the new stairs, but as of today the bathroom fittings have been ripped out. So the house is without any plumbing to speak of, just a few bits of heating pipework and the old radiators.
Finally met the eletrician yesterday, making his first visit to Hillside to see what the job entails. As we'd half expected, he's condemned the existing electrics so will be doing a complete rewire. More work than we'd hoped but at least we'll know it's done safely and not bodged like so many things we're finding in the old house.
Meanwhile, Paul the brickie has been carrying on with extending the flat roof at the back of the house. In true eco-style he has reused some of the original bricks from the kitchen wall to build up what will become the wall of the slightly relocated bathroom. He has also started building the cavity wall for the new cloakroom, and has started dismantling the old porch. No wonder it leaked heat, as it was built from single skin concrete blocks with no insulation in sight.
Whilst all this goes on we're juggling the sourcing of an increasing number of things, such as the new front door, stairs, kitchen units, insulation for the kitchen, door ironmongery, wood pellet boiler, solar thermal panels etc.
Finally met the eletrician yesterday, making his first visit to Hillside to see what the job entails. As we'd half expected, he's condemned the existing electrics so will be doing a complete rewire. More work than we'd hoped but at least we'll know it's done safely and not bodged like so many things we're finding in the old house.
Meanwhile, Paul the brickie has been carrying on with extending the flat roof at the back of the house. In true eco-style he has reused some of the original bricks from the kitchen wall to build up what will become the wall of the slightly relocated bathroom. He has also started building the cavity wall for the new cloakroom, and has started dismantling the old porch. No wonder it leaked heat, as it was built from single skin concrete blocks with no insulation in sight.
Whilst all this goes on we're juggling the sourcing of an increasing number of things, such as the new front door, stairs, kitchen units, insulation for the kitchen, door ironmongery, wood pellet boiler, solar thermal panels etc.
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