Clad

We bought the cedar cladding for the timber frame several months ago, but the chippie has always had more important jobs to do. However, he's finally started putting the cladding on this week and has made good progress, hampered slightly by a torrential downpour yesterday.

It already looks great, and is good to see the black breather membrane that is on the outside of the timber frame, finally dissapearing after 6 months! We didn't think we'd be waiting that long for the cladding.

Along with looking good (we made sure we bought a square edged profile rather than conventional shiplap to give it a cleaner and more contemporary look), the cedar is another sustainable material and adds a little extra thermal and acoustic insulation to the outside of the walls.

There seems to be an obsession with masonry in the UK, and timber frames are still frowned upon for some odd reason. And it can't be anything to do with a cold or wet climate, after all timber frames are the construction method of choice for housing in the USA and Sacndinavia. Many UK timber frames are therefore clad in brick or blockwork so that they look like a 'conventional' masonry building. We could've done this for the timber frame extension, rendering it so that it looked just like the rest of the house. Instead we thought it would not only enhance the design of the house to introduce a different external finish, but by using timber it offers sustainability benefits. And what's really amazing is that the 20mm thick cladding has better thermal performance than a standard brick.

Cautionary tale

I've always been a little sceptical of stories of how rife internet fraud is, but now we've become victims it makes you think a little more about who you entrust your credit card details to.

We ordered some euro cylinder locks, keyed alike so we don't end up with lots of keys for the different external doors, from a web based company Direct Locks. Their website looks pretty normal, and I have spoken to people at the company to check a few details of the locks. When the locks were taking longer than expected I phoned them, and after getting their voicemail a couple of times, finally got through and talked to somebody who said they'd check progress. They did, and emailed me to let me know there was a delay with their supplier and advised a new delivery date. This has long since gone past.

Since then any calls to Direct Locks have been diverted to voicemail and the emails have stopped. So I thought I'd see if anybody else has had problems...and wish I'd done this sooner as I soon came across 'net posts of very similar stories. It turns out that they may have been a ligitimate company, but have gone insolvent and are still taking peoples' cash. Okay, so I've only lost a few pounds but if they've got my credit card details....

So I phoned the bank, and before I knew it they'd stopped my credit card. 'You'll get your new one in 5 working days' I was told. Fantastic, just what I need when in the middle of a building project with various purchases to make!

When you consider what we've spent on Hillside the scale of the apparent fraud is thankfully minor, but it's frustrating to lose the credit card and will make me think a little harder about who I entrust my card details to in future.

Sand

No, we haven't been to the beach even though it's the weekend of the summer solstice and long summer evenings. But sand features in a few of places at Hillside:

We've bought several new pine doors for internal doorways but will be reusing the old orange stained pine doors where possible, but not in their orange state! Instead we're sanding them back and then restaining them with the Nutshell Earth Pigments we used on the front door frame to give them the look of oak, at a fraction of the price.

The builders have started to render the retaining wall, hiding the blockwork that has been staring at us since last autumn. Instead, thanks to the sand, lime and cement mix, we now have several panels of lovely smooth render to look at and give a sense of the Italian style courtyard we want to create. It has a way to go yet though!

The builders tend to leave their mugs lying around in various places on site. Whilst we have water onsite, and they have their kettles to boil hot water, it seems that their preferred method on washing their mugs is by using sand! I've not seen them do it, but they've told C that sand is the best way to clean their tea stained mugs. I'm glad we take a flask with us.

Sash

After trying to get the semi-rotten sill out on Saturday, with limited success, we fared better on Sunday.

I borrowed a set of auger drill bits and peppered the decent wood with holes making it much easier to remove. The only really awkward bits were either side where the sill projects under the sash box. Some careful use of a chisel, and a fair bit of patience, meant I could lever out the wood. Now all I have to do is find a couple of pieces of wood to fill in the side holes and another to replace the sill, and then get them inplace. Hopefully it won't be too difficult.

The rest of the sash looks to be in good condition. The paint needs a good overhaul - the topcoat has come off in thick sheets in places showing that there is virually no key for it on the rather nasty 70s woodstain beneath. Another sanding job awaits I think.

Wild flowers

With the old garden having been thoroughly trashed over the last 9 months it's no suprise that it's quite literally gone to seed. When the garden temporarily turned into something resembling a quarry to allow the builders to construct the retaining walls, the topsoil was piled up safely on one side. Once they'd backfilled the clay etc the builders then spread the topsoil, mixed up with turf and a collection of the old weeds that used to pass as a 'lawn'.

While concentrating on the house, with the odd foray onto the veg patch, we've not been able to do much with the garden so the grass and much increased weeds are flourishing. We have a great collection of poppies yet didn't have any before, in true Flanders-style now the trenches are gone! Thistles, bindweed and a myriad of other weeds that have been dormant in the soil have now sprouted up and are making the most of the neglected garden.

Along with the poppies it's good to see a range of native flowers appearing to compensate for the mess, even the buttercups despite them technically being weeds. The best find so far, which was narrowly missed by the digger judging by the tracks a few inches away, is the clump of orchids. Okay so they're only Common Spotted, but they're still a protected species and are spectacular flowers. Finds like this help to offset the annoyance at the amount of weeds that have appeared.

Deliveries

This week has seen two major deliveries at Hillside. Early in the week we were expecting the oak stairs to be delivered. We've made a point of delaying delivery of these till as late as possible to avoid them getting damage by builder foot-traffic. With the plasterboard going in this week it's important that they have the stairs installed so they can do the plasterboard in the stairwell.

No sign of the stairs though till then end of the week, but when they did turn up the chippie had them installed and wrapped up to protect them in no time. So whilst the stairs are in we can't enjoy them just yet - but it does beat having to climb a ladder to get upstairs.

The other major delivery of the week was the garage door, allowing us to replace the temporary boarding at the front of the garage, or boiler room as the builders call it. Unfortunately the budget couldn't stretch to the eco-option of a wooden door but we have at least got an insulated one, which will help to keep in the heat from the boiler and mean there is less heatloss from the old part of the cottage alongside and the new bedroom above.

I've not had time to 'play' with the door yet but I'm sure there'll be time soon. Instead we've been doing other important jobs such as trying to renovate the only original sash window that is left in the house. The sill is mostly rotten and I dug the bulk of the crumbly old wood out today. Working out how to get the remaining wood out, and replacement wood back in looks like it could be a challenge.

We also sowed a few lollo rosso and beetroot in the veg plot - it'll be interesting to see how they get on with the heavy clay soil lacking a great deal of organic matter!

Ditched

If you were reading this blog back in 2007 you may recall our problems with drainage. Over the past couple of years we've learnt, with some rather dramatic examples as in this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKYyKWMeIiM), that there's a land drain at the top of the garden that tends to overflow after periods of heavy rain, sending torrents of water straight down the hill to the rear of the house.

We've managed this situation temporarily with a range of impromptu dams and trenches, often causing me to be outside with my wellies and a shovel at unearthly hours thanks to the whims of Mother Nature.

The last few months have been dry thankfully, and we've not seen much in the way of overflowing so have not had to worry about the poor drainage, even if the builder keeps reminding us of how wet the place is! However, at long last the builder has done what we've been asking for him to do for months and has dug a ditch from the land drain, along the hedgerow and down to the road, providing a route for the water that keeps it away from the garden. And thanks to the heavy rain overnight we were able to see that it worked this morning. Result!

So hopefully we can now rest in the knowledge that the Hillside 'stream' is a thing of the past and I'll not be spending any more nights in the garden digging trenches.

Progress on all fronts

It's been a busy few days at Hillside. Over the weekend we completed installation of the recycled insulation. We also found time to dig over the first bit of the veg plot and setup hazel sticks to grow the runner beans and mangetout up.

Ths builder and plumber have been busy installing plasterboard, the new double glazed timber windows, the boiler and yesterday they finally dropped the rainwater tank into place. With quite a few guys onsite it's great to see things coming together.

And even though it's a little premature, the kitchen island was delivered yesterday, but that gives us time to sand it down and give it the restoration it needs.

Busy all round...hence the brief general update!