Month: November 2008

  • Cleaning oak beams

    I wanted to minimise the use of steel in the building and I like the texture and appearance of untreated hard woods – that led to the importation of two eastern European oak beams for use in the barn. That long journey (let’s not worry about carbon footprints for now) and a few weeks sitting…

  • Corner bath?

    The bath I bought doesn’t quite fit into the bathroom if it’s placed along the same wall as the shower… It does fit if placed across the corner as in the picture, so the question is corner bath? Does it say badly planned bathroom or boutique hotel? Corner bath?

  • Main bedroom ‘suite’…

    Please excuse the slightly pompous title to this post – guess I’m pretty happy with way this aspect of the conversion has gone. The initial design was a little bit strange, with two doors through an internal wall that didn’t really have enough space for them and an over-large en suite bathroom that was a…

  • Items ‘ordinarily’ incorporated in a building

    Having spent much time pawing over VAT documentation in preparation for my VAT reclaim I discovered that the HM Revenue & Customs definition of items ‘ordinarily’ incorporated in a building makes for interesting reading and may suggest a few VAT free inclusions for your design. In short, you can claim for building materials that are…

  • The case for coal

    Now here’s a conundrum… First the facts: The barn lies just outside of the South Wales Coal Field. Our heating system will comprise of solar thermal water heating (from in-roof panels) with a multi-fuel burner as the ‘primary’ heat source (& a backup electrical heating coil in the tank) [Read the background to that] (I’m…

  • Step 6 = define your design ethos

    Decide upon your design ethos. Much as I hate the pretentious word ethos I think it’s essential to define what you want to achieve. To continue on a pretentious theme whilst shifting into the world of business speak to define your terms of reference. For example, do you want a eco-minimalist, ‘healthy house’ or country…

  • MBC Photos now on Flickr

    With the somewhat baffling success of our YouTube videos now playing on Channel MBC … (Serving over 1,000 discerning TV viewers to date!) I thought I should turn my attention to still photographs and using the best of the web to make them available to you. Please join our new My Barn Conversion flickr group…