Year: 2009

Straight in this month, no excuses and no delay… I’ve managed to spread the load on finishing the untreated oak stairs and banisters having roped TC into treating the stairs with white foundation paint prior to waxing. I completed sanding and filling last weekend and the bannisters along the landing have all been whitened &…

Somewhat in anticipation of being able to take up residence we’ve bought a great new bed for the barn. King sized, so an extra six inches for the baby to spread out in during the middle of the night whilst his mother and I teeter at opposite edges of the bed. Ours is a Snowdon…

Whilst way beyond my own humble aspirations for energy self sufficiency, the fantastically named Island Micro Grid just commissioned at the Centre for Alternative Technology is an interesting development. I was shocked to read: The developed world’s centralised electricity system wastes around 65% of energy through heat loss in power stations and transmission lines, before…

The rainy damp Summer of 2009 continues … damply … I’ve completed regrouting the grubby bathroom tiling at long last. I’ve not fully cleaned them yet as I’m trying to avoid spending any more time on tiles at least for the next few weeks. The travertine floors downstairs have been completed and look great. I’ll…

As I’ve already mentioned I bought a chandelier from Scavengers. It looked great on the web: My Chandelier Not too fancy (if that can be said of any chandelier and I think I’m having second thoughts on that one), classy (well I thought it was when I bought it) and in pretty good condition. When…

I wrote about the Lammas ecovillage back at the start of the year. At the time, I aired my feelings of ethical support, but real-world unease. Now things have moved on and the development has been granted planning permission not by local planners, but in an act of centralised government colonialism, by the Welsh Assembly…

From, often painful and time consuming experience, whilst not claiming to any kind of authority, I suggest the following sequence to tiling (others may have differing guidelines): Tiling Tips Get a level consistent floor. (More below…) [optionally] Skip this step if using glazed tiles. Seal / stain-guard tiles. If expecting a really messy job, or…

Having dabbled in all sorts of areas of building and do-it-yourself that I really have should left alone, I thought I’d record (should I ever dabble in these areas again) and share some of my experiences, mistakes and (sometimes painful) learning. The aim of my new “Starter for 10” series of posts is just that.…

As promised on my update for July, here are some early pictures of the downstairs tiling as it goes in. The main room started… Very early days in the kitchen. I rather like this arty shot of the floor taken as you come down the stairs. The floor has been grouted by this stage. Strange…

On into the rainy damp Summer of 2009.. My bathroom tiling continues. I actually finished it once, but being unhappy with the grouting decided to regrout! Not quite as barmy as it sounds. I’m using white grout as I thought it would look cleaner in a bathroom, but mistakenly I rather carelessly sealed the tiles…

I like some of the headlines coming out of the Low Carbon Transition plan. The two that catch my eye especially are: Financial incentives for home generation. Paying for the creation of woodland. I’d love to be able to commission a wind turbine (so long as it was quiet) or get some photo-voltaics up and…

So, June… Tiling two bathrooms, both floor and shower enclosures has taken far longer than I predicted but on the whole I’ve enjoyed the work and the end product should be okay. The main progress this month has been in getting the solar panels and heating system up and running. It all went pretty smoothly…