Year: 2010

  • Borax as a wood preservative

    In keeping with a Healthy House ethos I’ve tried to avoid the use of potentially hazardous or environmentally harmful products in the barn. When it came to wood preservative borax was the option that stood out. What is borax? Borax is the name given to several mineral compounds of the chemical element boron, namely sodium…

  • Orange sunset

    An strange orange hue to the sky at sunset last night… The colour was even more vivid 10 minutes or so earlier… From Barn Conversion 2010

  • nothing gives me more comfort or more anxiety than fire

    Nothing quite draws your attention like an open fire… Fire: nothing gives me more comfort or more anxiety than fire. … The fireplace has been subsumed by the TV, pushed out of the nest as by a cuckoo. People now comtemplate the TV, not the fire. A fire only really comes into its own when…

  • Lime pointing ~ before pictures

    As much time as I’ve spent on pointing and all the ancillary activities such as moaning, evangelising and generally bumping-my-gums about pointing, I’ve just realised, I’ve not posted a great deal of evidence related to my actually doing any pointing. To address this, I thought a range of before photographs, showing the walls of the…

  • like a bird’s nest be a thing of great beauty

    I’m not sure that the barn resembles any kind of bird’s nest, but I do appreciate Roger Deakin’s words on the beauty to be found in the ordinary. An old house may be built of the humblest, simplest materials, and, like a bird’s nest be a thing of great beauty. Or: like a bird’s nest,…

  • Mini-sites on MBC

    I sometimes feel that there are certain topics that run through this site but remain somewhat hidden – hidden because of the chronological sequential nature of a WordPress site. Even with tags (like design) and categories (like Barn Conversion Journal), the information related to these topics, for example, lime pointing, or managing woodland for fuel…

  • Cornwall 2010

    I picked up on a few ‘nuggets’ of inspiration on our recent trip to Cornwall…

  • Maintain Traditions, Maintain Integrity – materials

    When working with an old building maintaining its integrity is essential. One of the cornerstones to the integrity of a building is the materials from which it is built and with which it is maintained and the techniques applied to those materials. Choose your palette carefully – natural stone, slate, local timber, lime mortar ……

  • Attention to detail… October 2010 update

    You (still) can’t beat a good list (see the bottom of this post for the previous ones) – after more than a year since the last update this is the current position (with comments from May 2009 in italics): Done – were in progress in May 2009 Flooring and tiling We’ve bought slate wall and…

  • Brittany 2010

    Back at the start of September we spent a week in a chalet on an estuary in Brittany. Whilst attempting to banish all things barn related from my mind, a couple of inspirations snuck through… A number of the windows in the chalet are postbox shaped – wide and short and providing a great framed…

  • Building Progress ~ September 2010

    Update on building progress during September 2010… ‘Seems like I’ve been repointing for ever…’

  • Combined Heat and Power

    Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems generate electrical power and heat simultaneously. There are three main technologies utilised to provide CHP systems – External combustion, Internal combustion and Fuel Cells. External combustion Central to the generation of electricity is the Stirling engine. A Stirling engine operates by being heated externally and so is described as…