Year: 2011

Update on building progress during July 2011…

In June we spent a fantastic week in Brittany – Northern France is about as far as I fancy driving at the moment and flying has become such hard-work I frankly can’t be bothered. From Travel The cottage we stayed in had an air source heat pump that provided domestic hot water and heating. I’d…

We had a night away at the lovely, Llys Meddyg in Newport, Pembrokeshire a couple of weeks ago. Fabulous weather in a picturesque place, a great meal and I really liked the use of colour and textures in the hotel. Take this as an example: From Travel Perhaps we should get a bit bolder with…

I need a gate to fit this gap…. (click to enlarge) To build or buy?.. that is the question…

The limewashed gable-end of the barn, done in October 2008 needs a bit of a touch-up so I’ve been looking for a ‘recipe’ for limewash. The builder who originally limewashed it for me used a bagged hydrated lime mixed with water in something like a 3/4:1 (75kg/100kg water:25kg lime) mix. But as I’ve still got…

I seem to have been uploading a lot of before pictures to my Picasa account recently – photographs of piles of soil, holes in the ground, unfinished interiors and unbuilt things. For most of these there’s already an accompanying after, as I’ve at last been making progress and things are getting finished. Well, maybe not…

I’ve moved two tonnes of 40mm clean stone over the last couple of days and bloody hard work it’s been. The large 40mm stone has to be the hardest thing to shovel that I’ve ever worked with, small stone is definitely easier. The stone has gone into reestablishing the land drain that runs along the…

Update on building progress during June 2011…

When it comes to the barn, at the moment, the skill about which I know very little, but with which I plan to achieve much is woodworking. I have the following on my to-do list to be built: shelves under the stairs, book cases along the landing, a cabin bed and boxing-in in the second…

In my ongoing search for garden inspiration, I spotted this wooden bench at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust site near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire. I’d previously been rather taken with the cob building at Slimbridge, building my own cob building being one of the key items on my ‘to do when I’ve got the time’ list. From…

It is with a mixed sense of delight (at having no more pointing to do) and dismay (at having no more pointing to do) that I can report that I’ve completed repointing the barn. There’s still work to be done on pointing the garden walls and the arches over the original windows and doors still…

What are your input systems? Oh the headaches this one has caused me… The first thing to determine is which is your over-riding goal – keeping costs down or be ‘green’? With mains gas still the cheapest option (at least in the short term) a modern gas boiler is probably still the best choice if…