Year: 2011

I have a lot of shelving and storage to build, install or buy for the barn. At the moment there is very little real storage. That makes things nice and open - no big closed in furniture and nice uncluttered walls, but it's not very practical. In my usual way, I've been trawling the web for options and I thought I'd share what I've found so far. Any further recommendations or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'd love to build-my-own, but I'm not so sure that a) my carpentry skills are up to it (not that that has stopped me…

In my slow, intermittent, literary stroll through Roger Deakin's Notes from Walnut Tree Farm I stumbled across another quotation that I couldn't help but agree with... I really do want people to come home to a real fire. A nation without the flames of a fire in the hearth, and birds singing outside the open window, has lost its soul. To have an ancient carboniferous forest brought to life at the centre of your home, its flames budding and shooting up like young trees, is a work of magic. Read more - Notes from Walnut Tree Farm on page 155.…

With the snow now gone I'm able to photograph the 'garden' - or perhaps this patch of soil and rocks is better described as the 'prospective garden'... A place of beauty I'm sure you'll agree... From Barn Conversion 2011 ...hours of fun lie ahead raking out the stones ready for reseeding later in the year. Between the 'prospective garden' and the barn lies this once tranquil area now reduced to mud in pursuit of a land drain. From Barn Conversion 2011

Whilst the interiors of this barn conversion in Austria are a little too coldly architectural for my liking, I love this external wall. It evokes a favourite Roger Deakin quote. (It's also a bit daft that it's the north facade of the building as the logs will get no sun on them to aid in their seasoning.) The other thing I always notice with these European conversions is how they would never pass British building regulations - for example, on picture number 10 (the one with a blurry man going upstairs) there appears little if not no insulation in the…

Happy New Year - 2011! Snow disrupted things in mid-late December with a fall on the 17th of December staying with us until just after Christmas - so between that and Christmas itself progress has been limited. I had high hopes for what I'd achieve before Christmas as I wanted to start laying the flagstone patio for use over the festive period and also mostly complete work on the main bathroom - neither got done as we were snowed out of the barn over the weekend I had that work planned for. I managed some work in the bathroom -…