My Barn Conversion … musings in small-house, off-grid, architecture, design with smatterings of art, history and literature

I found this lurking inside an old off cut of wood… From bochgoch Pretty hey?!

Once painting (windows frames) and pointing (repointing the stonework) are completed, I’m hoping that the good temperatures and most importantly dry weather of late summer-autumn will extend long enough to allow for some further work outside the barn. We intend to dig out much of the the bank that currently dominates what will be the…

Utilise as much of the original structure as you can and make the most of it. Keep internal beams, exposed stonework (on fully internal walls only, building regulations prohibit exposed stonework on the interior of external walls), reuse original flooring… Snippets on MBC Rather than my usual wordy ramblings I thought I’d challenge myself to…

An interesting story on Wales Online today that raises more questions for me than it answers for me… Wales has it’s first ‘carbon free’ house. The house is built along PassivHaus lines on a small estate in Ebbw Vale from mainly Welsh materials. It has PV panels so generates its own power and has managed…

Let’s get in early this month… I’ve mainly been occupied with repointing the external walls. I didn’t do any repointing last year, but want to get it finished this year so I’ve got my hands full. It needs completing before the weather turns colder so I probably have until the end of September to get…

Having spent a fair amount of time over the last few years staring at a wall with trowel in hand pointing I’ve built up some opinions on mortar, pointing and stonework and how the three should mesh together (tragic I know!). I’m no fan of overly fussy, decorative pointing and neither is my new favorite…

I discovered a great source of information on the maintenance and restoration of old buildings on the new Maintenance Matters website. The site has been produced by Cadw, the ‘official guardian of the built heritage of Wales’. Short publications on such subjects as lime-washing, repointing and replacing sash cords are freely available and well worth…

Oh dear … the June update passed me by, so here in brief and from some distance (19th July) is a summary of progress… I have completed under-coating all the windows twice with ‘eco friendly’ Farrow and Ball paint. Floor laying was slowed by my inflamed knee. My right knee stopped working altogether at one…

I keep mislaying these so I thought I’d put them on the site. With hindsight (wonderful thing that it is) I would have put all these types of things – room sizes, dimensions, plans and diagrams on the site way-back-when and kept them all in one place. Next time! Room sizes in square metres are:…

A strong yet light insulator, foamed glass is suitable for load bearing applications especially those demanding water and vapour resistance. Description Foamed glass insulation is made from (usually) recycled glass that is mixed with carbon and then heated to very high temperatures. Upon heating the carbon oxidises and forms bubbles in the resultant stone-like material.…

Here I’ll consider the actual costs of converting your barn and making it habitable. The Conversion So we’ve safely purchased our pile of stone, slate and wood and it’s quietly decaying away in the corner of a farm-yard somewhere, how much will it cost to convert it to a place a person (rather than a…

Spot the difference… Before undercoating: From Barn Conversion 2010 After undercoating: From Barn Conversion 2010 (Difference = Slightly darker / greener window frames)