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

You can’t beat a good list – this is the current position: In Progress Flooring and tiling We’ve bought slate wall tiles for both bathrooms and will buy slate flooring shortly. We’ve selected oak flooring for the first floor and a nice champagne coloured sandstone for the ground floor – orders for both will be…

The South facing gable end of the barn has been one of the biggest issues we’ve faced. It always looked very sound and had been repointed recently. Once work started it become apparent that the pointing wasn’t as sound as it looked – in fact the higher up the wall you went the worse it…

Whilst bringing to mind images of ticks and leeches, parasitic architecture is an umbrella term, used to refer to self-contained new buildings that are attached to an existing structure. Parasitic because of the use made of existing infrastructure. Personally, after the time and energy that have gone into my barn conversion project the prospect of…

As Autumn (and an end to lime pointing) approaches things have come on at the barn. Plastered! We’ve been plastered. Plastering has been completed except for right at the ‘top’ of the barn, where the ceilings have yet to be completed. Cabling and pipes for the solar panels and other services are carried through a…

Many people visiting this site are looking for information about heat pumps, being one who believes in giving the people what they want I thought an up-to-date summary was in order… Heat pumps take heat from a donor heat transfer medium (earth / air / water) and condense it for the purpose of heating water…

I’ve given my opinion and explained the pragmatic approach to project management (some might call it a lack of management) that I employ. I’ve also described some of the tools that I use … Google documents & Basecamp … and some of the questions to answer when deciding ‘how to manage your project‘. Progressing with…

You knew there was a use for cork except for sealing wine bottles… Description Cork is a natural and effective insulator. One disadvantage for the UK builder is the need to import cork from countries with the climate to grow it such as Portugal and other Mediterranean countries (China and India are now getting in…

Progress in August was … sporadic. A case of tidying up and finishing off. Plaster boarding continued, the ‘missing’ kitchen window was ‘found’. The one major piece of progress was the installation of the new gutters and downpipes – aluminium and moulded on-site so that they consist of a single piece for each section (no…

I’m judging that we are something over half-way through the conversion, not in terms of time or money, but change – it’s no longer a barn and not yet a house. This is one best left to the pictures, so no more words… Before… Before (picture taken October 2007) During… During (picture taken August 2008)…

To those yet to be introduced to the wonders of hemp, this type of insulation can seem like a hippies dream, however a simple Google search will soon lead you to the world beyond students bed-sits and Pink Floyd soundtracks to textiles, biodegradable plastics and fuel. However, we’re interested in insulating properties of hemp, so…

Whilst not wanting to become a lime-pointing-bore (I bet there aren’t too many of those in the world) I feel another update is in order. The tools that I ordered to help in raking out the mortar joints have disappointingly not arrived yet but the repointing tools have. I managed to break the mortar hawk…

I’m not in the habit of giving advice (well at least not until recently), but the one regret that I have (well in addition to forgetting to put solar panels on the original plans) was that we didn’t go ahead and install rainwater harvesting. I had a quote for a large tank and a variety…