July to mid October - Inside the house

Meanwhile Inside The House

Dave's painting marathon is still ongoing. We're using a breathable plaster primer. and we've used a lot more than expected.  Dave's also painted the new book case in the sitting room and the overhang outside at the front and lots of places in between.

I've been floor-laying with varying degrees of success.

On the top floor I'm laying cork tiles. I like the look and feel of cork and I appreciate it's sound-dampening, impact-softening properties in children's rooms.

The first room went fine then tile-curl struck. After sealing with eco-varnish all the tiles curled up at the corners whilst the centres stayed very firmly stuck to the floor.

Much scraping (thanks Dave) and we were back to the same old boards we'd had since Christmas. Replacements came and so far remain stuck in place. But they all still need a top finish.
























After a bit of a crisis of confidence, and a fear it was all taking just too long, we brought in a tiler to do the ceramic floors in the lower shower rooms and kitchen. Job done,  with a few hiccups as the plumber hadn't set the wet room shower drain low enough.  

I moved on to laminate flooring on the ground floor. It's harder than you'd think when your floor isn't really level, but I'm getting there.

It's training for the sitting room which is expensive engineered Oak  It is also said to be "quick and simple" to fit as a floating floor. Fingers crossed.

Originally the handrail for the stairs was to be oak with painted spindles. For economy the oak rail was switched to home-stained and waxed pine.










It looked nice so we decided I'd stain and wax the spindles too.

Stair-spindle city -  the spindles for both flights were stained and waxed in the nice sunny kitchen - ready for Des to install...

...and here he is fitting the last of the spindles

After that I built more of the kitchen and it's now virtually finished - apart from the larder and some shelves, oh and tiling splash backs.   These are earlier pics from August and September.

I amused myself painting shutters for the top bathroom.













Light switches, light fittings (thanks Jonathan!) bathroom installation and the heat pump commissioned. 

Here's Tom checking the wiring.....

...  and I learnt (too late) if you want straight switches you have to have the boxes in the wall straight too. These are in the sittting room. 

The thermostats for the UFH suprised me by their size and complexity.  We should be able to control things to the nth degree with all this.  There's one in nearly every room.

Jon came from Stroma and did our airtightness test in early October.  To pass building regs. you need to have no more than 10 air changes (or some such unit) per hour. Our heating system and the house were built assuming only 3 air changes. To be honest I can't remember where this figure came from. I think I read up on lots of similar projects and then made it up. 

 Here's Jon making a CAD model of our seven-sided house - he needs to know the volume and/or the suface area of the building for his calculations.

The first result was 2.1 - good!  Jon gave me a little smoke puffer to carry round looking for leaks. There were big leaks around the steps to the sitting room and through the centre 3 holes in each socket (I'd carefully sealed the edges of each socket, light switch, ceiling rose, window sill etc. etc.) I quickly sealed around the stairs and plugged a few things into some of the sockets. Jon kindly re-ran the test and this time got to 1.86 and that is what has gone on certificate.  

I was very impressed by the seals on the windows and doors and the plasterwork, and a little bit annoyed to think how simple it would have been to seal the electrics properly before the plaster board went on. They were sealed in some places - but not all - which is a bit like fixing some of the holes in your bucket. Jon had visited earlier and one useful piece of advice he gave was to imagine the air was water - how it would find any path left open. He says we could remove each socket and put "putty pads" to seal round the incoming cable. For now I've bought 18 childproof socket inserts that should help.

This is what the garage looks like at the moment...

...best furnished room in the house so far?

 Or maybe it's the sitting room which now has the bookcase across one wall. Lovingly painted - twice! - by Dave after I decided white would look better than the pale grey we originally used.  Just can't always be right first time. It will be great to see it full of books. The shelves themselves should all but disappear.

Mid October I collected our engineered Oak floor planks.  "Engineered" just means about 4mm of oak stuck to cheaper wood with the grain in alternate directions like plywood. This should be a better option over underfloor heating than solid wood planks which would likely cup or warp as the heating (and humidity) levels in the floor change. They are currently acclimatising and I'm psyching myself up to lay them.

I'm struck by the variation in pattern and colour within some boards and between boards. Yes, I know it's a natural product but only about half of it is within the tolerance I expected. A conversation to be had with the supplier later this week.... I particularly don't like the two-tone board in the bottom picture that looks oil stained. 

 

A couple of other views of the sitting room. I've tried the stove out, it gets good and hot and the flames do look very lovely through the glass.

Still to come, finish painting and flooring, wood cladding, phone line and broadband, a shower door, frosting bathroom windows for privacy, kitchen shelves and larder, balance underfloor heating flow and the ventilation system.  Skirtings, architrave, curtain rails, blinds and shutters, sew the curtains, draghtproof the garage and sort out a letter box. Various things to sign off with the council, a VAT claim, transfer the mortgage, change the insurance and move in. I expect I've forgotten one or two things but we're getting nearer at last.

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July, August, September and to mid October - Outside

The Front

At the front we finally got the drive levelled - not level level but with the proper slope on it, compacted with a layer of granite dust to bind it together and a top layer of finer gravel. We have a new path and a new section of garden wall built to form a planting area.

 A sunny morning in early October.

The first leaves are turning now. I don't know how we'll separate the them from gravel when they all come down. Maybe we just hope the leaves blow somewhere else...

Paul did a grand job - forming the corner and adding a curved wall to the existing boundary wall using stone from our excavations. The path is made from old flags, we didn't have anything regular enough on site.  The heap of grey gravel is the "granite dust".

The top layer of gravel in the photos below is called "Yorkshire Gold" It sounded an expensive, saw-you-coming sort of fools gold.  Sure enough I find out soon after that 10mmm "river gravel" it one third of the cost and only a bit less gold. It's going to be river gravel for the back and sides.

Here's the finished wall and path. Once we have some plants growing it will look even better.

A stone bench appeared one day. made from the left-overs...... thanks Paul!

We're planning to clad the sloped retaining wall with horizontal bands of timber - similar to the back of the house,  (see below) and to grow a couple of pear trees against it. They're waiting at the back of the house.

We now have some steps up the side, and the bike shed is under the "landing". We used a steel beam across the front. It was ordered too short for the house and had been lying about for many months. Too heavy to move very far.

The laths lying on the steps are waiting to go up the back for the cladding.

The Back

October's most exciting development - the polystyrene blocks at the back of the house finally start to get their timber cladding. It exceeds my expectations. 

 The main purpose of the black fabric is to stop the light coloured polystyrene glinting though the cladding. The cladding will shrink and expand with the weather so there are small expansion gaps between the slats. We're already airtight and waterproofed.

 Once the uprights are screwed on,  the windows are "framed" and the first horizontal strip nailed on.  (The screws are biting into the nylon webbing which runs in bands every 400mm inside the ICF blocks)

The wood should fade to a silver grey fairly quickly. It looks good with the stone.  We've used a variety of widths and depths of basic sawn and treated wood.

It's an economical cladding - at least in the short term. Less durable than larch but since it doesn't touch the ground and is well ventilated it should last. As its not lapped or toungue and groove individual elements could be replace.

Maybe I should put some lengths out to weather for future repairs....

 There's soon quite a workshop set up on the back patio.

The black scuff marks on the door are from police crime investigation - they hoped to get some foot prints following an attempted break in.

There's a double row of stone slips to go at the bottom of the wall. They were already in place but not pointed up. Some dropped off when we started nailing. They're being put back with "the right stuff". 

The air vent at the top of the door is the inlet for the MVHR drawing in fresh air for the ventilation system. It passes over a hear exchange which is warmed by the outgoing air. The outlet is around the corner on a different wall.

Back in September Max and his Dad had a good session cutting the woodpile down to size (that's stove size chunks).

I finally finished the green roof.  It's still nice and green and  has grown quite a bit since I planted it.

I also extended the stove pipe to its correct height (having previously forgotten to allow for the thickness of the roof!) . It has to be 600mm above the ridge - not counting the cowl.

More stone was dotted (ok, heaved) around the back and patio side of the house in September.  These slabs have been stacked away from the tree roots during the build. The patio will be brought up to level with the addition of more gravel. I'm not a fan of crazy paving (though I expect its about due a come-back) and I really hope that isn't the look we end up with. I think with a few low-growing plants and very minimal amounts of concrete, just near the doors and it will look fine.

The stone garden walls which were completed just over a year ago have already weathered well.