Martyn and Heathers House Build (Start At The Bottom of The Page!)

The Garage

2009-09-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

I was reminded about putting some facility in for an irrigation system (thankyou Gary) so after the scaffolding came down, Bob got his trusty digger down the side of the house, and made a trench to run the pipe from the house to the garage area

This is the garage from the rear - we have extended the roof out to give us a bar b q area, which was nicely put together by Rob and Clive, even down to building a nice brick base around each of the columns

Here is the front of the garage, complete with temporary door, where we now store odd bits. Also the fence posts have gone in and we are just waiting for delivery of the panels.

The fridge gets fitted

2009-09-12T12:37:00.001-07:00

Doesnt look a lot here, but the american fridge freezer was finally craned out of the storage container and just about fits in the recess, and all plumbed in.

The house frontage

2009-09-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

The scaffolding has gone down on our neighbours house, which is in complete contrast to our own traditional style, but I think it works in having opposite styles and provides spectators who regularly stop and look a debating point.

Its hard to think that we are planning to be in the house in a couple of weeks, but most of the work at the front is small finishing jobs. The drive and garden areas are all mapped out, and we will wait to tarmac and finish after we have moved in.

The door is on, and the paving finished off, the white semi circle is waiting for a custom designed edwardian style window pane (again an eye watering I am sure its going to be alright decision). The inside of the porch is still not finished, and that should hopefully be done this week.

The Wall!

2009-09-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

The wall is pretty much done and the work is cracking along around the back. Here the patio area is being finished off. We did have a differnce in levels when we 'dropped' the house down 300cm, hence the small wall to handle the difference. All paving is natural sandstone so varies quite a bit on colour and composition, and we also mixed up sizes, and it works really well. It looks fairly grey here, but it is mainly a sandstone buff colour, and that should show better when it is cleaned up.

The wall and paving from the side path, this was where the conifers were, and despite the eye watering cost of replacing them, the space it has freed up is more than we thought, Just to the left bottom of the picture, there is a small patch of earth, which is where we will plant the wall climbers.

The wall from the outside, it must be the longest wall in Nantwich, and the insets you can see give it the strength, further down these are replaced by pillars

Cinema Room

2009-08-27T12:41:00.001-07:00

I have probably bored everyone to death over this, but the cinema room is pretty much done. It is painted in a flat matt paint that absorbs white light, so when darkened almost turns black, but in the day it looks great. The back wall is painted matt black - the middle unpainted bit is where the screen is going, and you can see the cables hanging down left and right for the speakers. Underneath are shelves for all the equipment, and lots of plugs and cables behind the screen to keep things tidy.

In the top left of the picture is the HDMI cable that runs from the back of the room to where the projector is going to be, and the white vents are the in and out for taking warm air out of the room.

Now if you would like to take your seats......

2009-08-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

and finally the other side showing the shower cubicle, a custom designed wet area, that has worked much better than I thought. The floor is all covered so you cannot see the 'hot rocks' but know they have been filled I will get some pictures up. Fairly unique flooring, almost like small pebbles, from Barefoot Flooring, and again they really look good.

This is the main bathroom above, all tiled and done, we used a patterned grey tile for the back wall, and a white pattern for the rest. It did start out that we were only tiling one wall and shower, but somewhere along the line it went horribly wrong when the tilers pointed out to H that it would look much better all tiled. Well 4 extra deliveries later, all the bathrooms were pretty much fully tiled. We used Porcelonosa tiles, very large, and very heavy, but they look the business.

The bathrooms are coming together, this is our bathroom being finished off around all the pipes. The tiles are a black glass tile, so although they are dark, they reflect light really well. A pain to put up as they chipped easily, but they look good.

Well starting with the kitchen, most of it is now in place and it looks fab as the centerpiece of the combined back rooms. The granite in the middle is missing, as they forgot to cut a hole in it for the gas hob... still the breakfast bar to go on, and then its all wrapped up to keep it clean.

The Name...

2009-08-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

Finally the name plaque arrived, all neatly cut out in sandstone, and no its not crooked, thats the camera angle... We had another plaque with a date on, but that got missed out somewhere along the line, so this will be good.

Moving the Fridge

2009-08-27T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well at this point you might wonder why there were no more pictures - no it didnt get dropped, but I leant a hand to get it over the kerbstones, and into the house, where it now sits happily waiting to go into its new home. Lets hope it fits......

Well it started when H said the container is going back next week, which meant we finally had to empty it, and the biggest heaviest thing in it was the American style Fridge Freezer. We (or Clive) figured the best way to move it was by using the mini digger. Well it was a tense moment but out it came....

The Garage

2009-08-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

and it starts to look like a garage! Considering the house was first designed with the garage integral, where the dining room was, it actually looks good seperated out, despite having to sell our souls to cover the extra cost (and dont mention the sliding gate and electric garage door)

Now the frame is up fairly quickly, and Rob is making a start on the roof.

Next down goes the footings, because we have a gas main and drains somewhere down there, we have had to create a 'raft' of concrete re-inforced by lots of steel, that 'floats', (hence the name Raft I guess). Lets hope it doesnt float down the hill in all the rain!

well we have now started the groudwork in the back garden, which involves moving shedloads of dirt from the back to the front, then cutting out the patio areas, meaning even more dirt being moved. Finally the building works can start to construct the small wall, for the height difference between the house and garden.

Here it all starts in the wettest weather of the week, you can see the areas dug out for the stairs and patio

Oops a little problem

2009-08-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

We had all the wall figured and suddenly hit a problem - the wall was not supporting the trees that were already in place, and had in fact bowed the wall outwards. A bit of poking around showed that the wall would have needed replacing in the next 2-4 years anyway, as it was weakening with the build up of pressure from the drive and trees.

So its been quite a big job - and foundations have to be excavated down to about a foot below the wall and up to the proposed drive level - shed loads of dirt, replaced with concrete, then a block wall with re-inforced steel, again infilled with concrete.

What started out as a simple job..... I hate to think what this is going to add to the budget, but it is what it is I guess. They builders have made a great job of strengthening the drive and new wall, its just made everything that bit slower.

The Hedge

2009-07-20T00:00:00.001-07:00

And finally Bob removed all the roots, and old bricks, leaving way for the old footings to take the new wall. Everything is much brighter and it will give us back over 1 meter of space along the side of the house.

The rest of the branches were cleared, and that just left the roots

We made the decision to replace the hedge with a wall, so down came the hedge, leaving all the stumps.

This is the hedge as we got it when we purchased the land..and a little more sparse than it looks on the picture

Completion of the Stairs

2009-07-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

We were really pleased with the stairs which are American White Oak, going up three floors, with a gallery on the first floor. Here are some of the posts being prepared for fitting. The large double post is for the very top of the stairs,

We went for Pine risers as everything is going to be carpeted, with oak surrounds on the outside, here is part of the downstairs staircase.

Assembly starts downstairs first, and allowance is made for the flooring height, and then the components are fitted together

Within a day its starting to look more like a staircase, and Paul and Jason are doing a great job pulling it all together.

This is then the first floor, and in the background we still have the trusty ladder access to the top floor area.

..And finally its starts to look like a staircase, the time consuming job of putting in the spindles has started

And this is probably the best picture to show the gallery style landing on the first floor. We decided to maximise the hallway space within the design, so as much light as possible comes through the house.

Flooring (Continued)

2009-07-09T21:49:00.002-07:00

The material is applied using a trowel, and gently spread across the flooring, with one person wearing spikes (the furthest) and another rolling the liquid to ensure it spreads evenly.

The mix of flakes that we have chosen is then thrown over the screed, fairly evenly, and then sticks to the top of the liquid

Close up this is what you get - the mix we had is a combination of creams, black and gold to reflect the kitchen units and decor.

and the final (well almost) finish looks really great - the next step is to then apply final clear layers to build up the finish. We have opted for a slight matt finish, but you can get an extra layer that can be polished as well.

Very happy with that - and now they start on the bathrooms using another new concept 'Hot Rocks'

Flooring (Continued)

2009-07-09T21:49:00.001-07:00

Flooring (Continued)

2009-07-09T21:41:00.001-07:00

So out came all the powder and materials to make up the mix - here the lads are getting ready to mix up the 'potion'

Barefoot Flooring

2009-07-09T21:31:00.001-07:00

Well finally comes the finish we have been waiting for - the Barefoot Flooring Cocktail Mix. This is a new flooring finish that you can pretty much specify any finish, and any combination of colours, and it is poured on like a screed, then it dries to a matt or polished finish.

We had seen it in the showroom, and it looked pretty stunning, so this was the first time to see it in action.

So first of all they set out the floor, by putting down a sort of rubber screed that sealed the floor.

Then this was cleaned and any bumps and grit taken out, so we had a very smooth finish

Tidying up the outside

2009-07-07T00:14:00.000-07:00

All the bathrooms are being prepared for the underfloor heating and the 'hot rocks' floor from Barefoot. There is already some substantial wood on the floor but it is being reinforced with 12mm marine ply, to give rigidity to the flooring.

From the lake, all the 'green' bits are now gone, and its starting to look like a finished house. This is the 'estate agents' view as my brother in law likes to call it, taking in the lake. You can't see the road though!

And here we are starting to tidy up the front of the house, this came as a bit of surprise for Heather, as I had only mentioned to Bob the digger man the evening before that I was thinking of taking out all the old shrubs, which had given us some privacy, but hid the views to the lake. Next thing - Bang - all gone, and I forgot to mention it to Heather. Oh well, I guess in the end she will hopefully see the funny side of it :-)

Oops forgot a bit

2009-07-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

I found some pictures on my phone, I forgot I had taken, which should be a couple of sections back, but as I can't figure how to edit old posts, it can sit here instead. The top attic room is divided into two sections, and one of these will be a 'cinema' room. This is the frame that will hold the fixed screen, which is around 99" diagonal, in front of me is the HDMI cable that is threaded through the ceiling, and all the speaker cables are due to go in. The longest stretch I can get is nearly 5m from projector to screen, so that just works out about right with the Infocus Projector that we are using.

The underfloor heating finally went in, laid on top of Kingspan insulation boards with clips to hold them down, a serious amount of pipes once you counted the rest of the downstairs. This is the kitchen and snug areas, all ready to go. The rush is to get the floors ready for installation of the barefoot flooring, and then the kitchen, which are due in mid July.

2009-07-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

The kitchen is fully plastered and the screed is now complete, with the underfloor heating in place - it all looks so much neater. We decided to extend the ceiling to accomodate the cooker hood, so the ducting is neatly hidden away, and with a set of 6 spotlights and a slightly different shade of paint it should look really good.

And here it is painted - it doesnt really do it justice, it looks much better when you are standing in the room. The flooring is due down soon, so all the finishing touches need to be in place in the downstairs rooms. The ceilings are all painted as well, with no marks about where any of the lights are going to go - but I am told Tim (the electrician) knows exactly where everything is!

In the corner is coiled up electric cables, ready for the kitchen, and in the middle the pole sticking up is the gas pipe, and there are also a couple of conduits to bring the electric into the middle of the room.

Here is the lounge, ready to paint, with all the flooring complete.

2009-07-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

The house is now all plastered out, and the second fix is going in for the joinery, the windows look great, and the curves around the ceiling look neat and tidy. All radiators are now fixed, and as you can see from the pile below, all the fittings are starting to be delivered on site ready to go.

The doors are going on - these are one of a couple of sets of double doors, where we wanted the light to come through to the hallway. At one point I thought we may have to use solid doors, after the inspectors wanted every hallway door to be a fire door, but we found a glass from Schott that was rated well enough to use, so these are fire rated glass doors! And very very heavy. They look black, as we have covers over them on the other side to protect them.

Upstairs again we have gone with Oak doors (Yoxall I think) which give the house a more traditional feel, with softwood architraves. This picture is the door to the landing, wardrobe door and the open Bathroom door. All skirtings are now fixed upstairs, interestingly all MDF based, which everyone seems to rate better than what I would consider a normal wood skirting.

Gutters

2009-07-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

One of the areas of overspend was the guttering, we started with plastic guttering of the black variety which was on budget, and then we saw an imitation cast metal (plastic with bumpy bits) gutter, which I thought was pretty ok - and then we saw a good deal on Aluminium guttering (good dela being relative in this case) and I must admit, even given the extra cost it did look so much better. While I was still deciding Heather went and ordered it anyway, and it is the DB's.

These are the bendy bits, and the straight bits are in the next picture

We also had all the underfloor heating put in, and the boiler, which all comes into a cupboard in the utility room - all wireless with an outside sensor, so in theory we should have a constant temperture to match that outside. Each room will have its own control, but I am not sure we will use it like that

2009-07-03T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well its some 6 weeks since we have posted anything, mainly because of Holidays and slow progress on site, but things have moved on a pace, so it seemed a good time to show where we are.

Long gone are the green bits, now all the brickwork is finished, and the sandstone Quoins look really good - very subtle. Here you can see the peaks finished and the nice little finishes like the sandstone block within the peaks. The scaffolding is up for another week or so to finish some adjustments to the Chimney (Heather wanted another 3 courses of bricks put on) and just to tidy up the brick line.

Also the front is being cleared, and the window covers have come off, so everything seems a little lighter

2009-05-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

From the back of the house you can see the lintels in place and most of the brickwork is now complete, apart from the peaks. The botton left wood panel is there to allow the builders access, and the doors will be fitted once everyone has stopped going in and out with wheelbarrows etc.

The front of the House is looking better, and hidden away under the scaffolding you can just see the sandstone arch above the front door, there is a second one due to be fitted above the window as well, to match.

Inside the house the plastering out continues, with most of the rooms now complete - and starting to dry out. Its strange how the different plaster colours, from wet to dry change the size of the room, the dry light coloured rooms look fairly large now, and you can see where everything is going to fit, well hopefully.

The fireplace is under way. Here you can see the brick sides, and then pieces of plasterboard either side - this will be where the fireplace sits, so you will see some brick and then the brick interior. There is an Aga Wenlock going in here. The little bit of metal you can see is where the woodburner will connect into, and the rest of the chimney is made up of a Pumice liner which will go up inside the Chimney breast, and this is surrounded by small pumice stones.

You can see a better view of the brickwork from here, and the piles of dirt, which will be used for landscaping once we work out the best way to finish the front area off.

2009-05-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

We are now looking at the landscaping - and part of the tidying up that needs completing, is the Leylandi hedges. They have got a bit spindly, and have big gaps at the bottoms, which will need sorting to give some privacy.

We also seem to have some dead areas on the trees as well, so the plan is to replace some of the area with a wall, but keep as much as we can in place. so partly wall, which steps between 2.2m and 1.8m, as it goes along the boundary, the back to the Leylandi hedge. Should look nice when its done, but it wasnt in the budget!

2009-05-03T04:21:00.000-07:00

The wiring is nearing the end of its first fix, and finally all the strands are coming together down by the consumer box. You can see the large black armoured cable which is for outside, the rest are the electric cables from around the house - and yet to join the mix is a pile of cat6 cables, so a fair bundle of cables to sort out.

All the first fix plumbing is now complete, and next step will be the underfloor heating for the ground floor.

The bricks are coming along, now the first level is complete, but with all the scaffolding and polythene protecting everything its really difficult to get an impression of how it will look, but so far it looks great and we are pleased with the choice of bricks.

Bricks and Plasterboard

2009-04-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Well the sun is shining, and we are finally making progress on the outside. Here is a view of the house from across the lake - still very 'timber frame' green, but hopefully not for longer!

The 'shoulder' has been built and down the side the bricks are pretty much as far as they can go without the Quoins, which arrived this afternoon.

Here are the Quoins and sandstone for the windows, we have gone for a local reconstructed dark sandstone, which hopefully will match really well with teh bricks.

Inside the plaster board and kingspan is going up - and the rooms which seemed large as timber frame, smaller with the insulation, and then bigger again with the plaster are finally taking shape. The Electricians are off this week, so not all the plasterwork can be done, whilst we wait for the cables to be put in, hopefully completed by the end of April.

Finally the large center window in the hallway is taking shape, although with all the scaffolding and polythene protecting the frame, its very difficult to see the view and light coming through.

2009-04-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

Bricks - at last the bricks start to arrive. An initial delivery and hopefully the brickwork starts this week!

2009-04-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

After what seems a week or two of no movement, everything is starting to move forward again. The plasterboard and kingspan insulation panels are being delivered, now the first fix plumbing is complete, we are just waiting for the electrician, which I hope will be in the next day or so. The bricks get delivered next - the initial 10,000 spread around the house, and bricking starts next week - 10 weeks roughly to finish. We are getting a nick name as the 'Green House' locally, so it will be nice to see some bricks covering it up!

The guys have been spending their time doing what must be one of the worst jobs in the house, installing the insulation, which just gets everywhere. Now the rooms are taking shape and everything is eerily quiet, as the fibregalss absorbs all the sound. This is the loft space getting the treatment.

One of the back bedrooms, you can see the Kingspan insulation panels on the eaves

And finally Stuart and Steve have finished the roof, and it looks great - all tiles and capping is in place, and we just need a little rain to wash off the dust and dirt. From the road the slate gives the roof a nice depth, and you can see the thickness and texture of the slates, so very happy with our choice!

The Roof is coming along

2009-03-21T14:12:00.001-07:00

The roof is slowly coming along - The eaves have been painted the same colour as the windows, and we have extended them slightly so that you can look up and see the wood. The three dormer windows now are all tiles as per this picture..

This is a side view and shows the part hip of the roof. The planners would not allow us a full hip, and the alternative was a normal ridge roof, so we got a compromise of the part hip - It looks OK, and gives the roof some shape. This is the view from the front, half way up on the scaffolding.

...And the side view, still half the ridge tiles to put on

And finally the rear, pretty much all the tiles ready to complete, hopefully all done and dusted by the end of the week - The weather has been great so that has helped no end.

this is a side view - the front Apex's look great and we are really pleased with the choice of tiles - they have a 75 year guarantee, which will outlive us!

2009-03-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Whilst it all seems a bit slow day by day, all the little internal and external jobs are moving on.

The insulation for the walls was delivered this week, so we have lots of different style of insulation all over the ground floor, and once the first fixes are done, then in it goes!

This is the Kingspan insulation panels for the outside facing walls

..and the plumbers have been in doing their first fix as well. For the first time we needed accurate locations of all the sinks, taps, waste and shower units so that the piping could be run through the floors. I was a little concerned over the holes they drill to run the pipes, but once the insulation is in place, hopefully the noise will stay to a minimum. Here you can see the pipes to the utility room sink (hope we dont decide to move it!) and in the distance the radiator pipes.

We had not really put a lot of thought into the radiator positioning, so we have gone with the recommendations of the heating engineers, and for the most part put them under the windows.

The size of each radiator varies, and according to the room size, as to what size or how many panels the radiator has. Because we have underfloor heating downstairs we only have the upstairs to worry about for now.

All the Radiator pipes are run as plastic click and fit, but when they exit out of the walls, then they are copper fittings, so they look nice.

Here you can see the pipe runs through the ceiling

Slate roof starting to come together

2009-03-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

A lot of internal work is under way - so it seems little progress is being made, but its only when you look inside you can see the amount of work required to take the house to the next stage of plaster out.

We are just sorting out the plumbing - so what goes where in preperation for the plumber who arrives shortly to start putting in the pipes, and also where all the electric sockets and switches go. I have also decided to wire the main rooms with Cat6 cable to allow fast broadband to each room, although we have wireless routers, cables will be a much faster and more reliable way to give internet access. I am hoping to future proof on the basis that one day all movies will come straight off the internet - and that will require high speed connections.

I have also decided to try and automate the music systems, so using Logitech Duet boxes, each of the main rooms will have built in speakers and access to all the music stored on a central server. Still got to figure all the wiring and shielding with the electrician, but fingers crossed, in theory it all looks ok!

Here you can see the slate roof being laid on the Apex, and it looks really good - I think the choice of the Del Carman Ultra slate has been a good one.

Everything is now sealed from the elements internally, all windows are in place as are a couple of the 'conservation' velux windows, which you can see here.

Below you can see some of the 'noggins' being put in place, they are the horizontal strips of wood in the middle of the picture, and are there to support the plaster board around the many twists and turns of the structure of the eaves.

Below Rob has put in some battens to help him line up the 'edges' of wood which you can see running diagonally from left to right, used to support the plasterboard.

Windows Fitted

2009-03-03T23:08:00.000-08:00

The windows are now being fitted. Althought it doesnt show that well, the colour is like a light cream, and the windows arrived with an undercoat and one top coat. The first fit is to secure them in the frames...

These are the kitchen windows, and they have been designed to open from the bottom out - this was suggested by the window people, as its easier to open when you have to lean across the kitchen units. A typical casement window with a side opening would mean a long set of arms, or getting on the worktop to open, so this special opening semmed to make sense.

We are really pleased with the design and style, having decided to go for slightly larger windows, in a hardwood - initial impressions (at least for us) look good!

And from the outside, although the scaffolding is everywhere

The other piece if good news was that the temporary staircase is now in place, so we can get up and down without using the ladder,

..and a final shot of the roof storage area, with all the Velux lights now in place.

The Windows

2009-02-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Finally months after our initial enquiry, the windows are nearly ready to ship. The story of how we came across this company was quite interesting. We had a couple of quotes from local companies that had been recommended to us, and one was Custom Precision Joinery in Mold.

Seperate to this we had also seen a recent barn conversion that we liked the windows. They were a casement style, but had a nice profile to them, with a 'mullion' that gave the windows a different style, I enquired about who the manufacturer was, and it turns out to be Custom Precision Joinery, who we had a quote from.

CPJ re-worked our quote to design in the mullion, and we decided to go for hardwood, as the uplift over softwood was only around 15% in cost. We also got them to prime the wood and apply one top coat.

Here are the windows all stacked up ready to be finished

The arched window below is actually around 2m high, and forms the large window in the hallway landing on the first floor

This is one of the obscure glass bathroom windows

I hope this was a good idea! All the windows are spray painted, hopefully leaving us to just finish with a final coat on site.

The 'arch' for the main hallway window had to be hand made

Here you can see one of the front house windows being finished

We have been very pleased with CPJ, they have kept us in touch all the way through, and made all the small adjustments we needed, such as the kitchen windows opening from the bottom rather than the side.

Roof now covered ready for tiles

2009-02-28T05:38:00.001-08:00

The final roof covering is now on, and the roofer was just completing the last of the battens, ready to get the tiles laid. Finally the House is covered from the top, and we are waiting for the delivery of the Windows and Doors, so the house can be made secure.

The Roofer reckons around 3 weeks to complete the Slate Tiles, they all have to individually checked and sorted into different thickness's ready to be put up.

Here is a shot from the front, where you can see the finshed roof.

Its hard to believe that there are 5200 slate tiles here, we eventually chose a slate called Carmen Ultra from Spain, it has a nice grain and thickness. We saw them on another house and they look really nice.

This is inside the master bedroom, looking up you can see the roof is now completely covered.

Roof on and floor sections complete

2009-02-23T00:14:00.001-08:00

The pictures are a little out of order here - this is the side view of the house. Planning wouldnt allow us too much in teh way of windows, so there is a side entrance and window, then two smaller windows on the first floor which have to be obscure glass.

This is the living area, the hole in the wall is the fireplace, and we have opted for some wide casement style windows on the front of the house, you can see the where the windows will eventually go.

This is the view from the front - the roof is complete, the floors are now in, and the roofer is finishing the cover and battening so we can hopefully have a dry house, or at least from the top down. The mild weather the last couple of weeks has been really great, and allowed us to crack on after all the snow that was slowing things down.

Here you can see the storage area at the top of the house. We opted for creating a room rather than rafters and loft, the pile of wood in the front of the photo is the frame for the staircase, which will go in once the floor is complete.

and the back view, the rear windows have taken shape, and with the roof now battened the project seems to be moving on fairly quickly.

This is the inside just showing the rear living/kitchen area, the entrance to the left is going to be double doors and windows, the hole in the wall to the right is a second fireplace, and in the middle a further window.

Inside the Timber Frame

2009-02-22T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here you can see inside the rear of the building. The whole back area is open plan, supported by a number of large RSJ's to take the weight. The white timber is the Fascias being primed to put in place later in the week.

Roof and Joists in place

2009-02-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

The frame got a little wet, as we were dodging showers, but not too bad. You can see one of the very large glu lam beams at the top of the picture. There are two of these supporting the roof, and they are extremely large and heavy!

Here you can see the crane lifting the roof trusses in place. The crane was only on site for one day, and everything slotted into place as designed (Thankyou Neatwood Homes!)

Here Rob and Dave guide in place the roof trusses.

The font of the frame is starting to come together, and below is the large picture window that we have designed, that looks out over the front of the house. It is around 2m high, so we hope it looks as good finished as it did on paper

Here you can see the internal timber frame, this is the area to the back of the house, with the staircase hold rail in the front of the picture

Finally the second floor is in place, and you can start to see things coming together... Neil (next door) is also starting on his build.

2009-02-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

The next stage happens very quickly, up go the walls...

Very very muddy, but slowly getting there. To prepare the site for this, tons of stone was laid around the house, so the crane and vehicles can get on and off OK, but the rest of the site is mud. Out of interest we removed around 20 wagons worth of soil to get the plot level and dig out the foundations.

This the view from the rear - and in a matter of days the frame really starts to take shape - the ground floor is complete, and the first floor panels are put in place.

You can see the rear windows taking shape.

The floor is also being built up, very quickly the complex wood structure inside is taking shape, and there are people swarming all over the structure, everyone concentrating on a particular part. It surprised us how quick this was done.

You can see the odd metal beam to support the large open space we have

Here you can see the inside starting to take shape

and the first floor panels slotting in from the front view

Timber arrives on site

2009-02-17T12:52:00.001-08:00

Once the Timber is on site, then the actual jigsaw puzzle begins. All levels have been checked at this stage to ensure everything is absolutely level or at least within 5cm, and the work begins. This part took a couple of days before they were happy with everything, and then started the build.

Ice was a problem and we had to keep melting it down where the timber frame was going to be attached. The Timber Framers were happy with the site and levels, which was a relief.

We missed the part where the wood was being unloaded, but here you can see one of the many many piles of Timber laying around on the site!

Scaffolding

2009-02-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

Next up goes the scaffolding, which will be used to install the timber frame. It looks really strange just seeing this huge framework in place with nothing else.

As you can see we had some serious frost - so Clive spent a lot of time melting the ice on the key areas so that we could get the initial frame in place. All the Ibeams are in place and we are just waiting for delivery now of the frame. This is due on the 19th January, so everyone has been warned about the congestion as the crane arrives to offload the timber!

2009-02-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Once the foundations have been laid, then the structure starts to take shape, here you can see the Ibeams being put in place on the left, whilst the flooring on the right needs to still be filled.

2009-02-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

Now the old house has gone, the foundations go in. The ground had to be dug in another 12" to allow us to keep the roof height so we can get a storage area in the loft.

We had to get a soil check, and thankfully its good sandy soil with no clay, so we needed no special piling. The land is at a slope so it was wither a raised front, and level back or visa versa. As you can see the back of the house is dug in slightly.

We had some issue with the drainage, which is lesson number one, make sure the drainage exists when you buy a plot, of and also if it does exist that you can reach it with the correct drop.

Works out that the drainage we were meant to tie into couldnt be used, but the nearest other drainage point was too high, according to the Utilities plan. Anyway with a little insistence the Utilities guys came out and we lifted the lid on the drain, and found it was a meter deeper than shown on the plan, and also there was a run off going towards our land.

With a little more digging we found where the drainage point came into the land, and with luck on our side we then just had the correct drop to make it all work.

Finally we exhange contracts on the plot!

2009-02-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

Its taken almost a year to sort out the PP, but we are now owners of a nice large plot, previously part of a single dwelling, which has now been split into 3 seperate plots. We have the corner plot, and here you can see the origional House, a flat roof 60's design, and the garden area where we are building.

Rob Measuring out the plot

The side of the Plot

The rear of the plot - which will become the garden