Week 27

The camera is in a great new spot, so I’ve put all the time-lapses at the beginning of the post. We were a little worried about sun-flare but I think the cloud cover worked in our favour this week.

There are a load of lazy grumpy wasps hanging around the wood. We noticed this when the oak frame arrived onsite, and it’s even worse now that the timbers are here. They like the wood to build their nests. We need one good frost and the problem will be solved but in the mean time, much batting and buzzing is occurring.

Friday

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Trevor and Josh moving trusses

Tim said he’s glad James has put the curtains on the oak frame. It’s not all that previous: James assures me it’s more to protect the oak from cutting bricks in the rain and preventing a layer of muck from building  up.

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not convinced about the trusses…
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… because there is not a lot of room for storage

We’re waiting on the central gable to to built before the wings go on. The central cable is vaulted through the hallway and the master bedroom and it’s supported by one great big steel. There is a short oak beam connecting the trusses in the structure, but it’s the steel that is holding up proceedings. But there is plenty to do with the internal blockwork, and the guys are confident that they’re almost done at this stage. They’ll be back once the roof is on so they can build up underneath it, but their team is shrinking as work nears completion, and even Quizmaster Paul is off on another job at the moment.

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building up the wall before the steel ridge beam arrives

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Thursday

Popped by to see some of the pointy bits up close.

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Dave hiding in a forest of trusses

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Tuesday

Crane day. For steels in the roof and floor planks in the rear bay.

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Hooray! James and the gang did some magic  the concrete planks into the rear bay without touching any of the wood.

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looking up at a wonderful ceiling

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a bit tight for the Land Rovers passing in the lane

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gables for later in the week

There were lots of teams getting on with life on site today: the brick guys, the crane driver, James, the steels team and more general building guys to start fixing the gables on the steels.

When the crane is onsite, the brick guys have to abandon using the forklift, and they bring all the bricks, the blockwork, and the muck up by hand. Up the ladder. A million times a day.

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door to back bedroom
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steels over the rear west corner bedroom
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same corner looking from the back to front of the house
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James made a nice little nest for the camera’s new home
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keeping Port Talbot going

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Mick reckons there will only be about three more courses of bricks to lay round the west side. The roof kicks out at the bricks around the angle of the spirit level he held up to show me. They’ll put the roof on, then Mick’s guys will lay the rest of the bricks under the roof before the soffits get put on.

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roof kick demo

Now that the concrete floor planks are out of the way, the guys can start building the walls for the closet and ensuite. Meanwhile, James had his Meccano set out to hold up the steel until the walls are there. Looks stable enough…. doesn’t it?

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Saturday

I can’t resist taking pictures of the wood frame and the brick. I brought the wide angle lens down to have a play this weekend. We met up with Neil and Grant who were dodging raindrops, tidying up some of the oak frame and drilling holes in it (!) to secure it to the walls.

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Week 26

Can you say “grey tiles”? Armed with my trusty samples of flooring and window frame, I’ve been playing Where’s Wally in a forest of grey.

The brick guys are matching up the facing bricks along the oak, and I’m so confident in their work that I must confess to having taken the perfect lines and balanced cuts for granted. But I’m also relieved that the bricks and the oak go so well together. It’s such a gamble making these big decisions and hoping for the best. It requires and open mind first of all, then lots of listening to experts paired with hours of research behind the scenes. But decisions made or not, the brickies continue to bring the building up and up and up. Mick had a big birthday over the weekend–Happy Birthday!

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Dave building up the front wall
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perfect facing brick, and blockwork that will live behind hanging tiles

I chose a beautifully sunny autumnal day to come to site, and James took me for a tour of the newly set-up roof-tier scaffold.

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through the rear bay to the front
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looking south to Surrey

The back bay is being supported by some rogue struts before the roof ties it all together. You can see these in the photo. In fact, the oak guys are installing the ridge beam that connects the frames, so we’ll see them again in a few weeks. When the extra struts are removed, it will leave nail holes temporarily, but because they’re not drilled, no wood has left the system, so they’ll just close up in time. Clever in an olde-worlde kinda way. The whole process of building this house is as interesting as I hope the finished product will be beautiful.

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back bay
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our bedroom

The red steels are there waiting to be installed as the lintels over the internal doors. There are I beams and C beams, and for the life of me I forget which is used where. I think the I beam is for the lintel over the double doors to this room, and the C beams are …., well, um, yeah.

James took a bit of lead that had been knocking around his van for the past year and installed our first section on the west side of the front porch. A Finish–Hooray!

Martin from the window company came round on Tuesday to measure up before we went into production at the window factory. The bronze frames and the double glazed windows are manufactured separately and put together onsite. The Window Date is 9 Jan 2017.

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more leadwork to follow…. much more

There is a slight hiccup in the levels in the front porch area.  Dave is coordinating a solution with Tony, Tim, Ben, Neil and James. The whole landing is a little high on the first floor of the oak frame that hangs above the front door.

elastigirl-fThere is a debate about whether to keep the concrete floor planks and lower the level by reducing the screed, or by replacing the concrete with timber flooring which gives way more scope for changing relative heights. No one is excited about swinging the 1.5 ton planks anywhere near the wood, especially the crane driver. So clearly installation is another issue. Replacing the concrete planks with timber joists would fix the height and installation problems, but we had debated about this many moons ago in the planning stages and decided then that concrete was the way to go to give the building that really solid feel. Is it a compromise to change to timber or just an expedient solution? Or, is laying concrete planks on an oak frame a daft idea? We’ll have a good think over the weekend on which way to run with this: concrete or timber, but everyone is pulling together to work it out. The main things are to be flexible and listen to experts.

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artsy wood
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looking up through the back frame

We’ve had the pleasure of working with Claire who is designing the kitchen and utility spaces. I’ve interviewed many companies, but Claire has got the vision just right. What do you think?

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ta da!
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ta da from the other direction!

The scaffold team were busy on Wednesday and accidentally knocked the camera. It’s time to move it anyway…

 

Week 25

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a thing of beauty
It’s been a great week for the house.

Neil, Neil, Chris, Will, and Paddy, the oak frame guys, arrived onsite early Monday and started straight away in putting their giant Lego pieces together. They’ve got the world’s most itsy bitsy crane to lift the pieces, and it’s so small it can drive around the back of the house too. They were all incredibly relaxed and made it look easy.

Chris the Farmer was in charge, and started by unloading the rear frame onto the forecourt.

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unloading
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Along with the full compliment of brick layers, the oak team and James made eleven on site most of the week.

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prize beam
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the little crane that could
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the whole team
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lots of cuts
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rear bay in bits
https://youtu.be/EndGVlO9TiY

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going up
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busy site
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Chris looking pensive
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grounded gables
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air porch
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brace keys replaced with pegs
The guys kindly replaced one of the front top horizontals because we felt it had too many wains. Not sure if I spelled that correctly, but these are gouges along the corners where the tree wasn’t quite perfect. It makes the finished beams look more rustic. Only a little doubt from us and it was swapped. This involved shaping another piece back in the yard, bringing it to site and chopping the necessary mortice joints and shoulders out of it in the back of the van. Neil and team want it perfect. So do we!

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looks hectic but it’s all under control
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The windows will fit in the rebates on the long sections of the frame. The little sections will be herringbone brick to block out the first floor floor panels. Designing the details between the bricks, leadwork, and bronze windows took many meetings between Dave, Ben, Richard from the warranty company and us. We’ve got some weird epoxy mortar coming for the brick slip panels, and lots of compriband will be fitted. The main thing is to prevent water getting anywhere near the insides. It will have to be bomb-proof especially since the prevailing wind is out of the southwest–right smack on the side of the house with five panels.

Neil the owner of the oak company is ever so calm about the whole thing. Even when there was a query about one of the floor beams in the front structure, and there was a morning hanging around for the oak engineer to give some details, they waited patiently and simply got busy moving the rear structure to the back of the house piece by piece. He says he specialises in large timber and ships stuff all over the world. The big corner sections on this job are 250 mm square. Big. He’s been to France most weekends racing classic cars in September and off to a wedding in Romania this weekend. On parting today, I wished him well in Romania and said something like “Have fun!” and he replied, “That’s my job. It’s what I do.” It’s not just all fun though–the guys are taking meticulous care with putting the structures together, and by next week, it will be all sanded down and looking gorgeous.

We managed to put down the brochures and colour charts and extract ourselves from the internet for an evening to wander up the road to our lovely neighbours who had the whole estate around for drinks. I have to be honest and say that we arrived trying to conceal our trepidation at seeing all our neighbours after all the planning drama and objections we had at the beginning, and all the complaints about the road now. It would either be a lovely evening, or we’d have to go on the defensive. But everyone was overwhelmingly complimentary about the build, and waxed lyrical about how gracious the building team has been over the occasional lorry in the road. It was a pleasant surprise! I think having the wood go up this week made a big difference. It does look excellent.

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view out the kitchen
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the rear bay as the brick team packs up for the week
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they’ve done an incredible job on the detail between ground and first floor
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spying on Johnny through the house
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porch with prize beam
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Next week it’s steels and more up, up up!

Week 24

Friday

A visit to the joinery company that is doing the stairs, the oak subframes for the windows and the external doors.

Paul is our Area Manager and he’s always said to come on down and have a visit. As we’re getting to some crunch points with decisions, it sounded a great time to scoot to Andover to have a look. Today I got the chance to meet Gerald the MD, and he and Paul both took me for a tour of the factory before sitting down to talk design.

The factory is enormous. But it’s family run and has grown from a shed to a business with over 60 employees in a generation. There are 28 guys on the factory floor spread out into separate areas. There is a room for the initial cut as the laminated boards arrive from Germany, another for making tenons and mortice joints, another for windows, another for painting, another for stairs, and another for doors with CNCs, lathes, wrapped finished pieces and components all neatly placed in stacks per job. I’ve probably left out a few rooms,….but the guys were really busy as we went around, and everyone was really friendly and very patient with my picture-taking.

I was thrilled to see our job taking up (a large part of) the floor!

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window subframes

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… and more window subframes with joints
Laminates are used for the uncut beams so there won’t be any knots. They’re cut to section size on the outside dimensions, then they’re sliced on the remaining dimension to length, and finally, the mortice and tenon joints are cut in. Gerald fitted one of our subframes all up and assembled for me to have a look; the joints are seamless and the facing sides beautiful.

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our job. all three stacks with little white labels waiting to be cut
There are over 70 windows in the house, and each requires more than four bits of wood to make the subframe. Some of the larger pieces, like the sills, are made of two pieces with an air gap in between them to let them bend and settle on installation (I think?!)

We’re having clear Osmo coated frames and doors to retain the natural look of the wood, but it was still awesome to see the painting room. The windows are suspended on a series of hooks strung up to a yellow motorised track. They trundle past the guys to get a good coat of paint (150 microns a layer) and continue on to the other side of the wall to dry. Water is spritzed in to keep the paint from drying too quickly, so the room feels slightly tropical. This waterbased paint takes about 1.5 hours to dry, but our clear Osmo will go on with a brush and take 3 days to cure entirely.

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the painting room

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some stairs (not ours yet) and CNC
The stairs will be cut on a giant laser-guided CNC machine. I got to see a partially-build curved staircase made of gorgeous walnut; Paul had wanted to check the progress on it as he’d seen it the week before and it’s great to see these things evolve. Each piece for every job is drawn up, plugged into the computer and CNC’d to fit together perfectly. This particular job was gorgeous, and the whole operation is a real engineering marvel.

I’ve come away with some samples of different sized newell posts, a picture of cross sectional balustrades, two actual balusters to think about, and a lot of information about the front door from a discussion with Paul, Gerald, and Sean the Main Technical Manager. It’s going to be a busy weekend thinking through all this.

From Andover back to base, I had a chance to climb up the scaffold and have a look at the new bedrooms.

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West Wing

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east wing

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door to front bedroom

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back bay, pre-oak
What was the name of the first lady to fly across the Atlantic? What was the name of her airplane? What was the name of the Japanese city that was spared the atomic bomb and why? What were the names of those bombs? We’ve already nailed the name of the plane that dropped them along with the name of the guy who broke the sound barrier. We did moon landings a few weeks ago, and I’ve overheard a discussion about the bass line in Eagles songs when the guys first came onsite. I probably need some help brushing up on general knowledge if I spend too much more time onsite….

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Paul and Dave: pros
https://youtu.be/PfuIcSZRgdA

Thursday

Back to Sussex we go!

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Bluebell Railway from the car park
Another breathtakingly gorgeous drive in the time machine to visit our oak structural frame. It gets loaded on Friday and will be onsite on Monday. I will miss this drive! Neil gave me a tour of the pieces, and in particular wanted to show me the showstopper piece he sourced for us.

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ta-da!
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The single-piece curved beam is a success. 2016.09.22 - 3.jpgThe alternative would have been to cut it out of
a very large section like he showed me in the sawdust on the floor. This would have been super expensive and not quite as nice because the grain would have made a horizontal trace to follow the growth of the original plank. The more cost effective alternative would have been to have cut two or three pieces and join them, and this is what we had specified originally. The many-pieced bends are what you see around town with other builds of this design. Ours will be the only single piece beam. Whoop whoop!

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backs of brick infill bits

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more of our job
There are over 60 pieces for the rear bay alone. They’ll be stuck on the back of a lorry over the weekend, then up to us on Monday early a.m. They’re all labelled (red pen for front and green pen for back), and it’s great to visualise where the bits will fit in according to Dave’s drawings.

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upside-down cross piece for gable with window rebates on the top

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er, … a truss strut
It’s amazing how casual they are about taking these enormous beams and cutting chunks into them. They tell me that all the hard work, i.e. measuring and planning, has already been done, so this is the easy part. Very impressive!

On the way back, I put the anchors on as I passed the Bluebell Vineyard shop. A quick u-turn later and I was in the car park alongside a very Californian looking setup with tasting room and a nice few rows of well-tended vines. All was well, and then a great big tour bus from Eastbourne carrying a large number of pensioners arrived. I thought I might have just enough time to buy a bottle of their finest before they wandered in, but they were quick, and I was too late. My bottle of bubbles will have to wait until next time. And I think there just might be a next time because we’ve got designs on a nice countertop shelf for the basin in the downstairs WC. Back to Neil’s this autumn I think!

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from idyllic Sussex….

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… to rainy base for our Thursday site meeting
Paul the electrical guy was due to arrive, but he was stuck on the M25 unable to move. Apparently a crane (nothing to do with us!) blew up into a massive fireball on the M40, and travelling anywhere near London was a bit of a no-hoper today. We look forward to meeting Paul another day.

We also welcome Claire aboard the good ship St Anne’s. She’s designed an awesome kitchen, and she was onsite this afternoon to measure up and ensure that the drawings matched reality. Apparently this isn’t always the case, but on this job the plans and the build match decisively. She’ll now make up a set of drawings for review, right down to the lights, sockets and tiling. We’re looking forward to that!

Monday

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Continuity–hooray! James is back onsite overseeing everything in his first pair of consecutive weeks in the job. Things are ticking along smoothly; but the brick team is running out of vertical interior walls to keep busy before the oak frame is installed next week.

We had a massive site meeting of the minds today: Dave the Architect, Tim the Contractor, Tom the Steels guy, Neil the oak guy, Paul the joinery guy, and of course James the Site Manager, Ben the Project Manager, and me tagging along trying to learn as much poss. Today’s lesson was: What’s a padstone? For those like me who have not a clue, these are extra strong blocks (not bricks) that the steel lintels sit on. Double doors require a steel above them to support the brickwork above, for instance. The brick team need to know the dimensions of the steels so they can set these padstones in the right places. Should be fine, right? They’re on the drawings. But if the steels are still somewhere between the drawings and physical arrival, the brick team usually waits until they’re onsite to line them up or they risk unbuilding what they’d already built off plan. And as luck would have it, this part of the project coincided with the engineer’s summer holiday plans, so we’ve been delayed in getting them even on paper. We’ve been playing the game of keeping the brick team onsite doing the interior blockwork when they’d really rather be getting on with setting the padstones and building the exterior walls. Next week, hopefully.

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crowded house
There was much discussion of how the oak frame will tie into the brick work. The frame is a really special thing–it’s meant to be completely self-supporting. As in, if you put it all together in the garden, it would stand up by itself. I totally respect the integrity of the structure and think it’s really important to have it do what it looks like its doing, and not pretend. A nice part of the build. We’re all looking forward to seeing it go up, so next Monday will be an exciting day.

There is a large A-shaped steel on the rear of the building between the oak frame and the brickwork that has yet to be finalised and manufactured, and this will be mainly to support the roof ridgeline. The roof is a very complicated thing, and although much of today’s meeting was spent discussing erecting the oak frame, Dave was on hand to make sure we don’t mess up the roof dimensions so that the pitch of steels matches the pitch of the oak once it’s up. Exactly. Tim wants to minimise the number of crane-days (too right, they’re bank), so it’s quite a job to line up the trades requiring cranes all on the same day/s. There are steels, oak frame and floor panels to juggle.

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front gable
One decision that had to be made today concerned the bowed beam on the front porch. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to get the look of it right: how thick, where to place it front to back in the frame, what circumference the bend should be…. But just to make things interesting, Neil arrived today with an idea. He said that he’s very lucky in that he has the luxury of spending time (he’s been part of the job since February, so that’s a while!) sourcing pieces for his jobs from all over Europe, and that he had found the Perfect Beam for this job. The one he’s picked is bent at just the right angle across the whole of the piece so that the grain follows the bend beautifully, and the beam can therefore be made of one piece. Previous designs had two or three chops in it to achieve the right bend. Dave says the chopped approach would make the build look like a pub. St Anne’s Arms? Clearly the single piece is the better option. It will be slightly skinnier as a result of The Perfect Bend, and it will now match the width of the vertical beams between the windows rather than the chunky vertical corner pieces. I’m sure this will all make sense when it’s up, and I imagine it will look quite elegant.

Ben says it will be amusing to watch me give tours of the finished product. He reckons I’ll be waxing lyrical about the cunning oak-brick tie-ins and the effective placement of the cranked steels when really all they’ll really be interested in is the nice paintwork and some colourful vases. We’ll see if I will be able to contain myself….

In the meantime, Mick, Paul, Dave, Glen and Johnny just keep happily laying more and more bricks…..

 

 

 

Week 23

Lots of progress upstairs and lots of progress behind the scenes this week.

The upstairs blockwork is being laid, and the rooms are coming to life. The front bedroom has a bit that overhangs the study downstairs, so until the oak frame goes up in a week and a bit, we can’t lay the entire floor. Some of the elements look really weird right now: he linen closet alongside looks miniscule, and the bathroom window looks huge. I haven’t had the nerve to go all the way around the building on the scaffolding yet, so I’ll leave it to take more photos next week.

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front bedroom
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west side of the house

The pre-oak porch is a funny thing at the moment. The brickwork looks great, but it is very hard to visualise where the oak and front door will be and how this all fits with the stairs in the current framework of steels and blockwork.

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sick-inducing shot of the porch area

James has been busy clearing the area around the drive. That holly hedge has been there forever, and it was always ropey, difficult to trim and gave the cars scratches on the bumpers as we reversed out of the drive. Glad to see the back of it, but I wonder if my neighbour is just as thrilled now that there is an unbroken view of the site.

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de-gardening

The staircase we’re considering will be something like the one in a photo that my sister sent. It was of a famous ranch house in California built in 1915. I like the spindles and most parts of the newell post.

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ranch house staircase

The front door will look something like one from another house that was built locally. Hopefully we can get our joinery company to match the design.

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idea door

We’ve spent very little time onsite this week, mainly do to work commitments, but lots of time choosing stuff. We’ve sorted 85% of the bathroom order, we’re expecting a quote for the front door any day, and we’ll be thinking more about the staircase this week. I’ve gone through the electrical and small power plans with a fine tooth comb as well. You think you can get all the info you need from the plans, but it’s amazing how different it is to walk through one of these half-built rooms and think “Where am I going to put the light switch?” If you have to think about it too hard, it’s probably in the wrong place.

This week coming up will be choosing tiles, getting the kitchen and bathroom orders finalised, re-choosing roof tiles to a more cost-effective option (don’t ask–this will be iteration #3), sorting out the fireplace design, and talking to a couple of interior designers to make sure we don’t make stupid mistakes with colour and furniture. The more help I can get on this project, the better!

 

Week 17

Thursday

All hands on deck.

Russell and Chris the Farmer (gotta love spellcheck; he’s a Framer) came to site to check it out for delivery, progress, etc etc. The poor dog was left in the car, but we checked him at regular intervals. We should install a kennel during the build! Dave and Paul came up for their monthly architectural check and also to give Paul the opportunity to have his first look at the project. Dave said he hadn’t been on site when it was sunny yet–the last time he was here, the place was a swimming pool on that torrential day with fire trucks and neighbours getting flooded. Of course Nic, Ben and Justin were there too, so donuts were bought, the sun was shining and we (they) sorted out a few rough edges to fitting the oak frame.

This included lots of hemming and hawing about connecting the existing brand spanking (gorgeous) new brickwork with the oak in the rear bay. Any little change has enormous ramifications on windows and roof, then with steels and oak as well. So it’s good to have as many eyes as possible checking the build to ensure no Grand Designs moments.

The structural oak should go up in the first week of September. That implies the build will be up to roof level. That’s a lot to do in four weeks! We took Russell up the road to pick his brains and have a good look at the larger new-build with a similar design. He pointed out a few good things like some shifting and splitting at the peg holes. It’s comforting to know that he’s doing his best to avoid these things. He said that our structure is a self-supporting piece, and this is different from the facade that is on the larger house. It’s a design departure with a few more chunky bits of oak sticking around, but it is a more honest approach to what the building actually does. Kinda goes with the ethos for the rest of the house.

Wednesday

A cheeky evening visit to check on what can happen in a day.

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We’re missing a few super-specials, but Nic will track them down
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going up in the study
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have finally chosen the fireplace so the guys can carry on with the blockwork
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front on garage side…
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… and the plans
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the first door in the study at the back …
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… and the plans

It’s great to see the first dummy doorframe up!

Tuesday

Really? Week 17? The original timescale was 36 weeks. Everyone agrees that was optimistic, but still, we should be almost half way there in theory. Reality is a little behind, but the gap is closing. The biggest landmark is: The Windows Arrive 5 December [capitals necessary]. This is a line in the sand, and I wouldn’t want to get anywhere near messing Martin around! They go in close to last because he doesn’t want to get any plaster, paint or damage on or done to these bad boys. Neither does anyone else I’m sure.

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rear bay up to plinth

This week is a great week for progress as the brick work is getting up to the plinth which is one of those details that are not cost effective, require a bunch of extra effort and expense, but which make the house really special.

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a lovely set of jointing

The jointing is slightly different in the special bricks to avoid any water collecting and freezing and finding its way into the building.

We’ve got expansion joints in the brickwork too. And you can see the insulation panels pinned to the brickwork using the red pogo-stick ends. These joints sit behind the rainwater pipes that sit in the brickwork nooks and run through the plinth. Complicated brickwork or what?! We’re really pleased with the choice of bricks, and I’m sure the skill in laying all these brings the whole thing to life.

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expansion joint in nook

In the background it’s a whirl of decisions. Everyone says this and I didn’t quite realise that it’s as relentless as it is. A real Surrey-Struggles moment I know. Ben, Dave, Justin and Nic are being super patient with our general slowth. It’s serious Scout season as well and half the family was awol planning the trip last week and is currently roaming the wilds of Dartmoor until Saturday. So, just to make myself feel better, we’ve done roof and hanging tiles, a bathroom schedule, preliminary M&E design, garage door, and fireplace (finally, hooray). We’re almost ready to close out the design of the drawing room, the kitchen contractor, and the flooring and joinery schedule including the front door. Just keep swimming.

Been learning Sketchup to get a handle on the fireplace options. We are doing none of these:

Week 16

Sunday

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front with piers and porch
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looking down on the porch

One good decision made early on with the second (third time’s a charm!) architect was to angle the door to the study.

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hall looking from left to right at the loo, study, and utility room doorways
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the smallest room
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kitchen space
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family room

 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Tuesday

The walls are growing!

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from the back door looking north

The guys have even delineated the interior walls. Here’s a tour:

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living room
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family room
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study
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front door
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kitchen
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it’ll be a little cooler tomorrow
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damp proof course at the front of the house

Monday

Week 14

Friday

Thursday

Wednesday

Met the bricklayers today. They’re doing a fine job with all the symmetry and cuts aligned, and the deep raked joints making the whole thing come to life. It’s glorious weather (finally), and perfect for laying and getting the all-day pub quiz in. These guys are total trivia wizards. So, can YOU name all four American presidents that were assassinated? Who were they and what was their demise? The only thing for it is to arm myself with an arcane fact or two before going to site so I can keep up with the banter.

Tuesday

Waze all fired up, podcast on board, and it’s time for another scenic drive through deepest Sussex to see Russell at his yard. I adore this journey. I took a minute to nobble some photos of a house that I remember driving by in February when I was here last. This time, I met the gardener who said it was ok to take photos; he didn’t think the owners would mind, because the house had just had its Yellow Sign open garden scheme day last weekend where plenty of people were snapping away. Anyway, the house is a lovely example of oak subframed windows with timber structure.

After reversing out of the Bluebell Railway yard, again, same error as last trip….. I made the correct turning, passed the restore-a-Porsche garage and assorted other small businesses (I’m sure the sign out the front said there was a brewery. Must check that out.), and arrived.

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someone’s pride and joy
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just remember to knock
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It’s always beautiful here

The trip wasn’t just an excuse to gawp, although we did plenty of that. Ben, Justin and I were inspecting the oak for the structural frame. Ours is the organised stack in the middle of the yard above.

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how old?
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the future St Anne’s
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it’s a big job so there are two stacks

It all looks great. The moisture content varied a little throughout many pieces in the yard, not just on ours. It didn’t seem to matter how old the wood was. It was surprising that even the recently cut 300 year old piece of timber from another job was sitting at 18%.  Moisture content is a big deal, and we’re using 5 year air-dried as opposed to green oak. This should limit the amount of movement when the frames are built.

Each timber is awaiting a bunch more work to be done. First, each is inspected for knots and defects. Then the two non-facing sides are cut and the two facing sides are sanded. This retains the character of the wood while keeping the sections to the correct size. Tenons are cut from the ends and the whole thing is pieced together in the yard. In about 5 weeks, they’ll ship it out to us and assemble it onsite.

This is the finished product from another job.

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want to pick out a newell post or a fireplace mantle?
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burglar alarm
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softy
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cutting a plank from a very old section

We tested the water content from the cut in the photo above and it was super high. You could see the water weeping through about 20 minutes later and it felt tacky. But tomorrow it will have dried to about 20%.

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very very very old workshop door
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break area

Monday

Week 13

Friday

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steamy lane

Last year it was 37 C and people were convinced global warming was to blame. This year it’s 17 C with torrential rain and people are convinced global warming is to blame. Makes it tricky for laying bricks, but the guys are cracking on.

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back door

The walls of the house will be filled with this insulation. It’s foil backed and gets slotted in between the brick layers. Cozy!

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insulation tower

The site has been so soggy that they’ve built a raft out of pallets for the brickies to stand on while they build. I think it’s a nice feature that we should consider in the landscaping….

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the whole site from the front

The 6mm raked joints take a bit longer to build, but they look lovely in the sun. The bricks look more irregular than we thought which is exactly the style we’re after. The original-many-moons-ago spec called for reclaimed bricks, but they’re bonkers expensive and sized with imperial measurements! Ours were always a compromise, but it’s been a good one. I hope we make as good a decision with the roof tiles. The rainwater notches look great–can’t wait to see the plinth detail bring it to life.

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the whole site from the back

Thursday

Site meeting about 2:00 with Nic, Ben and Justin in our used-to-be-garage which actually makes a nice meeting room. Ben and I met Trevor the M&E guru. We sited boilers, gas spurs and foul drains and discussed the merits of separate manifolds for underfloor heating and towel rails. All good stuff. I’ve got some homework to do this weekend in making some final decisions before the floors are laid and the pipes are literally set in concrete (or below it anyway).

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where would YOU site the gas meter?

But my main homework is to sort the fireplace so we can tell the masons how big to build the hearth. I’m late and it’s not good!

 

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

Lucky 13–now that the awful weather has changed for 30 seconds, we’re seeing progress. The bricklayers have arrived!

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vertical!
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artsy stacks

The brickies will run the outer walls all the way around the building, then Lee and the ground-guys will lay the DPC. Clearly the DPC is VERY important given the events of last week. Then, I gather it’s all systems go for some serious vertical progress.

In the meantime, Grandma’s yellow rose is still hanging in there, and we’ve got another guest tonight.

Week 11

Friday

Soak-away is under the bricks. It’s a little damp around the edges. The guys have split the bricks front and back and have forklifted the back ones around the lane.

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After hours, there are loads of animals that visit the site.

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Thursday

One soak-away dug and dusted…

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Wednesday

The bricks arrived!

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The weather hasn’t been great. But Lee is a pro scout so at least he and the team are working in the mostly dry.

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new uses for a DPC

Tuesday

Monday