It’s going to be stone. Eventually.

We made a decision on the wall – well, Ali did. It’s going to be stone, not breeze block. He’s got enough stone, and he likes working with it, so that’s the plan.
He dug down to make space for its foundations, and to everyone’s surprise (though perhaps we should have expected it, there being [...]

Load by load, first footings

Some days, it’s actually very difficult to go out there and work, when it’s cold, windy, wet, and staying in the kitchen by a roaring fire is so much more tempting. Today was one of those days.
“Just one barrow,” I say to myself, on such occasions.
One barrow of wood from the demolished shed:
[...]

It’s a beautiful tree

– and actually, the more things take shape, the more I realise its importance. I think that little willow tree is going to form the centre point for the expanse of green grass that will eventually (by next springtime I hope!) cover the first third of our field and surround the first two buildings. [...]

Lessons learned, decisions made and lots still to decide

Lesson number one: When clearing land, do not simply pull out all the top growth of a big area, then expect to be able to go back and only have the roots to deal with. Because by the time you get back to the beginning, the top growth will be right back where you started [...]

[Corny title alert!:] To PC or not to PC?

Sorry, couldn’t resist that, though I really should have done, I know.
OK, today’s meandering topic of conversation, on finding again that our PCs and our wiring are not in the optimum place in this house – i.e. everywhere, all the time, just at the end of our arms when we suddenly want to work on [...]

Refridgeration

We’ve talked about this and airily come up with the idea (or subconsciously hijacked it from elsewhere) of installing some kind of heat exchange unit in between what will be a cold room (for food storage) and a warm room (spa? sauna? bathroom? clothes drying?) but one of the many items on the list of [...]

The pros and cons of employing architects

Pros:

They’re usually pretty good at designing buildings.
They’ve usually had more experience of doing this than we have.
They’re supposed to know all the technical stuff.
They’re often used to dealing with planners and builders etc.

Cons:

We’d be asking them to work out how to spend our money!
We’d have to pay them loads of money on top for doing so!
We wouldn’t get the fun (Yeah, ask me again in [...]

Extended family planning

It feels like I’m breaking new ground here, to plan from the start to live in the same house with adult children. And yet it shouldn’t be so strange – left to our own devices (i.e. without the school system) it’s how things would normally work. Why split up the family unit, when everyone is [...]