What a stud...

and I'm not talking about myself or big Tone!

With the help of big Tone (well most of it to be honest), we've managed to get the stud walling in on the ground floor now as well - so we now have some bedrooms, hallway and a shower room shell downstairs along with two bedrooms and a bathrooms upstairs. It's really starting to feel like a house now!

We've built the downstairs stud walls on stilts to support them until we've decided on what we are doing with the flooring. The plan is to run some flowing screed under the walls and finish at the bottom of the stud, but we are undecided on the floor coverings yet.

Building the stud walling has highlighted a problem with one of the external walls being a little bit out of upright. with timber you can often get issues with alignment, but it is just a little more than we would like so we want to deal with it now so it won't cause any longer-term issues with the finishing. We're not entirely sure of the best way of resolving it, but we are on the case of sorting it out.

Over the last week or so MGL building have been back on-site to finish off all the external brickwork on the house. We think it really looks good now and when we have the painted weatherboard on the exterior it really will compliment the oak.

The stud walling means we are now ready for the plumber to come next week. We've also got another bit of filming scheduled for "Building the Dream," but this time not on site - we're going to look around a finished self-build house to help give us some inspiration and ideas for finishing ours!

So back to another weekend of insulation, first fix carpentry and some painting more boards for Fliss, along with a visit to Burton Court wedding fair and then next week a nose around someone elses house, Neil Littleworth is coming to start first fix plumbing and Gareth at GRM Electrical is coming over for a site meeting so we can get ready for first fix electrics to take place!

First delays... a new experience for our build

The build has been moving along so well, in terms of timing and things being done as expected, but this week we have seen our first real setback.

We were due to have our windows and doors fitted next week, but due to flooding in the factory there has been a delay that is likely to mean we will fall several weeks behind where we thought we would be on the external side of the build. I realise it isn't anyones fault, but that doesn't mask the disappointment Fliss and I felt on Monday when we found out. We'd been really looking forwards to getting the windows fitted! It's the first date on the build that hasn't been met, which is a new experience for us.

The consequence of the delay will impact on other work, we had scheduled the remaining brick work to be completed this week (which is still on track), following on with windows and doors next week and then first week in February the external weather boarding to be done - which would have meant by mid February the house would be completely water tight... hopefully the delay won't push us too far back into worse weather.

The scaffolding is now completely down internally and externally, which revealed the house more fully on the outside and gave a sense of the space inside. We are both delighted with how it is taking shape and pleased with the colour we've been painting on the exposed softwood timbers. As well as Fliss and I painting weather board (52 down, just another 32 to go), I've been quietly carrying on with the insulation in the roof over the last week or so. It's coming along but is a slow process when your are doing it around a normal working day. I had Dad helping again last Saturday, which has made a big difference.

I've got a day off on Friday to help start to do the downstairs stud walling and a bit more on Saturday so we are ready for first fix plumbing  last week in January and then moving on to electrics.

So, by the end of this month we should have all the house external brick work completed, all the internal stud walling in place and the first fix plumbing done. We will also have done a bit more filming for our mentor visit to another house!

Finally I just wanted to thank you for reading, since the blog started we've now had over 4000 views!

Weather dodging into the new year...

As the first blog post of the year, I'd like to start by wishing you all the best for the New Year. This is one of the most important years of our lives to date. Somewhere towards the middle of it we will be moving into our new home and in September we'll be getting married. Nothing like cramming a couple of major life events in, in a few months!

We've had some pretty awful weather over the last 2 weeks, when it's rained its really RAINED, it's been windy - VERY WINDY, but we've actually had quite a few dry days or afternoons complete with blue sky and the upshot of that is that we've managed to dodge the weather to do some work on the outside of the house that we weren't necessarily expecting to be able to do.

So it's been all hands on deck over the Christmas break, with no trades on site we've been busy ourselves and have had some help from my Mum & Dad and also the kids when they were up with us.

With the weather being kind in patches we've painted both the gable ends of the house (3 coats of paint, so that's finished), the front of the house under the eves, with 2 coats and the rear of the house 1 coat. Considering the time of year that's pretty good going! We've also managed when dry to move 85 x 6meter feather edge boards inside the house to dry and shifted most of the Kingspan K7 Kooltherm Roof Insulation upstairs, in the dry. Maneuvering around the scaffolding proved tricky, but we managed to do it. Keeping as much of the materials as possible dry at this time of year is critical to being able to get on to the next stage...

Kingspan K7 Kooltherm in the dry

75mm & 100mm K7 Boards laid out for easy access to cut and install

85 x 6 meter Larch Feather Edge Boards inside, laid out for painting or drying

I sourced 6 meter Baltic grown, Larch Feather Edged Boards from local Kingsland timber merchants Powell & Co. Excellent service and very helpful staff and being just 5 mins down the road from our home very handy! Once we'd moved all of the feather edged boards inside, we set about giving them a coat of paint. We had plans on doing them all, but due to a technical issue (um I spilt a tin of paint and when I tried to replenish it found out that the supplier was closed until January 2nd) we only managed to get a third of them painted and dried. Josh & Liv spent a day over Christmas mucking in and helping us paint a few of the boards. Giving them a coat of paint (or 2) now means that if and when they shrink on the outside of the building we won't be left with unpainted wood showing through (that tip was from John at Border Oak). We've now got more paint though so can crack on with those over the coming weeks. Our deadline for getting this done is the end of January. Weather permitting, the external timber cladding is scheduled to be fitted early February.

The first piece of Kingspan K7 Kooltherm insulation in place - quite a few more left to do!

We managed to get started on insulating the roof, but from what I've seen so far it's going to be a long process! Dad and Mum helped out and we've managed to make a good start, but with 175mm of insulation going into the roof (between the rafters), before the plasterboard on top - it means cutting every section twice. Something I've learnt from speaking various insulation buffs is that the aim of the game with insulation is to keep it continuous and free from gaps. Any joints between the front boards and the rear shouldn't be the same, overlapping and taping joints. The big and straight sections aren't too difficult, but the small intricate sections are time consuming and tricky.

Insulation taking shape.

If anyone else reading this is planning on Self Building, I'd say that you need to be flexible with your approach to the jobs you plan to do yourself - when it's dry, do as much of the outside work as you can, because once you've got the house in the dry you can always revert back inside.

Over the next week, we'll be carrying on with insulation, painting more boards and Boyd Scaffolding will be on site to take down the scaffolding - so we'll be able to see the house properly!

Thanks for reading this blog!

Tim