Our Luxton love in and a sawfinger

Meeting up with Charlie Luxton this time was an altogether less stressful experience, I'd even go so far as saying it was great fun and provided some more very useful ideas and food for thought...

After last time, when we were a few weeks away from starting our build, the suggestions Charlie made were a lot easier to digest and comprehend (and didn't make me feel angry this time!) The days filming started with a cup of tea and then followed with a walk through the house and a chat about which ideas from the first time we met we had decided to go with. We talked about how the build was progressing and the ideas we had for the stair and balcony area (which was one of the major suggestions we took forward into the building) upstairs bedroom storage and flooring.

Once we had finished filming at the house, we headed off down to the Corners for a spot of lunch and Charlie sketched of few of the ideas and suggestions he had. The main suggestions were around the stairs/balcony areas. The suggestion for the stairs half kite steps for the first 4 rises is likely to save a bit of money and will remove the need for a handrail at the bottom and gain a little bit of headroom on the stairs. We were planning on having a glass balcony, but the suggestion that we used only glass to form the barrier, without the need for a handrail is something we hadn't thought about previously and we will be looking into this some more.

We were both quite impressed with the 3d drawing of the stairs

A frameless glass balcony... could it be done?

This weeks progress has seen GRM Electrical first fix electrics moving on nicely, which should be finished next week

 Wiring for the lighting in the main living space

1st fix wiring

... but the one we really have been waiting for THE WINDOWS & DOORS ARE DUE TO BE FITTED, starting on Wednesday.

Please insert windows here!

Whilst we have been busy with the house, we've got a bit of local news today regarding the weather, we've had flooding in Kingsland and just 700 meters or so from us, the river has burst it's banks which we haven't see to this extent previously. Thankfully, we're quite a bit higher up so with the exception of potentially being cut off we won't be affected. 

The river just down the road from us

This should be a wooded field... 

The other end of the village

Finally, work this weekend has been slowed by my inability to use a saw correctly... I had been making good progress with the second coat of paint on the weatherboard (33 boards of 85), To enable us to fit them all in the house while doing so we have been stacking them with spacers to enable air to flow through the boards, allowing them to dry. I'd run out of spacers and decided to cut some more... but I managed cut a large grove into my index finger and finished the job off with a bit more lacerating on the backward stroke. So a trip to A & E and my finger was taped up and bandaged to allow it to heal, with strict instructions by the nurse to rest my finger and don't get it wet. 

"Sore Finger" with enhanced pointing ability

So to summarise it all, we have warmed to Charlie's ideas at the point of hearing them (rather than after a few days of reflection), I've learnt to ensure I concentrate on whilst I am doing jobs and I've also learnt that you can't do anything to control the weather (hopefully it won't delay the windows & doors again!)

Filming a nosey around another house...

We've had a hectic week on the build and filming! Neil Littleworth has been and done the first fix plumbing and GRM Electrical Services have made a start on the first fix electrics. We've had two lots of filming including a presenter catch up with Charlie Luxton (i'll cover the Charlie catch up in the next blog).

As part of "Building the Dream" we had the opportunity to have a nosey around another self built home that is going to be similar in construction to ours. The house is quite a bit bigger than ours will be, with a lot more oak throughout but it is finished in weatherboard and it has given us feel for what ours will be like at the end. Emma showed us around her home, which felt very warm and homely with a country cottage feel throughout. They have used flooring to make the house flow from the entrance into the kitchen/diner/snug looking and this is something we will look at carefully as we decide on the flooring. 

Holly Cottage, New Radnor

Although ours isn't going be a country cottage style, there were some nice features that either reinforced decisions we had made (like galvanised steel guttering) or gave us something to think about. We had been considering oak ledge and brace doors and these look great with pewter iron mongery (although it might not be what we end up with, but i'll talk about that next blog). They also had solid flooring throughout including bedrooms and seeing this in reality, made me realise that maybe Fliss wasn't wrong with the fact that this can work... We are also (after seeing the stone floor tiles) going to look again at tiles in the main living space, because polished concrete is looking too cost prohibitive at the moment. Another potential cost saving option is to use white skirting and architrave? It is something we were looking at, but seeing how they did theirs works quite well against oak.

Following advice of the plumber we decided to do first fix plumbing in a couple of stages so we can progress along with other works. 

 Copper pipes for the bath run through the stud wall timbers to keep them hidden.

 We'll need to box in this section in afterwards

The soil pipe is left part in place to allow clean cuts for plasterboarding

In the next blog I am going tell you about our day with Charlie Luxton and some more ideas along with giving you more of a look at the inside of the house, our plans and some of the changes made.