Building your own house – as in actually doing most of the work – takes over your life. No drama, but a mere statement of our current situation.
We work every day. We don’t start too early, well we’re not to miss doing our sudoku over the first coffee of the day, but we do work late and only finish early if we start to make mistakes! Everything takes second place to the work, as you would expect and as most of our friends have come to accept! But it is very satisfying doing it for ourselves and trying very hard to do it properly, so we don’t apologise for our commitment and obsession – although we do apologise for the lack of updates. It is amazing to think anyone is still reading our wee blog with the the distinct lack of continuity.
The past weeks have been spent staining some of the 532 planks of heat treated wood that will eventually be the cladding. At the current rate it will be around August or September before we finish fixing that lot! All the windows are now installed and the front and back door as well – just the large doors and side panels the lead out onto the patio still to do. We were going to try and bring the plasterboard in that way, but now realise that getting the house fully sealed is more important, so the oak sub-sill is being prepared and the units will be installed by the end of the week.
Most of the horizontal timbers have been fixed to the outside of the frame and one elevation has it’s insulation overcoat and breathable membrane stapled on ready to fix the cladding battens and sort out the corners and opening reveals. The soffits are all done, so the house is nearly wind-tight so making it a little more comfortable when staining the vast mountain of cladding! It was pretty hard working in the bitterly cold easterly wind recently – both inside and out!
Once the external insulation is fixed we will focus on getting the insulation inside and start filling the frame – by the time the weather improves we should be nice and warm inside!!
