Today saw our first near-accident. A delivery driver who appeared to be incapable of manoeuvring his lorry tried to offload three pallets of tile cement. In a series of moves reminiscent of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, he narrowly missed hitting our wall, six large sheets of expensive porcelain and packs of tiles in what … More 10th May 2022

The village has planted an oak for Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee above us on Windmill Hill. We have a rota to keep the tree watered and this weekend was our turn. Perhaps we’ll get a gong if it survives ! Gen and Ollie and Henry and Erica came for a work weekend with the focus … More 8th May 2022

You may recall our slightly feeble and unsuccessful attempt to get the bath upstairs. We’ve thrown technology at it and hired a material hoist. Boss of our general builders, Steve, was unlucky to arrive just in time to have the honour of doing the winding up. Excessive sweeping and waste management at the end of … More 5th May 2022

We’re into another month – blimey! The pages of the weekly diary, from which we run our lives, seem to be turning at a faster and faster pace, and the ”Er, July/August ?” prediction of when we might conceivably move in seems close. On the one hand, we’re choosing carpets, tiles and paints, and on … More 4th May 2022

The higher level of the scaffolding has come down, and we can see more of the building and its final shape. Just need the renderboard, rendering and zinc capping on the parapets and the rest can come down. It sounds easy if you say it fast enough! Inside all attention is on plasterboarding and plastering, … More 30th April 2022

We used to have to get in the car to go for walks through bluebells. Now we’re lucky enough to stroll out from the house.

The next major transformation to the outside of the house will be the rendering of the ground floor walls. The chalky white render will be applied in May onto cementatious render board which we need to get fitted. Dave, Mark and Ewan weren’t keen to switch from their usual timber to this board but have … More 23rd April 2022

We hope you’ve all had a smashing Easter! We had Gen here for a few days and got stuff done in the house and garden, spurred on by her enthusiasm, lovely sunny weather and a certain amount of chocolate. Ollie also popped over and helped with battens to pack out the plasterboard in the window … More 18th April 2022

Our accumulation of ‘tat’ around the bothy is coming along. This includes a characterful seed drill kindly given to us by Chris’ Mum’s gardener, Kevin, and a metal florist’s table from a local antiques place.

We’ve struggled with the design and incorporation of some of the ‘inserts’ into the building. The required precision and the metallic inflexibility of the Crittall screens, the frames for the sliding pocket doors, and now most recently the blind boxes that hide motorised blinds away in the ceiling, hasn’t sat comfortably with the timber frame, … More 14th April 2022