Pictures - at last .. here is our house

At last, a moment of internet connection. So, as promised, here is the picture guide to the week when our house arrived and was erected to make it's mark on the landscape - and in our lives.






We had a fun start (all before 7am!) when the lorry nearly came off the road. Here it is leaning precariously - we are out of shot with fingers firmly crossed that our house wouldn't end up in the ditch. Luckily, it didn't .. and the crane helped the lorry get back on even ground.



One of the first things to get put on the pad - the loo!


The ponies watch from a safe distance.



The lorry safely on the drive, being unloaded - revealing roof trusses and interior wood (the house walls are still under the green tarp)


Me, delighted to have the house so near.


The walls of the house .. and Sam in the background.

The big moment - the first wall is ready to land.

First wall in place - as long as that guy keeps a good hold on it!

Full view of first (west facing) wall.


Second wall is flying in now (south facing)

The rest of the south face comes to join it.

Hey presto - the south face.

Now it's the north face swinging into place.

Now the east face - the final wall.


The house has now officially landed.

At this point we took a little trip out. By the time we came back (only an hour or two later) the west facing gable was swinging into place and the roof trusses were up!

Here's the view from the front (north face). Sally is surveying her new house. We hope that she approves.


Now, still day 1 (honest) the lads are ploughing ahead and getting the roof on (wood, felt then lath - boards). This is the south face.


Day 2 (well, even superhero workers needed a rest) they are busy on the north face of the roof.

They almost make it look easy.

Suddenly, it's done. One roof, up and weathertight (for 4 weeks max - then we need to tile / slate it)

Inside are all the materials that we'll be needing when it's our turn to play superhero builders.

Here's the inside of the roof - gorgeous or what? (pity we have to cover it)

We had great dry weather while the house went up, but it was very wet beforehand, so the concrete is still wet in places.

Here we see down the length of the house from the downstairs bedroom all the way across to the kitchen.

Now the roof edges have been neatly boarded.
This week, in an unprecidented few days of glorious sun, Sally the supervisor has a crafty snooze - as we move wood around.

Here are some of my lovely plants, gifted to me at our shellwarming party last Sunday. We have rhubarb, raspberry, chamomile, mint, clary sage, thyme, lavender, chives and lemon balm. What a great way to start a garden.

The fruits of our fist day's labours - wood moved from the middle to the edges, so we have clear space to put up partition walls. (I think I may be quite muscley once all this is done!)

More wood - the tall pile is where our kitchen counter will be.

Well, that's all for now. Fingers crossed we'll sort proper, regular internet access this week - so we'll be back to more frequent updates (you really don't know just how much I've missed blog and internet land). I'll catch up some more tomorrow - for now I have a bed to go to (as somehow those muscles are tired after a day humping wood about).

Arrgh! The best laid plans ...

(Looks like Sally might be waiting a while before she gets to be meeter and greeter for the erection crew!)

Yesl, so much for 'one week to go' nerves.

I happened to ring Scanhome to check something - asking if the team needed running water next week - when I heard a pause, then a "next week?"

Long story short - our date has been changed .. and I hadn't been told. Lucky I rang or I could have been sitting in the caravan with relations and friends next Tuesday wondering why the lorry wasn't there!

I was then told we'd been moved to the 17th March. Fair enough you say - unless you live in Ireland - when you know it's St Patrick's Day and NO work gets done on that day.

So, after I pinched myself enough to be sure it wasn't just a bad dream, I rang back, 'cos, as I suspected Scandinavian Lars hadn't twigged of the importance of March 17th. He hadn't.

So, as it stands I don't actually know when we get our house.

If only I drank alcohol- it would be time to sink a large one. (Never mind - Sam can have one for us both).

Well, I suppose it would be silly to have thought we'd get away without any hitches on this build.

So now our timings for studding out, roofing etc are all out of whack. Oh dear.

Lets hope that tomorrow things look a bit more promising.

We'll still go down to site next week as the groundworks team are back digging some ditches - but it will be very strange - after having the 3rd of March in my head as THE DAY for nearly 5 months now.

Think I'll go sort organise my seeds (in order of when to sow) to cheer myself up.

Planning the house .. with Sam's model

I can't remember how long we've been planning the house for now. To be honest in the past month we've been too busy sorting out the groundworks and foundations to remember that we'll actually have a HOUSE at the end of all this.

I can hardly remember what it's like to have a house of our own, it seems a world away, even though it's only two years since we left England (it will be two years on the 7th of March to be precise, by which time we should have our shell up - a nice synchronicity).

It's not like I've been planning a self build for years either. In fact, I remember some years ago thinking that I'd never want the responsibility of it. Yet, somehow, here we are.

At first, we were going to buy a house over here, with a bit of land. We weren't scared of a renovation project either. Yet, as we looked, it didn't seem to add up for us - with Sam being so tall that he'd be forever stooping under low doorways (he hits his head enough on the doorways here in my aunts house), worries of finding the house has no foundations when it comes to extending / renovating, not having much scope for extending etc.

That, combined with my growing passion for 'eco-building' and low energy living and a desire to get exactly what we wanted in terms of living space, was enough to tempt us down the route of the self build.

I had great fun researcing different build options including straw bale, cob and earthships. I still remember my visions of friends coming over to help stack bales or lime render walls etc. In the end we went for timber. We'd looked at Scanhome for years and visited several times before making up our minds. I'll confess that partially I was daunted by the idea of trying to get an unconventional build through planning and having to organise work parties, but I also felt that the timber house worked well for our needs (all those instruments and studio equipment need space!). I noticed that a lot of cob and straw bale houses work really well when they are quite small. That is great in terms of low energy footprint, but just didn't suit us so well.

The Scanhome is low energy (not fully passive as we have one woodburning stove, but very highly insulated and with a heat recovery ventilations system ... I just wish they had a 'passive stack ventilation' option that wouldn't have needed constant power, mind you the power consumption of the unit is very low .. but it is still a constant drain of energy). I like the simplicity of it, the design, the natural materials used throughout .. and the fact that we can take over once the shell is up. Turns out that we'll be rendering the outside to keep the planners happy, rather than having a wooden finish (when the shell comes the outside is cladded with a special board that we render onto). The photo shows one once the shell is up and it is ready for rendering (plastering to be precise .. what exactly is the difference anyway I wonder?)

Sam has made a model of the house, which is great and reminds me that it IS real.



He even has cut outs of us and Sally the dog (I keep forgetting that he is so much taller than me!)



Having a 3D reference is wonderful for decision making, such as where to put the wood burner so as to avoid being too near the veluxes and too far from the ridge (I'd wanted it near the edge of the house but there it would have needed external support - too messy and ugly). The biro is ably representing the stove flue.


Here is the downstairs layout. I love the way I can hold it up to the light and mimic the direction where the sunlight will shine in - we are standing in the front of the south face, so that side will get most of the sunlight during the day)


Here's a rough version of the upstairs layout - still a work in progress. We're trying to decide how to best integrate the chimney flue, as it sticks out into the landing / library area and Sam thinks it will look odd. I did suggest that we cover it in chicken wire and turn it into a great big papier mache tree, with branches going to the ceiling - but he has yet to be convinced!

Now we have real foundations.

What a week we've had on site. The team from Scanhome came to do the foundations - and they did a great job. The weather has been pretty cold, but at least the sun shone at times (sometimes for most of the day), which made the place look lovely and gave us a sunny disposition despite some snow flurries.

Somehow, this part really helps it feel real to us and reminds us of the route we are choosing to build - low energy / near passive. It was great to see the whole thing go together and the detailing and care that went into it.

Without getting too technical, the foundation is extremely well insulated by two layers of polystyrene board, then comes the radon barrier (the red plastic), steels to strengthen the concrete, cables for electric underfloor heating (and other water cables in case we change to solar water underfloor heating in the future). Then the concrete is poured (it has a high content of recycled ash - so may look a little darker than normal - apparently) and smoothed out. If anyone wants more details, just email me.

Here comes the picture tour of the foundations springing into life.


The pad (of levelled stones) is ready for the foundation work to begin

Sally is meeter and greeter


The Corners are marked out

The shuttering is ready to go up
The shuttering goes up (pipes are in underneath it)
The polystyrene
Polystyrene in place
Me in my builders hat
The radon barrier is put on

Steels at the edges for re-enforcement

Radon barrier is down, pipes sealed

All the steel is ready
All prepared for the pour

Heat cables

A frosty start to the day of the pour

The pour begins

The concrete is levelled off a bit

We inspect the good work

More levelling

Whole pad is poured and is being 'fine tuned'

The concrete lorry goes

Here's our shiny new pad (just needs a touch of power floating)


Well that was our big excitement for this month. I never thought that I'd be excited to see some concrete being poured - but it was actually quite a moving experience. The team were lovely and even even dragged a couple of them down to the Folk Club at Farrelley's on Thursday night!

It is touching to think that we'll be able to look back (once we're settled in the house) and remember this process - the changes, the people, the excitement, the nerves.

I was really excited to see the shadows fall on the foundation at different times of day (thank goodness there was a bit of sun) and I can imagine how the sun will come through the windows - this time of your it will stretch really deeply into the rooms.

Anyway, we're back up north for a wee while now. I'm crossing fingers and toes that we'll be able to sort out a few niggles - like the Eircom pole that needs re-locating from the boundary.
(We were told it was an electricity pole .. and so I duly informed the ESB that it needed moving. Try to imagine my face when they came out, looked at the pole, looked at me and informed me that it wasn't their pole!).

We have the artic coming in less than a month and it would be hard for it to get past the pole. Eircom have come out to do a survey (and charged for it too) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't cost a fortune to move and that they can do it in time. Otherwise we'll have to temporarily widen more on the other side, but it will still be tight. I'll get onto them again next week.