Ready To Spring Into Action

We've had two sunny days in a row up here in Castlewellan - bliss.

Sally has been taking advantage of the good weather and has taken to sunbathing on the doorstep. Good move methinks.

I have been joining her as often as I can. I'm nursing myself through a cold right now (I rarely get them) and although it is cold morning and evening the warmth of the sunshine is delightful (and with all the sneezing and nose blowing I haven't really been fit for much else).

I'm glad to be on the mend, for its really time to spring into action with the house building again.

Our official letter, the one they send a month after the initial decision - giving time for people to comment etc, was apparently sent out today. That will be 'the end of it'.

The couple of days of sunshine has been a morale booster - I'm dreaming of a sunny and warm Spring and Summer, with picnic lunches on the grass and moments of caught sunshine inbetween flurries of activity and general getting on with things. (Sally will be morale officer - usually found snoozing, as below)

We'll return next week - Sam wants the letter in his hands before he starts anything!

There are stud walls upstairs to put up, taping and jointing for me to do, the reedbed changes to sort out - it won't be dull, thats for sure.

Leo, another doorstep sunbather, is head supervisor - and cats are no pushover, so the work will have to be good.

In between my snufflings and sneezings, I've had moments of pure excitement - that we'll have a home again, that we can actively make progress and be where we want to be.

Until then, fingers crossed that there will be some more sunshine for Sally to enjoy.

Of course, it wasn't only the animals soaking up the rays. I've been tending to a few plants too. Here are the broad beans that we'll bring down to Leitrim to plant out.

Here's some garlic that will come down with us too.

Here are some saladlings that I sowed late last Autumn, as a trial. Now, there isn't a lot there, but they are coming on. There's pak choi that I might use soon and I'll probably pot on the lettuces and other wee orientals.

I did a similar trial, sowing last autumn, in the glass roofed barn. These are really coming on well (even though there isn't a huge amount, its good fun to see how well they do). Again, I have a mix of orientals - pak choi and mizuna, some lettuce and corn salad.

I also started some broad beans inside the barn early in the year and I've kept them inside until now. I'm not yet sure if I'll keep them in, for a very early crop, or harden them off - so they get to experience the great outdoors. I've interplanted them with some white viola - just for fun.

Earlier in the year, I sprouted some peas, to test their viability, and I used the tips as pea shoots. I decided to stick the remaining shoots in a pot in the glass barn. I don't know if they'll grow well - as the tips have been trimmed - but I intend to find out.

Last, but not least, are the tomatoes and peppers that were started indoors. I repotted them today and I'm hoping to transfer them to the glass barn now, before they get too leggy.

Next time, I'll post some pics from our last trip to Leitrim .. and soon, that will be our main focus again - thank goodness.

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.

Weather .. and groundworks week 2

What a difference the weather makes. We seemed to make great progress this week and I'm sure that the glorious weather from Monday until Wednesday helped. It certainly raised our spirits.
When I stop to think, it amazes me just how much of a difference a bit of sunshine makes to everything. The landscape takes on a new dimension, the treetops glistening, the soft colours intensifying. Even being in the caravan was more fun again (well it can be a bit challenging in the cold weather) and everything seemed more homely somehow.
Anyway, the lads did a great job of the groundworks. Here is the progress.

Our new boundary has been tidied up.


The sides of the drive are being landscaped.Best of all, we have our main area for the house / garage / driveway stoned and the area for the house is specially prepared with stone to be ready for the scanhome team to come and pour the concrete next week.
Here's the view from the road.

Also, in a moment of sheer inspiration I got the lads to spare us some stone and lay it as a path up to the caravan from the new drive - that will save us from the mudfest that has been growing outside the caravan door.
For enatertainment this week, Sam has mainly been playing the mandolin.
Poor Sally (the dog) is a bit pahsed by the mud, but is much happier now that there's a path up to the caravan. We're hoping that the wet weather at the end of this week won't have done any harm and that it proves fair again for the scanhome team next week. Once they have been we can once more see exactly where the house is going to be and I can go back to my favourite pastime of sitting in the different 'rooms' and imagining what the views will be like from the windows. Then, in early March, the erection crew come, the house comes and then I'll get to look out the windows for real!

In the beginning .. to groundworks starting

In the beginning there was a field. Then, we bought the field - and that's really when the adventures began. We bought it last summer and now we've just started getting ready to build our house (our home) there.

I thought it would be fun to blog our adventures in our new land (our wonderland), so prepare for tales of self building and attempts to grow veg and whatever else happens as we get settled on our slightly damp 3 acres.


This week, things actually started to happen. The diggers came in, the boundaries went back and the field has become a 'site'. That feels huge to us. Having plans on paper is one thing, having the vision is another, but actually breaking ground - that makes it real in a new (and exciting) way.


Now we have a driveway emerging and a level area for the house (and eventually the garage).


Luckily, the snow and rain didn't stop progress much and all is going well,
despite it getting a tad chilly in the site office (aka caravan).


Actually, the site looked lovely in the snow, especially the trees in the distance and the stream, which is always beautiful to me.
Even with the diggers busy up top, near the road, I can escape down to the stream for a few minutes of pure peace and tranquility. The stream is the boundary between our land and the woodland behind, so there is always plenty of wildlife activity.
We're back down again tomorrow for a few days while the digging is completed - not that we're actually doing the digging. We're happy to do most of the work inside the house, but even we know our limitations, so for now we sit back and 'supervise' i.e. keep out of the way!

Mind you there's always a bit of entertainment with
Sam around, and we'd better make the most of playing now, while we have some time to spare.

Our house is a Scandinavian timber 'near passive' house from Sacnhome in Galway (www.scanhome.ie) and will
arrive on a rather large lorry in the beginning of March. The shell is up within a week - and then we get to work!

Until then we're busy enough sourcing materials, sorting out logistics and hopefully planning what veg we'll try to grow this year. Ideally I'd like to get a polytunnel up this Spring - to give me somewhere to start things off and also to give a bit of shelter from the rain. With that and some raised beds we should be in with a chance of success on the damp clay soil.

Watch this space.