Building a new house

So this is getting a bit repetitive - jump in the Land Rover at 9 (it's got all the gear in the back) and drive to Gellifor. Get going on the last three timber panels. A couple need the uprights trimming which slows things down. Liz arrives late morning and in due course we enjoy a very nice picnic lunch. In the afternoon we have a visit from Edward Bagnall who is showing off his Land Rover and collecting hazel whips from the hen-run at home. In the late afternoon I decide to try to get the uprights in for the temporary fence at the front of the plot. In digging one of the holes I find what is probably the sewer pipe. Fortunately I don't break it. Magically, the jumbo bag of ballast is used up on the last mix of concrete and the posts are in place. (I also had just enough nails in old stock for the feather boards. I think I used about 1100. Tomorrow I am off to Wrexham for the start of my 4-day First Responder training course. I might get to the plot one evening to...

Battled a bit against the weather and over-active guts today - thunderstorms and the new multi-coloured diet we are on to improve our gut flora. I did the woodwork for another three panels (so that's eight of eleven) and Liz brought lunch over and did some soil-moving and weed-clearing. Finally gave up and retired to home comforts about half past two.  Then used some of the 3x2s and featherboards to make a side gate for Hugh and Lindsay (actually the second gate as the first one was made to a width of 30" as a result of a hastily scribbled 36" being misread). Three more panels to finish tomorrow, then the temporary low fence at the front to do. Need to finish tomorrow as my First Responder training will fill Tuesday to Friday this week, and Friday marks the end of the 28 day post-completion period during which we undertook to erect the fence.

So, since the Big Job on Tuesday, I have had three days travelling to Manchester, two for MGS and one for Hugh and Lindsay. Today, Saturday 26 May, I returned to start the woodwork. It was a pleasure to be able to reverse the Land Rover onto the plot through the new entrance. The plans I had been hatching for a while to use clamps to set up the framework for the featherboard panelling worked out fine, but setting up is a little slow. The day was seven hours of clamping and nailing. Somewhat counter-intuitively, it's a rule of English boundary marking that the person who puts up a fence, sometimes at great expense and personal effort, gets the less attractive side of the fence. The neighbour has to be offered the smart side. In fact, the kind of fence we've chosen can be double skinned, so in the fulness of time I will probably add a layer of featherboards to our side. For now, however, this is how it looks, first after the initial panel was in place, then at the end of...

So this was to be a big day. I had arranged to meet Steve in Gellifor, and he arrived with a 1.5 ton digger at 8.30. We were up against it, because Thorncliffe had brought forward the time of stone delivery/waste removal from early afternoon to late morning. First of all the walls came down, with the stone being stacked just inside the boundary-to-be. Some sections were still securely mortared together - a job for the future to sort all this out. The big challenge was always going to be getting the eucalyptus stump out, and it certainly gave Steve a fight, as it had a big taproot. The other challenge had been to estimate the amount of MOT mix we needed, and how much spoil was to be taken away. We had gone for 10 tons in and 15 tons out, and it worked perfectly. Steve made really good progress and was ready by 11. When the big Thorncliffe lorry came we had problems with three drivers who were delayed - a lady bringing home medication for her ...

Well this is getting repetitive, and my body felt the pressure a bit today, with a hot and sunny morning and four more posts positioned and concreted in place. A couple of the posts took a few goes to get their height right, which made for additional heavy lifting, and the holes took three mixes of concrete, conveniently leaving a little ballast and cement for when we get to the temporary fencing at the entrance. So that's all the concrete posts in place, and the next fencing push will be to build the timber close-boarded panels in situ. But that will have to wait for the bank holiday weekend, as tomorrow Steve is digging out the entrance, and on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I have trips to Manchester in the diary for a variety of reasons. This is how the line of posts looks now.

Two more long half days, but nice to realise this afternoon (Sunday) that the fencing materials were only delivered on Friday, and now 9 of the concrete posts are in the ground (8 of them concreted in), the timber has all been moved up the garden to its relevant place (thank you Elizabeth), and half of the bulk bag of aggregate and two of the 4 bags of cement have been used. On Saturday I had to spend quite a long time enlarging seven post holes following a little adjustment which took place once I had physical 2.4m measures to lay down along the boundary line. My first effort at marking up the positions of the posts had been reasonable but not perfect. On Sunday more posts were 'popped' in their holes (including the monster corner one which Joshua kindly came over to help me with) and 4 were concreted in. Earlier I had been sorry not to have more large clamps (each post being held pre-concreting with two) but now I'm quite pleased that they have rationed the amoun...

The fencing materials had been ordered at TP in Denbigh on Wednesday and everything arrived bang on time at 1.30pm Friday. The unloading did delay three motorists but they were all very understanding. There's plenty of stuff. The majority of the 2.4 metre concrete posts are just about liftable by me, but I'm calling in assistance for the much heavier corner post which is needed for the change of direction in the fence at the front of the plot. When I say liftable, I don't claim that I can straighten my legs under the load! Liz kindly took this picture of me as a bent old man.  The plot slopes slightly from back to front, so after positioning the back post I temporarily positioned one 8 panels or so further forward. Then, the posts went in, working from the back, with their tops lined up and their sides checked with a long spirit level. As a further check, the 8 foot cross timbers went into the slots temporarily. Stakes and clamps held the posts ...

This is how it all started - the sign was, of course, originally at the roadside, next to the TPO enormous lime tree, when we drove past, having decided to go through Gellifor, a village we didn't know, on the way back from the Dinorben Arms with a heavily pregnant (with Isabel) Emma. The tape now shows the dividing line between Plas Coch Bach (right) and our plot (left) and is where the big fence is currently being constructed. This is the 12th 600mm-deep fencepost hole I have dug - a little larger than the others as it will take the corner slotted post to allow for the fence to change direction around the front of the plot. This is the log pile arising from the felling by Steve Fricker of the two cherries and the eucalyptus tree at the front of the plot. And this is how the view from the road in front of the big lime looks now that the cherries and eucalyptus have gone. Eventually, the hedge and wall will be reduced in height in accordance with th...

Yesterday we met Adrian Jones again to look at the plans he has produced following our briefing meeting with him a couple of weeks ago.  Despite the fact that I had been trying hard not to design the house in my head I must have had an image of how it would sit on the land and the first surprise was to find that the plan he proposed was quite different.  He had started by looking hard at the constraints of the plot and the challenge of ensuring that the house took advantage of the views despite the fact these are to the north east and are seen from the side and the back corner of the plot. As he took us through what he had drawn up I began to feel a little bubble of excitement.  It grew very slowly at first as we looked at the light and bedroom arrangements and the way he was suggesting he incorporate our specific requirements but the longer we looked and the more I noticed the detail of light and roof lines and the way the proposed house sat in the land, the more I lik...

We had negotiated to gain a few metres of width at the back of the plot by having our boundary line, and the dividing fence, go through what was a substantial raised bed, formed by four courses of old railway sleepers. Over a couple of days I reduced the raised bed, clearing the soil onto our plot and chainsawing the sleepers to make a smaller bed, with working clearance for fence construction on our neighbours' side. This work had to be done before the 600mm deep holes for the concrete fenceposts could be dug. On Tuesday 15 May I had arranged to work with Steve Fricker to cut down the two cherry trees and the eucalyptus which needed to be removed as part of forming the new entrance to the plot, with improved sightlines for motorists along the front walls of our and our neighbours' properties. This photo shows our front boundary at the start of the day. Here is Steve's chipper, together with the eucalyptus (right of centre) and one of the cherry trees (le...

We live in a seventeenth century farmhouse up a steep hill.   There is a holiday cottage and nearly two acres of land which we have painstakingly attempted to turn from a field into a garden.  Is this a beautiful and interesting place to live?  Yes.  When the sun shines on a day in May it is hard to understand why anyone would want to be anywhere else.  But it is a place with a lot of work and in some ways a challenging place to live.  My brother has never been since his stroke.  My father could not come when he was no longer able to walk.  When Eric lost his legs, his phrase for not being able to walk any more, we struggled.  There are cobbles and gravel and changes of level outside.  There are steps and sloping floors inside.  We are fine here now but we might not be fine if either of us was unwell in any way and we probably won't be fine in a few years with less energy.  It has been the most fabulous adventure but it is...