big holes

with the bedroom 'sort' of finished (still the window to put in), work has moved on to the lounge. simon's cracked on with the walls putting on a few layers of lime based plaster, sanding the lounge door (took me bloody hours - next time i vote to 'dip') and digging the floor mostly (what a joyous job...) :)

you can see in the picture above that we've taken the floor down about 30cm, the idea is to refill it with leca (little fired clay balls) and lime scree, then lay a lime floor which we're planning to polish. the leca works as a great damp proof course and is also an amazing insulator.

it's a bit like a pit in there at the moment, so can't wait to get the floor back in and the final plaster onto the walls.

now we just need a bed

finished skimming the walls with clay/sand mix, sand and linseed the beams, 3 coats of limewash, sand the floor and treat with 2 coats of osmo and the bedroom is finished and we are very excited.

yum yum

isn't it looking lovely? lovely door, lovely walls, lovely window, lovely floor...

lovely little door

along with the base coat of plaster, simon has saved our little cupboard door, and added a little window - very cute.

here are some before and after images to show how far we've come and how beautiful it's starting to look:

'ere, he's putting shit on me walls...

next up are the bedroom walls, a lot of time has been spent getting them back to a good starting point. loads of blown cob and earth plaster had to be removed, layers of plastic paint, random patches of concrete dug out - and now we can get into the reconstruction...

first off is to collect some fresh horse shit (complements of our four legged neighbours), add to this straw, water, course sand and some clay (locally sourced from St. Agnes). this creates a rather smelly, but strong and natural plaster that can be used to build up the walls as a base coat.

the result has been brilliant and really transformed the room.

i see the light!

been a while since the last post on this here board, but loads been going on with the little house.

first off we got two velux windows installed in the bedroom, they have totally transformed the room and at first i thought there might be too much light up there, but got used to it within about half and hour and feel that they'll make the room.

pretty as a picture

here's the beautiful boy 'aving a cuppa, innit...

tiddely pom...

spring is well and truely here, the fruit trees are blossoming, me tatties are sprouting and three ducks have come to live in the garden, awwwww... i think they're cute, simon think's they'd be cuter served up in an orange sauce ;)

all is going great guns here too. after me boys near fatal interaction with a burning tent in maroc he has been cracking on big style and the lounge and bedroom really feel as though they've entered a state of construction (rather than destruction - you have to break eggs, as people keep telling me...)

there's still loads of work to do to these two rooms, 'lectrics need to be chased in, timber windows ordered, the living room floor needs to come up and be relaid and whilst we're doing this we need to decide whether to lay underfloor heating. plus a stove/fire must be ordered and a flu put up that there chimney. the list goes on.

simon managed to dig out the old fire and surround and found an inglenook, which really opens up the room.

we bought a nice chunk of dougy fir and it's be inserted as a rather handsome, and if i might say, impressive lintel above the fireplace. some cob blocks and earth/lime mix were used to build up the fireplace surround.

the lintel above the lounge window has also be replaced with a length of larch we had left over from putting the bedroom beams in.

all the lounge ceiling joists were ripped out and replaced with new, some of the old ones were barely hanging on in the walls. they also needed respacing, as an 'extra' joist had been added to the fray at some point - you can see above the new joists set in wall with lime and cob mix, with one of the old spaces stuffed inbetween.

a handy mate came round and laid our new bedroom floor/lounge ceiling - we choose quite cheap pine boards that we'll eventually treat and stain. for the time being they've been covered up stairs so they're protected whilst work continues.


s'all rather grand! plus we got someone working on our extension plans - hurray!

solid silver insulation...

This is the framework for our velux window - we'll be putting two in, one north, one south facing.

a work mans tools...

here you can see where we have removed the old lintle and replaced it with a piece of larch, we've also removed alot of the thick concrete (?) from around the window.


nice work with the insulation, very tricky fitting in amongst the joists and rafters, and horrible stuff to cut and work with. we have installed two thick layers. the plan now is to plaster board over the insulation and eventually start on replastering the walls, up and over the ceiling. plus we need to get our hands on an affordable timber window to replace the UPVC one that's currently here.

life's a holiday

ahhh Maroc et les belles montagnes

weekend off

i drive over dartmoor every month when i head to totnes - such an amazing place. oh, dartmoor, i have such beautiful plans for the two of us...

monkey or fish?

haddock - doing his impression of a primate

the beginning of something beautiful...

here are the new joists - looking very beautiful. next we'll add two velux windows for additional light, insulate, wire in the electrics, replace the floorboards and plaster up, baby! the thought of a lovely big bedroom is very exciting.

cabbage patch

nice view on the way to the local shop - man, this is such a refreshing change from the sunny climes that are finsbury park road...

Frosty Farm

the 'neigh'bours

These two fillies live just across the courtyard and will come in very handy to mix the cob and fertilize the garden.

onwards and upwards

the first new joist

cutting out the old joists

wood and props

so we've returned to the comfort of our little caravan that is now carefully positioned outside our front door. i found the whole move back rather disturbing, only in that i appeared to be very excited about getting back into the cardboard pod - hmmm.... i've just spent 100K on a house and i perfer the comforts of a gypsy existance - worrying, very worrying...

the move out of the house has been good though, clearing everything out let's us really crack on and get to grips with the place, without trying to live in it at the same time. me chasing simon around the house with a duster was starting to get a little annoying (he prefers it when i wield a whip ;-) ).

so the deal is that we prop up the roof, ditto the bedroom floor/lounge ceiling, remove all the old wormy joists and put in some rather lush larch replacements.

child labour

simon got in a few kids for a days work ;-) aren't children great! they'll shift big stones ALL day just on the promise of a bonfire... ahhh...

'Stuff it' said the engineer to the pikey

we had a structural engineer around to check out the roof (joists and all) and take a little look at 'those' cracks. we were in the mind that we may have to 'stitch' the cracks using cob blocks or what, but the engineer confirmed that they would be fine just being stuffed. he seemed to think that they had been there for perhaps 200 years - cob always has a tendancy to shrink when it dries out and this may just be the result.

so we took some of the material we'd previously removed from the walls (such as blown earthern plaster) took a trip up to the moor to buy some lime and got to work mixing. it's a bit like making a cake; add earth, straw, lime; mix well in a large wheel barrow; apply to crack ; leave to dry for 2 weeks!

the results are pretty great and the stuff was hard as a rock after a few days - it's good to see the back of the cracks.

Will it fall down?

blimey, so we've been hard at work, digging random holes in the backgarden and removing sooooo much cob from the walls of the bedroom is a wonder the bloody thing is still standing - shush, let's not tempt fate, i still don't have that home improvements insurance in place...

so we removed alot of the old plaster from the walls, horrid stuff that stops the cob breathing, and revealed one or two cracks that sort of took my breath away, however on the word of a structural engineer my mind is now at rest.

wide angle caravan