September 3rd - posts and services

"Green Building" magazine arrived in this morning's post, with an article written by Chris Peers, the Twisted Designs architect who prepared my drawings. The entire two-page article is based around this project. In it Chris describes in detail the wall section (designed by me), the floor-layout (designed by Anna, Mal and me), the material selection (mine again - and a bloody laborious process it's been!) and quite a bit of theory, lifted verbatim from the blog an pasted into his article. Not once in the two pages did he hint that he might perhaps have had a teensy bit of help from the client, and credits himself with the whole bally lot. If you're there, Chris, you're a cheeky bugger! Still, at least I now know how Mal feels having had his involvement airbrushed from the Build It feature (see yesterday's blog).
Today the team was reassembled, with Melvin once again rolling out of bed and crawling over. He worked most of the day on the sub-floor, cutting and fitting battens and OSB sheeting to support the insulation and keep the beasties out.
I spent the day finishing the central-heating first-fix (i.e. running the pipes) and completing the downstairs lighting wiring. Just the hot and cold water pipes to run, and then we can finish the flooring downstairs and erect the remaining partition walls for the pantry and utility room.
Mal, with Melvin's muscular help, cut and fitted the last three douglas fir supporting posts, to join the one we installed months ago in holding up the main structural beam. They're arraned in two pairs, and pretty damn groovy they look, too. Lovely timber, which will look even better when oiled up to accentuate the grain.
Prices came in for the cladding (spruce at about £1100 + VAT, which will go to Willie Dobie at Abbey Timber for drying and profiling) and the Jeldwen staircases (£433.18 + VAT from Magnet). Bit of a lead-time on both, but it'll be a month before we need them.
Jack's returning to the breach tomorrow, and a big delivery of triple-glazed windows and patio doors coming from Rembrand.
A couple of volunteers for the straw-baling have popped up in response the the blog appeal. More welcome!

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