Mission Accomplished

January 2011. The repairs were close to being finished and we were making plans to move in. However, over the last 3 or 4 years, we have learned not to hold our breath... The big move finally happened at the end of April and over a year later, we are still waiting for the the contractors to finish the last few bits of "snagging"!

February 2011:  It was frustrating but in the event, good displacement activity having to get full planning permission before we could build a garage. One of the conditions imposed was that we should erect a protective fence around the oak tree at the gateway and no-one was to step within the fence...odd when we considered that the tree had stood up well throughout the build, with the traffic of heavy machinery and the two-storey site hut under its canopy. The other condition was that we should plant two or three trees around the curtilage of the house (which we'd intended to plant anyway).

Mid April: Each time we came down from Bristol, we found every pane of glass and all the stainless steel handrails and window ledges and all the pale concrete paving on the terrace covered in mess like this. It was crows, just two of them, which would perch on the handrails or the stainless steel window ledges (or stalk up and down the terrace) and were apparently so enraged by their own reflections that they attacked the glass and the timber frames and the silicone sealant. You can't really see in this view of our bedroom apex window but there are footprints, beak marks and the patterns of wing-feathers on the glass. The attacks had started in February, our neighbours informed us: they could hear the birds cawing and the thudding as they attacked the house, from early morning, right through the day, every day, except when the builders were at the house, they said.

 

It was terribly distressing and I spent most of 2011 cleaning. Even after we moved in, at the end of April, the crows carried on their assault. We or our visitors would be woken up at 5 or 6 am by the birds hammering at the windows. If we left the house unattended for even an hour, the crows would get to work and could cause an astonishing amount of damage in a very short time. We strung wires along the window ledges and balustrades, to no avail. We mounted 7-inch steel spikes on boards and laid them on every horizontal surface, including along the paved terrace at each threshold but the crows just pushed the spikes aside and carried on. We were under siege in our beautiful house. There is irreparable damage to the timber door-and window frames and to the silicone sealant. We offered a bounty and paid professionals to try and kill them but they are extremely wily and wary birds, carrion crows and it wasn't until December 20th 2011 that a shooter managed to kill one of the culprits, by which time my nerves were in shreds and we had spent a small fortune. The survivor came back just once, the next day but since then we have been left in peace. Maybe attacking the house isn't any fun alone or maybe the bird has pined away and died. Who knows? There are still many, many big black birds around but I am less twitchy when I see or hear one now.

Aaah..this is the life. This has to be one of the nicest places to lie in a hammock. It's sheltered from wind and rain but it's outside, so you can hear the birds and the sound of the stream. Lovely. Peter bought me a bird-feeding station for Christmas 2011. I opened the blinds and there it was, with dozens of birds fluttering around it. An absolutely mesmerising sight and I remain mesmerised. We have seen some really interesting and unusual birds, including, one day, no fewer than 5 mistle thrushes as well as woodpeckers, siskins, long-tailed tits, bullfinches, goldfinches. Roe deer stroll along the grass terrace at dawn and dusk; there are hedgehogs (we believe), and we saw a stoat the other morning.

It is said that we all live in a clearing in the forest: for most people it's a very big clearing and doesn't encroach too rapidly. However, Peter spends a lot of his time just keeping the forest at bay, hereabouts.

Or keeping the home fires burning. We hired this tracked, tipping barrow in December to bring logs up from the wood.What a splendid machine! It was during a very wet spell so the track looked like the Somme by the end of the day. These logs are from the felling of trees on the site in 2008 and are reasonably well-seasoned by now. As I write this, they are crackling away in the woodburner, which has proved itself this winter. It is the only source of heating and once the house has reached its optimum temperature (18-20 degrees C), it stays there, with the fire just ticking over. The amount of insulation, the triple glazing and the complete absence of draughts make this a very efficient and comfortable living space. The mechanical engineer calculated that this would be the case and he was right. The architects have asked if we will take part in a year-long research programme, to demonstrate the benefits and advantages of a nearly-passive design and we have agreed.

One of the early priorities was to do something about the precipitous slope down the east side of the garden. There was lots of head-scratching and back-of-envelope sketches before this design was settled on and even then, the curve of the steps evolved as they were built, to follow a path that looked right. They are settling now and already grass and other planting is softening the hard lines of oak timbers and granite chippings. It's good to be able to walk down to the wood or into the paddock (the bit of recently acquired pastureland closest to the house) without tumbling end-over-end.

We have started to make a vegetable garden, in a small triangular patch just across the lane, which we bought a year ago, along with the two fields to the east of the house. This little patch is recorded as being a vegetable garden in the 1840 tithe map and has been in pretty continuous use since then, we think. The soil is deep and fairly sticky with clay but we've added lots of manure and compost, so it's fine to work. However, in our enthusiasm to get started, we sowed runner beans much too early and they were bursting out of their cardboard tubes so I planted them out last week. Each couple of plants has a fleece jacket which I tuck around them if it's going to be frosty. They'll either do or they won't. We'll know better next year.

April 2012: Our normally sedate, seasonal, spring-fed stream.

It is one year since we were finally able to move in to the house, which is, as we hoped, both beautiful and as sustainable as we could make it. It has been a turbulent journey and Peter and I have both been changed by the experience. Thank you for sharing it with us.

A long, hot summer

11th May 2010. Why did we have a temporary connection to the mains supply, that flooded the house? Because the water from Well 2, which was to have been supplying all our domestic water, was cloudy and tasted very odd. The well company men came to investigate and found the front of the well shaft (below where Scott is standing, at the well head) had collapsed into the well, causing a landslide of rubble and clay.

This clay was completely unexpected. The trial pits, dug nearer the house to establish the sub-soil and rock formation had shown only a very small trace of clay here and there, certainly not large deposits of stuff that could have been used to throw pots. I was tempted to throw something even more substantial when this collapse was revealed. Steve and Scott dug out a huge quantity and bucketed it down the bank, a gruelling process and ultimately deemed to be ineffective. We discussed shoring up the shaft and re-building it with sound stone or tipping in several tons of clean, non-calcareous stone to act as a filter. The temporary mains pipe burst a couple of days later, before the well could be sorted out, so work was shelved.

Nathan dropped everything and came to the house next day, to remove the beautiful burr oak kitchen he had fitted just two weeks previously. It was unharmed and was taken to a temperature-controlled storage unit in Barnstaple for the duration. I think I was on automatic pilot at this stage; numb. Peter hadn't yet seen the devastation and we drove back down together the following weekend

The swelling of the wet oak boards raised them up in long ridges and ripped the tongue and groove apart. Astonishing and terribly sad. This shaft of sunlight across the ridge shows it up very clearly. It was obvious that the floor would all have to be removed. Our neighbours were delighted with yet more hardwood firewood but very sympathetic: it turns out that they had a similar inundation when they built their house across the lane. A council of war was arranged, with the loss adjuster, the contractors and the architects.

A rather sorry fibreboard carcase from under the island unit. The adjustable feet meant the carcases themselves didn't get wet and all these units were stacked up on the gallery...Little did we know. When Nathan came to fit the kitchen again (in mid December!), each unit had swollen by a couple of millimetres in the damp atmosphere and wouldn't fit under the burr oak worktops. They'll all have to be re-made and should be ready by the end of January 2011. The burr oak is completely unscathed, thank goodness.

It was all too much for Peter. I did what I usually do and walked around taking photos.

By the time we met for the council of war, in early June, we could see how far the water had reached, as the screed was exposed. We asked whether the contractors would use a de-humidifier to dry it all out but the architects vetoed that. They were concerned that the timber frame would dry out and twist, so no artificial heating or drying...
What a good thing it was shaping up to be a really hot summer, we thought. However, we hadn't reckoned on the effects of the house's super-insulation. The passive ventilation system couldn't deal quickly with such high levels of humidity so a man was employed to come and open doors and windows for several hours every day. On our next visit, we could see clearly the areas that the sunshine could reach-they were drying out really well.

Unfortunately, deeper inside the house, where the sunshine couldn't reach, the screed took much, much longer to dry out, like here in the shower room. Peter and I commissioned an independent timber/damp specialist to inspect the damage throughout the ground floor and to write us a report. That took a further 6 weeks, during which time, without waiting for our go-ahead, the contractors replaced much of the sub-floor, while softwood timber supports such as this for the shower remained in place. These had all been absolutely soaked and we were afraid they would quietly rot if sealed up under the floor again. We dug our heels in and insisted that all such timberwork be replaced, even where the floor had been put down again.

To take our minds off the struggle inside and because Well 2 was almost certainly scuppered, we debated sinking a borehole. OK, maybe having our own water supply was a dream too far. It would've cost about twenty times times more than using the mains. It was fun learning how to dowse, though and Peter, with his eyes shut, could un-failingly show the spot where the young dowser had said there was a good supply, some 60 feet down. You can just about make out the blurring as the wand oscillated. Fascinating.

There was a bit of a stand-off before the unauthorised sub-floor and all the supporting timberwork was removed. All rather uncomfortable as the chain of command wasn't clear: who was actually in charge of this reparation work?

Just before New Year, we visited and were much heartened. The screed had dried out, eventually and the flooring had been put down again, with our authority this time. It'll be the end of January before the kitchen can be re-installed, so we'll be visiting frequently to fit cupboards and shelves but not able to move in or to stay in the house yet.
It seems incredible that the repair work after the flood can really have taken 9 months so far and it isn't finished yet.

Apres (un) mois, le deluge

I can hardly bear to write this. Last Thursday a solar engineer called at Greenwood to fix a faulty sensor and found the ground floor full of water. A mains water pipe had split and possibly thousands of gallons of (thankfully) clean water had cascaded out. We believe it probably happened only a few hours earlier because the gardeners had watered the new turf earlier in the day and hadn't noticed a problem with the water pressure.

With a big sheepskin rug on the floor and the fire alight, it was really cosy for our first stay at Greenwood, just 2 weekends ago. And waking to the dawn chorus outside our east-facing bedroom was just magical.




This was the scene found by the solar engineer, in the area between the living room and the shower room next to the plant room. Some of the water had poured down the shower waste, apparently, so the flush shower tray was a good thing. I've been really struggling to stay positive about all this. That it wasn't foul water or a fire are about the only crumbs of comfort we can glean.

The beautiful burr oak kitchen is irreplaceable and it was that that kept us awake on Thursday night, worrying, after we heard about the catastrophe. I went down early on Friday and was joined by Nathan. He dismantled it, piece by piece and he and I carried part of it to the drier area of the living room and laid it on its side. Nathan found, to our mutual relief, that it dosen't look as if water has got into the end-grain. This is the island unit (how ironic are the terms "island unit" and "floating floor", now?) and he could wind up the carcase legs and get it clear of the wet oak boards.

You may recognise some of the lads. They are part of the team that built the house and came over early on Saturday, to help carry the burr oak elements away for dry storage in Barnstaple. They were genuinely and touchingly, upset to see the devastation. By Saturday the oak floorboards were already cupped and several of the doors , to walk-in cupboards and ground floor rooms, were binding against the swollen floor boards. The huge, heavy sliding door from the kitchen to the south terrace wouldn't close, once I'd opened it; the threshhold is swollen and it has pushed the door outwards. Luckily, Joe Ford appeared and fixed it, temporarily. Just as well because at that point on Friday, I was close to losing it altogether and just putting my head back and howling.

By Saturday evening, between us, we'd moved all that could be moved up to the top floor and there it will have to stay until the repair work has been done. It is likely to be months and months because all the ground floor oak boards will have to be replaced and the lead-time for new boards of that spec is at least 8 weeks. Then there's the doors and the redecoration and re-instatement of the kitchen. The water company, whose pipe split, immediately admitted their responsibility and it will all be covered by their insurance.

It will all be ok, I'm sure and it could have been so much worse. And looking out over this view in the evening with the dramatic skies and wonderful shades of green, helps to put it all into perspective, too.

Nearly there (or up to the wire)

The sculpting to make the slopes around the house less precipitous is effective but looks very bare and stark. It'll be turfed or seeded in a couple of weeks.

The water from Well 2 (our Plan B supply), is slightly acidic. This makes it taste nice but the hot water cylinder (heated with water from the solar thermal panels and showing a cylinder temperature of 59 degrees in March!), needs to be made of stainless steel and all the pipe work has to be poly-plastic, as conventional, neat copper pipes would corrode. The red cylinder is the pressure vessel, which smooths out the waveform produced by the submersible pump in the well.

We'd been looking forward to this moment and yes, this first firing showed that the wood-burner draws really well, using its own air supply ducted straight into the base of the fire, through the wall. The top of this duct looks like something in tellytubby land and we'll have to make sure it doesn't get blocked by snowdrifts. The stainless steel flue brackets look really lovely.

Aha! So deer and rabbits don't eat daffodils.

We suspect that our long-suffering neighbours will be very glad to have the lane free of cars. One of the neighbours (who tells me he's lived in his farm for 40 plus years), walks up to the site every day, for his constitutional and says he'll miss the crack, when the builders leave. He's been a mine of useful, local advice. Another family, whose house is just across the lane, have been unhesitatingly and unstintingly generous and helpful, to us and to the builders. They have several children and the older boys have been fascinated by the machinery at work daily.

Jim the hedger, mulching the newly planted trees. The mixture of native species will take a few years to fill out but we are determined to re-establish a proper hedge boundary, here and to the northwest of the house. The old hedges had decayed and been neglected for years. Where parts could be saved, Jim and Dougie "steeped" them, which in Gloucestershire is called "laying" a hedge.

This gap in the northwest boundary hedge will become a stone and earth bank, topped with more new young trees. We hope the deer will leave them alone.

Someone else has commented that this view is almost ecclesiastical, which is what we think, too.

The sunlight on the newly waxed oak flooring is lovely. We were at the house on Easter Sunday and had the time to see the movement of the light throughout the day. We had to be very carefull with the flooring and walked around without our shoes on, writing down any defects that we spotted. Snagging is made much easier and shorter when there's someone like Joe overseeing every element of the build and picking up problems as they occur. Sometimes he anticipates them, as with the pressure testing this week, which showed that there is a slight leak. Joe had recommended sealing around the skirting boards but that wasn't in the specification and Lo, that's what the tester said is needed.

And suddenly, we have a driveway, levelish and wide enough to build a garage, when we can afford to. The cut-off wooden posts are to stop cars from rolling down the bank.

The next visit, we hope, will be for the formal handover of the house. It is exactly a year this week since the first building work started.

And then the sun came out

The scaffolding had all been taken down and the paving around the house was being laid when we visited on Thursday. This is the western gable end and the steps will be up from the evening sitooterie to the wood shed once it's built. The landscaping is really taking shape.

It was a beautiful sunny day and had been dry all week, which meant the digger could work, spreading top-soil without churning it all into a morass. We specified no Japanese knotweed, please. This photo shows the rather pleasing metal-finish down pipes. It's going to be fun clearing the leaves from the gutters in the Autumn.


The wood-burner remains under wraps but its beautiful stainless flue looks just as we'd imagined it. The house was warm as toast, with the sun streaming in through the open doors and several men working inside, laying the oak flooring and fitting the kitchen. The oak boards were supposed to have been laid 3 weeks ago but about two thirds of them were poorly finished and wouldn't have fitted together properly. The builders took the unsatisfactory ones back to their own joinery workshop and re-machined them. They are "in discussion" with the suppliers. The boards aren't nailed or screwed; they are tongue and groove and laid on a shock-absorbing membrane, to prevent creaking. They will expand and contract over time, even though they are acclimatised and seasoned, so we'll have to leave gaps around the edges and at some threshholds.

These gallery lights are about the most adventuurous of our chosen light-fittings. As everything has to be "low energy" (a long and rather tedious saga), it's been quite a struggle to get acceptable levels of illummination and comply with the draconian energy regulations, so the aesthetic of the fittings wasn't the only consideration.

The gallery edge has been finished and the glass balustrade is in place.

The builders laid the best of the oak floorboards at this end of the living room, so that Nathan and his men could fit the kitchen. They stayed in the area and when we visited, it was really taking shape. All we needed to do was agree the final position of the island unit and by the end of the week, all that remained were the finishing touches. These can only be done once the house is completely clear of other contractors working, and dust-free

What can I say? This is the oak capping at the top of the stairs, top-lit by the roof-light.

No-one said it would be easy

This venerable and splendid oak tree is at risk if we dig around its roots to lay a sub-base for any driveway surface, so we will have to be very careful. Let's hope that the passage of sundry heavy plant hasn't already done damage. I've taken a photo of the oak tree from the lane every time we've visited the site, for the last twelve months. Maybe I'll put them together in one album and play a slide show of the changing leaf cover, against a variety of skies.

The green oak cladding was being put on when we attended the February site meeting. We've been assured that "It will go a very dark, dull colour in the first year or two and then it'll weather to a silvery finish". We'll wait and see.

No, I really don't think you can get that through here (not even if we remove the 'andles and the things what hold the candles) , which isn't a big problem for the digger but sadly, we won't be able to get past this pinch point with our quad, either. Such scratching of heads and elaborate engineering solutions to my naive request for a way to get from the driveway with a big load of logs, across the north wing of the house to the woodshed. Hey ho. A wheelbarrow it'll have to be.

Still, the excavation provided several loads of sub-soil to build up the terracing to the south slope, in front of the house...

where each layer was graded levelish before a long strip of geotextile membrane was laid on it, with enough left at the front edge to fold back over the next layer of soil, in an elegant pleat. This is to give stability as the plant roots penetrate. Clever stuff. As is the tamping of the face of the slope with the underside of the digger's bucket. So simple and so pleasing to watch. The face of the slope will be at about 45 degrees, so we'll need another sort of geotextile membrane, both to stop the soil from slumping down the hill in the first rainfall and to allow grass and plants to root securely.

I'm not sure why I find this so satisfying to watch. Maybe because I've been aking for a level terrace on this slope right from the start and maybe because it's pleasing to see such an unwieldy looking machine made to work so precisely.

The sliding doors from our bedroom are correct, now and the balcony isn't going to fall down, judging from these massive supports.

The chaps. They don't know it yet but I've put this photo on a mug for each of them.