Media attention

In swift succession (ah, the rigour of journalism) we have featured in both Wallpaper* and the Guardian recently as one of "the best cabins in the world", the latter causing a temporary suspension of our website due to traffic volume!
http://www.wallpaper.com/cabinclass
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/gallery/2009/aug/04/best-cabins-in-the-world?picture=351182492

Happy Campers

Well it's hat-eating time for me.
I would be the last person to expect that renting our hardwon self-build to complete strangers would be a rewarding and life-affirming experience - but I can say that it really is!
Guests we've had so far have been just unbelievably appreciative and have treated the house like royalty. It's fascinating to read the visitor's book - it seems most people arrive expecting to get out and about a lot, but then they are so relaxed by the house that they rarely manage to get onto a fell or into their cars until they reluctantly leave.
It's a tribute to Charlie the architect's skill in creating such an oasis - but also very amusing when I remember the screaming hab dabs (actually, what are they?) that both Adam and I let rip with at regular intervals during the build. What a contrast to the now Zen-like calm that pervades the place and makes it so unique.

Honey, I just cut the house open

Try as we might we couldn't get a soul locally to take on the install of our stove in our wooden house. Calls were not returned, even after visits to inspect the matter, heads were scratched etc etc. This is how it came to pass that, after very very detailed communications between architect and local building control officer, Adam had to do the job himself.
From his silence (DIY round here is usually wildly swear-y), I could tell that ( though we had concise instructions on how to do this) he was rather worried.

To save space the stove is a Eurostove inset model, with its firebox in effect 'outside' the house in the storage recess under the big panoramic window. The twin falled flue therefore passes up through the cladding outside the window, upwards through the 'eaves' of the flat roof and out the top of the house (the flue isn't in in this pic). I have never seen any other stove installed this way, not had anyone else we spoke to about it! Hence Mr Building Control coming out to get his head round it and ours.

So effectively we had to cut out the SIPS panels under the window for the stove, loadbear onto temp. structures at either side, add an agroprop below the stove on the base of the building, and pray. I had a vision of the house turning 'V-shaped' and caving in, thankfully unfulfilled. Between the actual stove and the building (see diagram) there is a complex layering of things like vermiculite board, that I didnt know existed.

The stove sits on a bespoke cast concrete hearth made for us (and better still, delivered up the hill by hand) by the excellent Lancaster Cast Stone (also now doing a simple surround for us) (www.lcs-uk.co.uk)
And now, we have had the fire on, its gorgeous, and save for maybe adding a bit more chimney onto our roof for better draw, it all seems to have worked.

Bank Holiday pause for enjoyment

My sister and her family visit this weekend, the first in my family to see our endeavours since the site was a mouldy old log cabin on the hillside. It's given me an incentive to have a good clear up in the spring sunshine and even take a moment to enjoy the place. The light through the fresh leaves is astonishing, very Japanese, I could get quite emotional....

Over and out - I have to start grouting again.

Pale green?

Here's an interesting feature on the slightly controversial green credentials of Corian, a material we've used in our kitchen here both as a surface and a splashback.

Bedroom green roof install

Our bedroom - the smallest and least visible of the two green roofs on the site - is about 3.5 x 4.5 metres in size, and for this green roof we used 9 x 100litre bags of lightweight vermiculite mixed in situ (see pic!) with 8 x 35litre bags of sterilised loam topsoil. This gave us a soil depth of about 15cm.
This mix went on top of a large piece of woven membrane, in turn on top of a kind of black plastic eggbox in sheets which very simply lie on top of our butyl rubber flat roof.
I'm fascinated to see what the birds and wind bring in to this roof so I'll be not seeding it at all and monitoring what comes up - watch this space!

Cue Mother Nature

Amazing weather this Easter means we've got on with the green roofs here. For urban folks these are a tiny oasis in the overheated city, a little postage stamp of biodiversity in the concrete. Here its more about having a nice feeling of nature growing on all sides of your house, any maybe even breaking up the ruthless lines of modernist architecture ....
If I was going to live here full time I'd be building a vegetable plot or a chicken run. Ok, or maybe a freerange guinea pig run. But at the mo we're installing two extensive green roofs on both storeys of the house, each about 15cm deep.
I decided -as I'm a big gardener - to leave the smaller roof (on the bedroom) to colonise naturally over time with windblown / animal-carried seed. The large one -visible from the bedroom - will need more 'real cultivation'.