Posted on by Lesley

The cladding starts

We’re up at the build site and it’s amazing to see it for real rather than just via photos. It’s so exciting! Last time we were here this was all a muddy hillside on the croft.

The larch cladding has started. We were up on site as they were working on it, and even outside with a strong Skye breeze blowing away from me I could smell the lovely, resinous scent of the wood as they were cutting it.

It takes me straight back to years of my childhood when we used to picnic in the pine woods of what was then West Germany. That scent from cut pine trees was everywhere.

This is Russwood Siberian Larch cladding. We’re really pleased with the quality. It has a good weight, colour and relatively few knots. It’s being secured to the house with stainless steel nails and is going up pretty quickly.

It was a bit of a shock to see the black disappearing, as I was quite taken with the black wall effect. But speaking to the joiner onsite he was saying that the colour will silver and the wood will harden within a couple of years, and that if we aren’t keen on the effect by that stage, that’s the time to consider staining or painting it. I like it, though, even without the weathering.

We think a further two weeks with the builders onsite and they’ll be done with the exterior.

Then it will be over to us at the end of a October to start the interior..

14 Replies to “The cladding starts”

    1. That sounds very practical. Of course we don’t need to worry about heat on the island as we rarely get anything above low 20 degrees, and that’s at the height of a Scottish summer. We’ve decided to keep it natural for now. Once it’s mellowed I think it will look great 👍

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