Category: self build

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Gales, rain & lentil soup

The cold, crisp winter days of the last month have been replaced by a storm front bringing with it high winds and torrential rain. I knew it couldn’t last.. 😊

Last night the wind veered to the South West from the Easterlies that had been dominating for the last few weeks, and the caravan started to flex like a boat in the wind.

As I write, curled up on the cushions in the caravan, everything is moving. The noise of the wind, which is about 55 mph at the moment, is incredible. The rain sounds like a thousand marbles being flung at the windows, rattling and crashing loudly against the glass.

I can no longer see the mountains across the Sound or the sea itself through the sheet of rain that has wrapped itself around us.

Then it clears, replaced with an incredible luminosity until the next bank of rain-heavy clouds bear down on us.

Luckily we are well strapped down, so I don’t have any real fear of being scooped up and tumbled down the hillside, although at times it feels like that!

I drink my tea and soothe our rather startled old dog who doesn’t understand why everything is moving. He’s never really understood the caravan.

I’ve made some garlic lentil soup to warm us both through later.

It won’t change the weather, but it will provide some comfort on this wild winters day.

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The barter economy

There’s something very nourishing about an exchange that doesn’t involve money and something very warming about the generosity of a local community.

Here on the island, our neighbours are generous and giving. We’ve received gifts of home made oatcakes, snowdrops, daffodil bulbs, chocolate, locally made candles, wine and other small gifts since we arrived. It’s touching and heartwarming whenever this happens.

Lockdown here can be difficult for people, especially when shopping involves icy roads and long distances, so I often text a few neighbours before we set out for the supermarket to check whether we can pick anything up for them.

On the last occasion we picked up a few low value items for a neighbour and were given a bottle of wine in exchange! Such a lovely gesture.

Today, friends from a few villages away have dropped off (socially distanced) a homemade curry in a huge le crueset pot, a delicious looking Murghi, and as I couldn’t have them leave empty handed, I baked them a lemon drizzle cake.

The ties of community are strong here. Even whist we are all apart, generosity thrives. I love that.

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Shiny wallpaper

When you have 6m high walls in the living room, and sloping walls following the roofline upstairs, the process of applying VC foil is a lengthy and slow one.

Before we got to this stage we had to seal the SIP panel gaps and tape them all. After we’ve got all the VC foil up on the walls this will also be taped.

This is all to ensure that we have as much in the way of air and moisture barrier and insulation as possible before the plasterboard goes on.

It looks like shiny wallpaper.

We are gradually getting there.

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Snowy days and wall foil

It snowed again overnight. We awoke to brilliant white, and the strange, blanketing silence that a covering of snow brings to the world.

Silence that is, apart from the raven, who called loudly from the old pine as the sun came up.

Husband managed to get out to insulate the water pipes yesterday, just in the nick of time. We had running water this morning for coffee, despite the overnight temperatures.

We’re cracking on with the interior wall foiling now, fuelled by hot coffee and egg butties.

Even though the house is a shell without insulated flooring or plasterboard yet, the solar gain from the big, south facing windows, coupled with a small 3kw heater is maintaining a temperature of about 13 degrees centigrade.

Which considering the temperature outside, and the volume of air to heat in this 200m2 space, is pretty good.

We think that this bodes well for when the house is fully insulated and sealed. It should be very energy efficient and cheap to heat.

Just what we need.

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House build progress

It’s been a while since I shared anything on the housebuild itself, so I thought with the onset of the new year that it was time.

There’s been only slow progress on the house over the last few months, due to a number of factors like the move, setting up the caravan, problems with the caravan, supply delays, and to be honest, things that we have discovered need remedying before we can go further with the build.

Whilst we’re in dialogue with the builders to check a number of things, husband has been able to work on improving the air tightness of the construction by sealing every gap and then foil taping all the wall seams to ensure that we can be as draught-free as possible.

That work is slow and painstaking, especially in the 6m high gable end of the house, necessitating internal scaffolding, and has taken a number of weeks. It’s only now that we’re nearly ready to start applying insulating foil to the walls.

We had originally hoped to be ready for underfloor heating and screed by now, so we’re running about a month behind our original estimates, but to be honest with the new Covid lockdown restrictions and Brexit, I’m just happy to be able to be able to make any progress at all.

I’m sure that there will be many more delays to hit us yet. Never was there such a bad time to work on a house build from a building supplies perspective! 🤔

We’re not despondent, though. It can’t be helped and we will do as much as we can within the constraints that we face.

In the meantime, we continue to be awed by the sheer beauty of the landscape around us, and are serenaded by our raven from the old Scots pine as dawn breaks every morning, complaining that it’s time our sorry asses were out of bed.

It really couldn’t be much better.