When we made the decision not to go to Wales and do our thing under the Welsh One Planet Development planning, I felt rather guilty, even though we had found a fantastic place here in Northern Ireland. A year of planning, meetings, travel, and making new friends, as...
Today was a ceiling day. Here is what the ceilings in the house look like. Fairly flat and unassuming. You’d never guess that behind the surface lies this. Yes, a time travelling ceiling. 20th century on the outside, 18th century on the inside. It has perhaps...
The newly found window on the outside. No horriblepebbledash here. A half day at the cottage today, and I wanted to find the source of the Massive Fungus, so climbed into a little gap between the old house and the Horrible Extension to investigate.It didn’t take...
Well, we finally got started. Not the smoothest of beginnings, as the truck broke a fan belt half way there, and then a mile from the house, I knocked one of the mirrors off on a telephone pole. Brendan and I were there first, and greeted Claire cheerily only to...
Part of the joy of doing everything yourself is what we politely call ‘learning from experience’, or more commonly, ‘f**king it up’. Yesterday was a ‘learning’ day. First, I discovered just how close to a hot stove flue you can put...
Eco-DIY and Building Advice from the Eco Home Centre: Self build the way forward for communities?: This is a picture of the Wintles development in Shropshire that is based on the principles set out in ‘A Pattern Language’. The houses wer… read...