Strawbale barn

Strawbale barn

One of the hardest things about producing your own food isn’t growing it, it is storing it afterwards. It really wants to break down as fast as possible, and all manner of creatures want to eat it first. Until now we’ve stored food all over the place – hanging up in...
Pallet porch

Pallet porch

Pallet porch Having a porch, or some area to pile your boots in before going into a building without letting all the warm air out, is really useful, and a simple way to reduce energy consumption at home. We had a large pile of pallets that we’d collected over...
Birch Cottage

Birch Cottage

Birch Cottage The cottage was originally built in the early 1800’s, and we know little of it’s early life – only that in the 1950’s it was significantly repaired, and that a brother and his family lived in it for a number of years – several children were raised in it....
Sustainable Building

Sustainable Building

Birch cottage is built using natural materials, sourced locally wherever possible and always ethically. The building is heavily insulated using woodfibre and sheep’s wool, plastered using lime, and decorated with limewash and clay paints, and food safe timber...
Classroom

Classroom

The classroom After arriving here it was obvious that we would have to replace the old concrete room at the back of the house. We needed a space in which to host events, that would hold a good sized group of people, be efficient, and built from natural materials. We...
A simple shelter

A simple shelter

A simple all purpose shelter One of the most loved spots on the farm is our fire pit, but given our Northern Irish climate, there aren’t a huge number of days when people can sit around the fire. We really needed a space where visitors could sit out of the rain....
Tipi

Tipi

Tipi We first fell in love with tipis, (or teepees) when we stayed in one in an amazingly remote location in Wales. We liked it so much that we went back and got engaged in it. There is something magical about the space inside a tipi – it is one of the few...
The cottage

The cottage

Lackan Cottage Our farm was established around 1840, and the holding has changed little since then, apart from some modernisation in the 1950’s. The land was once bog, but has been improved over the years – the original buildings are still in use, and the...
Bangor Roundhouse

Bangor Roundhouse

Reciprocal roof roundhouse We spent over a year living off grid in a horse lorry, on our friend’s farm in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Our adventure was inspired by many things, not least a desire to free ourselves from seemingly endless bills, and also to do...