After six days work, the roundhouse is really starting to take shape. Three quarters of the roof has been boarded out, and will be the visible ceiling from inside. The outside will be covered with old sheet or tarp, then strawbale, then pond liner, then more old...
Well I never thought we’d do this as quickly, but today the roof frame went on with surprisingly little fuss. In the morning we completed the henges and finished the wallplate – below and had a practice run with the reciprocal frame at ground level so...
Day three on our roundhouse build, and we have made excellent progress. Today we prepared the supporting posts by charring the ends of them in a fire, before dropping them into the post holes dug on Monday. Clinton, Chris and I backfilled the holes with slate,...
After my last post on Cloughjordan – the eco-village that isn’t, I couldn’t help wondering that surely I couldn’t be alone in thinking that it was a soulless place that really had missed the point. Turns out I was right. There is even a website...
When we began the process of looking at how and where we’d like to live, we started as close to home as we could, and that turned out to be ‘The Village’ at Cloughjordan. Hooray, we thought, a cutting edge eco-village at least if not exactly on our...
After the success of our recent treebog building weekend, we’re moving on to slightly more ambitious things, and the construction of a little post and beam timber framed building, which will have a reciprocal frame roof.Today we began by marking out and digging...
It is funny how chance encounters can take you down unusual routes in life. Seemingly unimportant events divert you along paths you didn’t even know existed. I can’t remember the first time I saw Simon Dale’s ‘hobbit house’ on the net,...
Well, after two days frenzied activity, here is the new treebog. Thanks to all who helped bring it about – it is truly a thing of beauty, and should settle nicely into its woodland setting. We used sawmill skins almost exclusively to build it, and its the first...
We are in the throes of designing our dream hovel, to be created somewhere in deepest Wales, from timber and strawbale. It’s really hard when faced with a blank canvas and a tiny budget, but here is our creation, which will be a timber framed affair with...
Detail from Dark Mountain by Rima Staines I first came across the Dark Mountain project through Rima Staines’ excellent blog as she was responsible for the cover design of their latest book.The text on the back cover struck a chord with me, and reads...
Finally they have arrived – our four hens have taken up residence. We have an Ancona (pictured above left); a Lavender Araucana (above right); a Black Araucana (below) and last but not least, a rather marvellous Welsummer. They have had a fairly eventful 24...
Here is my best attempt at a hen house yet. This version has front and rear windows, side door, 3 nesting boxes, and a pull out floor. As with all my constructions it won’t blow away. The frame was made from reclaimed 3×2 timber, and we went mad and bought...
