Oak Capping

This is some oak capping I completed on top of some brick work a while ago. I was worried about the tanning leaking out onto the brickwork but it seems to be fine a year later. 

Floor to Ceiling Storage

Even though we've been trying to declutter we're always short of storage in our house. 

The old dinning room used to contain a large sideboard against the one wall. But now, with that wall gone, we needed somewhere else to store things. Turns out mainly craft items that the children spend all their time doing! 

So I made some floor to ceiling units from the pine board that I had used to make the kitchen. Really simple construction to make the carcasses, just using dominos (A large dowel type joint), glues and then screws to clamp it together. Makes a really solid unit, far better than an MDF or chipboard one. 

I must confess to it taking a few months to make the doors but it's made such a difference now they're on and everything is hidden away. 

The doors are a simple shaker style made with domino joints in the corners and grooved to accept the ply panel. They're all to have a painted finish. 

I've gone for my black duct tape handles for now but they'll be replaced with leather at a later date!

Kitchen table

We looked for a kitchen table for our new kitchen but were suitably unimpressed with everything we saw.

Time to build our own again.

Top tips for preparing your self build home for winter

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Let's say that you just build a home, and with the winter approaching fast, you need to figure out how to protect your home over the cold season. What steps can you take to ensure that you don't suffer any home damage in the coming winter season? Here are a couple of different things that may help you with preparing your home for the winter.

Tip #1: Insulate the Pipes

One of the most common causes of weather damage in the cold comes from frozen pipes. How does this happen? Without pipe insulation, the water on the inside of the pipe can freeze. Learn about the signs of frozen pipes here. As it thaws, however, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on the pipe, and this can cause it to burst. One of the first signs that you have a frozen pipe is that you have reduced water flow. You could also find that you have no water whatsoever. Frozen pipes won't always crack or burst, so thawing is one of your best choices. Let the pipe thaw out with the warmth from the home. You will need a lot of patience, but with time, you can get it.

Eco-Friendly Considerations When Building or Retrofitting Your Home

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I found this interesting as a house with this type of design was built just down the road from us. In fact it's our nearest neighbour on the one side of the road (but still a mile away. 

In today's green conscious housing market, the need for sustainable homes has become more and more apparent. To combat climate change it is essential that we use new design models, improve existing housing, and retrofit existing homes.

With the technology that we have available today we are able to make our homes much more energy efficient and eco-friendly. This is a boon even if you aren’t concerned with green living. You are able to get the same aesthetics, health, safety and comforts that traditional homes offer, all while saving on energy costs. This energy efficiency is fundamental in designing an eco-friendly home.

If you are interested in building or retrofitting your home for green living, then continue reading to find our top 9 considerations that you should keep in mind.

What is Passivhaus Design?

Passivhaus Design is the design standard for construction is used in order to make a home that maintains comfortable temperatures via the use of minimal energy input. This is done by utilising human, sunlight, and appliance heat. These drastically reduce the previous need for traditional space heating.

This kind of design takes the shape, size, and orientation of the home into account. Materials are used that provide for better heat prevention, as well as natural heat recovery and ventilation systems that help to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the building. In order to meet the standard of Passivhaus Design, the energy required to heat a space must be less than 15 kwh.

Large Trussed Roof

October wasn't what I had planned as I had intended to work on my own kitchen and pantry area. The roof on my brothers house took priority in the end so he'd be weather tight by Christmas and it's nice to have been a part of his house build.

The roof was a monster and when it turned up we got a sense of scale of the thing! It's all attic trusses and they've got 8ft (2.4m) ceilings in them

Painted Basin Table

This is a follow on from my last post.

Always nice when the customer sends you a picture of the unit painted and installed in place! 

Basin Table

Lovely commission this week to make a small table for a basin to sit on in a bathroom. 

The work is to be painted so decided on tulip wood to make the table. Such a lovely easy wood to work with and also great because it takes a painted finish so well. 

Roofing A Shed

My brother was putting his house on the market and wanted to finish a few jobs off before he did. 

One of them was to do something about the brick shed in the garden. He'd taken the roof off sometime ago and hadn't got round to doing anything with it. 

 The brick work sloped the roof the wrong way so I decided it was best if we built up a some timber frame across the front so we could gain the height we needed. Then add in a wallplate at the back and sloping sides.

Fitting A Suspended Ceiling

I got a message about this job a short while ago. Fitting a suspended ceiling to help create a new music studio for one of my customers.

 A fairly simple job. Fitted and bolted two supporting beams then used joist hangers to suspend the other timbers. All the bolts are in sheer (and there's plenty of them) making it a real strong job. I used large timbers so there would be no sag in the ceiling. Two rows of noggins gives the plasterboard full support at the edges as well so there should be no cracks.

Next we need to add loads (and I mean loads) of insulation ten board it with sounds deading plasterboard. I also need to add lots of fixing points in the ceiling so things can be hung from it if needed.

Shuttering On The Patio

This is some work I did here last April! I just forgot to post it! 

 Retaining wall for the patio, steps in to add strength and to give under ground storage.

Library Commission - Reading Pods & Tree Wall Art

So a few months ago I got an email asking about a reading chair in the forest school area. I volunteered my services to build it, I thought that'll be fun! Somewhere along the line the new school library became my baby instead! 

The village has had it's school in temporary accommodation for the last three years, and although it's been fine it's not the best for the children and tricky for them at times (too hot in summer for one). 

So over the last year there has been a new school being built with much excitement from everyone who has children there. 

A New Back Door

Simple job from a regular customer of mine. 

Chang this tired old back door and frame:-

 For this oak one -

The porch is getting rendered as well so it should all look great when it's done!

Reading Pods

I've had great fun over the last few days on my Facebook Page trying to get people to guess what I was making by showing them the following picture. 

I had about thirty people guessing until one lady came up with the right answer - a reading nook.

This is a commission I'm building for my daughters new school which they go into in the new year (it's really exciting for them and me!).

The idea was to have some standard book shelves then some little reading pods for them to curl up into. There's also going to be a tree but I've no idea how I'm going to build that yet! 

A Little Kitchenette

A phone call a few weeks ago from one of my regular customers "I've got a hour or so work for you if you're in town in the next week or so... Just cut a hole in a worktop".

Not quite! It was to fit a whole kitchenette. It doesn't look much but there's a lot of work involved. Fixing the units, scribing the side panels, cutting the plinth, cutting the worktop, door handles, etc! I really wish I'd brought my lunch to this job! 

Making 4 Panel 1950's Doors

I'm managing to find a bit of time to work on the extension at the moment, One thing I wanted to do was to make some doors for the up stairs. 

Now it would be far easier to buy off the shelf ones but I decided that I'd like to have some 1950's door to match the age of the house. I'm not a purest when it comes to these sort of things but I've always liked these utilitarian style of door. Making them myself means they won't cost much money but take a bit of time! 

 I ordered the joinery time on the phone, a little pile like this is enough to make six doors and a few other bits and bobs.

Turned Decorations

A little late on posting this one but I thought I'd share with you some gifts I made as Christmas presents this year.

These are some little wooden Christmas tree decorations I turned on the lathe out of some beautiful pear wood from a friends stack of wood (it had been drying at his for years). 

I haven't been on the lathe much since moving here except for occasional repair jobs on chairs and the like, I just haven't had the time to turn much for pleasure lately. It used to be something that I really enjoyed doing, I had two years worth of regular lessons (where I was the youngest by about 30 years) and a great teacher, I was really pleased that I hadn't forgotten it all! 

I gave out the decorations in sets of two or three and made six sets - you'd be surprised at how long these little blighters took to turn! 

Finished with some boiled linseed oil for a simple finish. 

Concrete Steps

This has been a labour of love over the last three weeks! Blood, sweat and the whole of my little finger nail (which got ripped off on a piece of reinforcing bar) have gone into these steps! 

With the patio being so large I decided that having a nice, wide flight of stairs would really set it off. There was a few ways I could have made them; timber was out of the question as I wanted something maintenance free and to last a long time (it's very wet here and they'd rot in ten years or so). 

That left me with either using blocks or concrete, the blocks would be more expensive and I'm not great at laying them (so I'd get my brick layer to do it. The concrete on the other is something I could do myself but it does involve a lot of work (and I mean a lot!).

First step form work

Not one to be deterred by a bit of work I went for the concrete option. I have built full flights of stairs like this where you pour all the concrete for the steps in one go (have a look here) but I decided that as I was mixing the concrete in a small mixer by hand I'd do one step at a time, doing it this way means I can use the same timber to form each step as well so it save money. 

I join each step by leaving some reinforcing wire between each step to tie into the one above. Each step is also vibrated to remove the air from the concrete using an industrial vibrator (no rude jokes please!) 

These pictures show the process, there was a bout 6 to 8 mixes full of concrete in each step! I tended to move and set up the shuttering/form work one night, then mix and pour the concrete the next and strip it the night after that. 

Pouring the concrete in for the first step

Removing the shuttering/form work 

Second step form work in. Stone fills in behind and is compacted down. 

third step - note the bars in the back to tie in the next step

Another step - I did this one when we poured the footings for the extension as I ordered enough concrete to do it - seemed daft to mix it if we were having some delivered.  

Nearly there! 

Steps finished!

I was surprised how much work were in these stairs, even though I knew there would be. I guess mixing concrete after eight at night after doing a ten hour day on a building site is going to make me a bit more tired as well! 

Still it feels great to have them done. They'll get clad in the same stone that the patio will be with a handrail down the sides. 

What do you think? 

Ever made steps like this?

A Pair Of Doors

I recently made and hung a pair of doors for some customers who live in the village. 

The door was built to their proportions and given a clean looks by not adding fussy mouldings. 

I was really pleased with how they turned out. 

Fitted Wardrobes

Yesterday I went back and put the finishing touches to some fitted wardrobes I'd made for a customer.

The couple wanted something different to suit their needs so I created a "his and hers"  - one side each. 

His side

Her side

Trouser rail

 I was really pleased with how they came out now they're painted and so was the customer. A lovely couple to work for and some really nice work for me!