Our new project House (and rock cave houses)

[prand]

It looks like Christmas will be a a great time with family and friends in the new house, u bet you can't wait. Now the mobile home has gone that is the end of one phase and into the next. Tha ks for the I fo about the Facebook video, there are truly some strange (grubby) people out there in the Internet!

[Schwarz930]

Excellent update and please keep them coming into the New Year.

Enjoy your well deserved break.

Handy to have the rock houses should any of the family prove too much

[Austin_Metro]

cto, the house is looking great.

I can’t help but think that space left by the chorus mk ii is suitable for a lovely double garage.

[CTO]

Thanks, you lot!

For sure looking forward to Christmas, although haven’t yet had the oppo to put any decs up! Might be a job for today…

The rock house is on standby for errant family members. On Boxing Day we have five Anglo-French yoots coming, courtesy of my brother and his wife… four of their own, plus a girlfriend in tow….

Last time they came, we had a dance off to some French Drum and Bass, in the kitchen. This time they are all a bit older, so will probably just stand about, sipping Genepi, looking all teenagerey and Gallic and brooding….



Not sure what the collective noun is for a group of teenagers…

A “gaggle” doesn’t sound right, maybe a “contemplation” or a “hormone”?

Re the space where the Chorus was, it is being seeded back to lawn in spring… well, I say that, I’ll probably just buy some turf and bang it down.. it’s what I did for the dogs garden when I installed the van, and it was labour and cost easy

To the right of it, there is definitely space for a double garage and that is the eventual plan, when we have any cash monies available to pay for said garage.

The people that are building our balcony, also build beautiful garages. Handy

Some of their examples are below;



We always knew this may be our ultimate outcome, so the utilities that were laid for the Chorus (water, power, cat 6a) were placed to also serve the garage.



Split in the driveway to feed rock house, gate automation and Chorus/Garage.



But we aren’t at the garage affordability stage right now, so that is defo gonna have to wait

The landy and mower are handily stored nearby though, so I can access them whenever needed and at short notice, I reckon the garage might be phase three or even four or five.

Tbh, I haven’t yet worked out phases. But, the term phases, sounds a lot more like we have a plan, which we do, of course…..




Cheers all,

[Celtic Dragon]

Sorry if I missed it, but why is The One Eyed Bandit now called ASBO?

[ferret50]

Excellent work in moving the Chorus Mk2 two bedroom on, making the task more difficult by installing the new gate and fence first was a masterstroke!

Looking forward to the end result of having the family decend, have you enough shovels to go around?

More seriously, you are creating a lovely home, enjoy!

[dudleybloke]

You can rave in the cave this time!

[ChocolateFrog]

A great update.

Must be a nice feeling to get all that mud covered up at this time of year and with 2 dogs.

[Austin_Metro]

Those garages do look good.

You look sufficiently rural to have one like this:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Discendo Discimus]

It's so strange seeing that much snow, I'm down the road in Kidderminster and haven't had any!

Thanks for the update OP.

[CTO]

Celtic Dragon said:

Sorry if I missed it, but why is The One Eyed Bandit now called ASBO?

Well, TOEB has always been a bit of a chav

Constantly burping and farting her way through life..

Every morning when she has her breakfast, she barges the Seal on Legs out of the way, proceeds to inhale as much of her food as quickly as possible and then heads for the garden for a st, emitting various gastrointestinal noises and invariably staring me in the eye whilst defecating on our lawn.

It’s been a running joke between Mr Dig and Gabion Graham/Gerald that one day she will probably nick the wheels off his van. She just has that kinda look about her.

Dodgy, like she’ll nick anything….




Anyhow, GG and Mr Dig have christened her “ASBO”, and it has stuck

Part of her nature is that she has to have a paw in anything anyone else is doing, as evident whilst the concrete pad was being constructed for the porch..

Mr Dig sent me this via WhatsApp….



Aaaand, onto the subject of the porch…. It is finally finished.

A few pics of the process below,

Starting off with the shuttering and the pad being put down







This involved some late nights





And some long days… so I kept the spirits up with some bacon and sausage sarnies and plenty of coffee!



And then the building of the two dwarf walls started. We had kept the bricks from the demolition of the chimney, way back in the early days, mindful that we would probably want them for this purpose and to ensure a match with the existing brickwork….



Had some oak cappings made by the place that are going to be doing our Balcony



And they went on the top of the dwarf walls





(I know the dwarf walls don’t look very dwarfy in these pics, but the ground level still needs to come up a fair bit and there will be a floor using the Cotswold stone slabs that we saved from the previous patio, and which are about an inch and half thick!)

Anyhow, the cappings went on, and the actual porch frame and canopy started..





And the roof went on…





There are cappings to go round the base of each post, so the brackets will be covered, but we haven’t got round to that part yet!

To light said porch, we had a plan

Waaaaay way back, when we were clearing the caves of all the detritus left by the previous owners, we came across a beautiful brass light fitting, nestled amongst old newspapers and bits of carpet.



So we stored it carefully to one side, to retrieve it when we had somewhere to put it… like a porch

I took it apart and gave it a clean, and it came up really lovely. I didn’t want it to look new or to lose the patina, just to get the worst of the dirt off it.





And then wired it in. I don’t usually touch electrics, but the feed had been put in by Craig the Sparky, and simply needed connecting at the switch and to the light. I did the light part, and then Craig FaceTimed me and guided me through connecting it to the Wago’s and the hallway switch. Tbh, the whole remote tutorial thing worked incredibly well. God knows how the insurance liability would work but there has to be a market for this type of thing

Remote plumbing, remote sparky…

Anyhow, connected it all up and hit the switch, and we finally had a porch light!



And, because it’s the anniversary of the birth of the baby Jesu! I took the opportunity to chuck some fairy lights on the porch as well..

So from no lights, to many lights!





And I also took the opportunity to chuck some more lights up round the roof





Which brings us right up to last night! I finished work yesterday for the Christmas break, back in work on 3rd Jan.

Having had Covid last week, we still hadn’t had the chance to put up and decorations or a tree. So I celebrated finishing work by partaking of a whisky (or three) and throwing the tree up with the wife






Which means that today is a day of bacon sandwiches, and watching the last four episodes of The Crown

This is the last day of relative peace we have prior to the festivities kicking off… I plan to make the most of it, by making the least of it

Cheers all,

[B'stard Child]

Excellent work - enjoy your Xmas break - thanks for sharing the journey so far

[TimmyMallett]

CTO said:

[CTO]

^^^^

[Celtic Dragon]

CTO said:

Mr Dig sent me this via WhatsApp….

Thanks CTO, that does explain a few things, over the years I had dogs, I learnt the hard way that if I had wet concrete anywhere, there would be paw prints in it, shortly after finishing.

[Ace-T]

Hi CTO, congratulations on such a fantastic build and thank you for sharing it with us.

Your new porch is great and it is exactly what my mum was thinking of putting on the front of her 300 year old cottage. Any ball park costs you could share?

Many thanks in advance.

[CTO]

Hi Ace-T

Thank you, and yes, more than happy to share costs

Canopy kit: £700
Oak Cappings: £225
Dwarf wall construction: £240
Cappings fixing to top of dwarf walls: £60
Labour for the groundwork, inc concrete pad, construction of porch and erection/attachment to house: £900
Slating/felting/leadwork: £300
Other sundries (sand/cement etc) circa £100


Total: £2525

(Slates and bricks our own)

Hope helpful, and happy to share details of suppliers etc

Cheers

[Ace-T]

CTO said:

Hi Ace-T

Thank you, and yes, more than happy to share costs

Canopy kit: £700
Oak Cappings: £225
Dwarf wall construction: £240
Cappings fixing to top of dwarf walls: £60
Labour for the groundwork, inc concrete pad, construction of porch and erection/attachment to house: £900
Slating/felting/leadwork: £300
Other sundries (sand/cement etc) circa £100


Total: £2525

(Slates and bricks our own)

Hope helpful, and happy to share details of suppliers etc

Cheers

Brill8ant, thank you very much for sharing, really appreciate it. Hers would be slightly more I think as she would have to tie it into the slope of her roof which comes to the height of the door. However, she wouldn't need the slab as she already has one. She is in Lincolnshire but I presume the oak framing was delivered?

[EdmondDantes]

Your house is looking incredible now OP!

[CTO]

Thanks Edmond…

Obligatory pre Xmas dinner selfie




It was fabulous to have all the family round for the festivities… Round two commences tomorrow!

Hope you have all had an enjoyable and restful day, whatever you may be doing

Cheers all, and Happy Christmas