House-on-the-Hill Blog

October 15th 2009

Building Control came up to test the drains before the concrete was poured. Work has progressed on the roof. Soon it would be time for another local firm, Cairns Construction to move in and we will be seeing a lot more of Graham and Stephen and their team. Here's a flavour of what they have been up to so far..

More of the porch utility area	Drainage pipe with pea gravel	Viewing the roof from on high
More drains pop up	And it's across the fields I trek when up I pop!	The house can be glimpsed back in the centre
Curious cattle watch me en route across the fields		Almost there!

October 4th 2009

Autumn is closing in though the skies remain mostly blue. BHC ( Brian Hewitt Construction, a local firm ) are still very much involved in this phase of the construction. Whenever possible we prefer to use local contractors.... It's so much more green and helps the local economy. I will spare you a long commentary, the photos tell their own story.

Levelling the floor and inserting drains	Crane on site for curved roof	Consolidating the floor with the roller
Upper storey re-inforcing mesh		Upper storey seen from the other direction with porch roof to the right

25th September 2009

At last, some photos! 13 of them ( you can see I'm not superstitious, it just happened that I selected 13 ) to show progress so far. From the foundation stage to the point where you can see the full stark exciting body outline. It's the steel structure I am referring to. Since my last posting things have been happening but at snail pace. The specialist team needed for the roof were delayed up north with a job and then there was that old chestnut of an excuse, the weather. Difficult to work on the roof when it's windy. Anyway, structurally, up top, the undersheeting of the roof is now fixed. Down below we are currently running in hundreds of tonnes of hardcore to level the floor. We then compact the floor with a vibrating roller.

Meantime, lots of discussion with a Fire Officer and Building Control to ensure we get things right at an early stage not to come a-cropper with any building regulations. The emergency lighting design is now sorted for future installation. I'm trying to source stylish smoke detectors, etc. and generally sorting out security and wiring needs for approval. This interior has got to look really stunning even though safety is paramount. And another meeting this morning with the expert who is doing our lighting schedule who appeared with a wodge of paper entitled Lighting proposal for new self-catering home. Luminaire Specifications. Sheet on sheet of them. A grand-sounding name, I suppose, for uplighters, downlighters, recessed lights, low level wall guide lights,some lovely brushed aluminium pendant lights and all sorts of exciting stuff. All very green, he assures me. A pity the interest rate on my savings is not quite so grand!

As usual we are making amendments to the plans. Lots of time for us to do this. One of the baths will be moved out into the centre of Bathroom 4 to become freestanding and allow guests a clear view out of the upstairs window to the hills beyond. I've been speaking to experts on built-in sound systems. They need to be guest-proof as when it comes to technical things like that I'm lost.. and if things go wrong guests need things back to normal pronto, no excuses that the owner is inept!

Hopefully the next month will see dramatic progress. The windows, imported from Scandinavia, are sitting in the warehouse near Glasgow awaiting a summons....

Foundations in	More foundations	The first of the frame goes in
More of the frame	First floor with balcony	Roof frame goes on
Curved porch on a sunny day.	The curved roof arrives	Porch rafters and main roof sheeting
Roof sheeting and upper floor more obvious	Curved roof sheeting with reservoir in the background	Mezzanine floor and stairwell
	Curved porch on a sunny day.

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