Tag: eco
-
Van Post 2
Stage two of the van transformation was to insulate it. As someone that feels the cold this is a particularly important step for me. We’ve gone for slightly unusual insulation, as it’s actually the same stuff we insulated our house with. Chris found someone selling all the materials the contractors had left behind at a…
-
Van Day 1
It’s certainly not a sensible thing to do, starting a van conversion when you still haven’t finished your house restoration, but this is exactly what we’re doing. In part we’re switching jobs because the IVF treatment starts in July so it’s possible next year we’ll be too busy with a baby to convert a van.…
-
Two Years On
This Sunday marked 2 years since we got the keys for our new house, and 10 months since we moved in. We had hoped to have finished the inside by the 2 year mark, but everyone that’s ever watched Grand Designs will know you never make your deadlines. We started the week with some boring…
-
A Little Sunshine
You’d think I’d be bored of building drystone walls, but if anything I wish we had more to build. When the new fence went in our neighbour’s gardener, who put in the fence, piled up some stones along the boundary to cover the gap at the base. We didn’t want a full wall here, as…
-
Moving stones
This week I’ve been mostly moving stones around. I was pretty pleased with how the first wall came together. I’ve only done drystone walling once before, right back when I was a trainee, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make anything particularly solid. We didn’t want huge walls, just something to define…
-
Puzzled
Filling, sanding and painting skirting is very boring, so I thought I’d take a break from this mind-numbing task to do something completely non-urgent, but more satisfying and fun. We have a number of piles of rocks in the garden, which need to be rebuilt into drystone walls. Drystone walls are better for wildlife than…
-
Making space
With spring around the corner, I headed to my first volunteer day at the community garden, while Chris tried to tick off a big list of jobs. Firstly he put some finishing touches on the ventilation system, cutting down and connecting up the pipe in the spare bedroom, and cutting down the black tubes protruding…
-
A Big Pile of… Soil
With a couple of other obligations this weekend, we didn’t get an awful lot done, but little jobs are better than no jobs. One little job I decided to do was plug up the last of the gaps in the landing ceiling. The gaps were letting in cold air from the attic, so first I…
-
Nesting
After I had dutifully written and posted my blog last weekend, Chris decided he hadn’t managed to get enough done afterall. Heading back upstairs after dinner he spent the evening creating sawdust as he cut and fitted the desk. As we were only going to have one day free over the next weekend, and we…
-
Moving on up
Chris has gotten the hang of online auctions and managed to buy a Victorian drop arm sofa for the kitchen. Though we’d already bought a small white sofa, Chris was worried this was still too big for the room, so found something more compact. It will need recovering and restuffing but at a cost of…
Ruined 