Big day 2

It was a long day afterall! By this evening the central support pole was removed, the poles were fish mouthed to the roof plate and the excess timber in the center was trimmed. It is amazing the difference already. I'm now trying to source some locally grown reed to thatch with.












If anyone needs advice on how this is done, feel free to get in touch although there are a lot of sites out there with good information.

Big day

Timber

Well, in the end the timber was sourced from less than a mile away. A lovely guy one minute down the road and into a lane let al clear some of his woodland free of charge. He has 20 acres planted up and wanted some poplars thinned out so on Saturday, Al, himself and our two eldest boys spent the day chain sawing.

Once the logs were brought home they debarked them although we got a shock the following day when they had turned bright pink! We are 'hoping' that as they dry, the colour will disappear.

Roof plate

Waiting for wood

Staying dry

Still waiting for the forestry services to come up with the trees for the roof. Meanwhile the damp proof membrane and a layer of straw has been laid with gravel on top. We plan to have an adobe floor eventually.

The anchor!

Bale walls

Today hub got a good run at it and we now stand four bales high. The sun shone and bar light rain tomorrow, the forecast is good until Monday at least. He called it a night around 10pm when a friend called by to drop the boys off which was great as he was able to give him a hand to tarp it up for the night. Hopefully the forestry commission will have some lumber for us soon! They are going to be doing some felling in village 3 miles away - can't get more local than that!

Moving forward!

This evening the straw finally arrived. A lovely guy from down the road knew of someone selling bales locally which was great. I'm keen to source local materials as much as possible for the build and hopefully the roof timber will come from the village (3 miles away) via the forestry commission.

Tomorrow gives heavy rain so hubby is going to work in town and then take Thursday off to start building the walls. He, along with ds1 made up one of the window frames today and hope to put the other one together tomorrow evening.

Window construction