Friday 25 February 2011

How difficult can it be?

One month later since my last post and still this project amazes me in the twists and turns we have had to take.  Making decisions at times especially with the consequences of living in a house for long time can be hard .... but lets us also put the whole thing into perspective (thank you to a good friend for this bit).  It's also very easy to concentrate on what we deem as perfection which is not to say we should necessarily lower our standards to get on with it together is more important than going round and round in circles winding each other up!  So that's how I feel, after a considerable amount of discussion this weekend, I admit has at times left me feeling a little angry out of sheer frustration of not understanding why Flora can't see my point.

One week later.

More ups and downs with lots more talking and considerably less frustration with Flora (and I hope she is of the same feeling ..... well she says she is).  We responded to Tom's email asking us to list how we can visalise each room and what it will be used for going down to the real details like dimensions of the cupboards.  A worth while exercise that has helped us agree on many points.  I would have liked some sort of slate on the sitting room, kitchen dinning room area as this is a really efficient way of absorbing the suns heat and then in the evening it would let it out when needed.  Well we're having wood as I also agree it is warmed to look at a feel under foot and even more importantly when you drop a plate it is less likely that it will break!  So much for my eco design!

I've been in contact with a few oak frame companies to try and ascertain if our design could be easily transferred to a oak frame house.  So far they've all been in contact which is a good start and Welsh Oak have said we could have a frame built in our budget but lets see I don't want to get up our hopes just yet!

Next small bit we've decided to extend the size of our house I'm calling Ropewalk House by the way.  The design which I have still failed to actually put up on this blog (I promise to tomorrow when I go into work) is for 190 m2 we now know we can push the finances a little more to make the total build 210 m2.  This in turn has cemented our belief that we really want a curved end to the sitting room .... oh God costly curves, yes that may be the case but I'm not convinced by our east elevation windows especially as I saw the same ones (or near to) on a very ugly visitors centre when coming out of the loo!  This may also sound like spoilt children stamping their feet not being content with what they've got.  It could be deemed as pushing the part of how big do you need this house?  However in our defence this is one thing we have actually agreed on from the start that we would like some sort of curve be it in the roof, or walls or just something to make the structure less box like and more dare perhaps organic.  It's not surprising we are taking inspiration from the Longhouse.

I'm going up again to the Eco homes exhibition in London next Wednesday which will hopefully be useful not full of people trying to sell me things are clearly not environmentally designed!