Happy 2016

Happy New Year.  Hope 2016 is filled with health and happiness - what more could we want?

......  w..e...l...l....... some actual hobby time would be nice.  Here I am 2nd January and still not found a chunk of time to sit down and play.  If you read my Clavering blog you might realise why.

All I have to share with you this year so far is my new work-space which I have just christened The Hive!

I have worked here, there and everywhere around our home in the four years of doing this mini thing.  Ultimately (and happily) I ended up taking over the only guest room and making it my work-space.  This has worked well but I have always fidgeted with not having somewhere to 'put anyone up'.  Eventually I bit the bullet and decided we would have a room built on the side of the house in the 'utility' part of the garden (replacing the small greenhouse).

Here it is going into place:

floor and frame in place

8' x 11' and well insulated

fence will wrap back around it

my walk to work

Dalton House moved in first

mini work corner

office work corner

office end and view to garden with no fence

minis end and view to garden and house wall

I have been ensconced since before Christmas and it is just lovely and I know how very lucky I am.  It has light and power and heat and is plastered and finished and hugely insulated so, once inside, it is like any other room in the house but it is all mine and neat as a pin.

Just in case you think by now that I have actually given up on the build that is Dalton House I promise you I haven't, but I have reached another hiatus.

I now intend to complete the front doors/basement part of the structure and hang them on the 'box'.  I want to start to protect the rooms inside from light and dust and also (to be truthful) to have a finished look about it all.  This project is being deliberately slowed to a snail's pace as it is supposed to be the last house I do.

The doors and basement materials are taking up a lot of room and they sometimes have to be moved from here to there when I am doing something on the house so if they were finished and hung that would be all round easier and I would feel less guilt about making each room last as long as they are while as I go through them one by one.

So, right now, a good coat of thinking is in order as I have a few ideas of what I want the outside to do for me.  I am also negotiating (maybe) some bespoke windows and I need to order a zillion bricks and slates from Richard Stacey.

This is sort of how I want the house to look

so that's a lot of bricks to do

Admittedly Dalton is only two stories, plus basement and attic so it is a layer smaller than this but the general finish is where I am going with it.

I hope to be back very soon with something underway.