Faffing Towers

yup, another year passes although its all been about enjoying the house rather than working on it. The house is ageing well with the exterior wood and corten ageing nicely and no problems arising from the build. The stairs finally got finished with the glass installed by a team of highly skilled buffoons in the autumn. The lawn was finally seeded this spring and the rest of the garden has had some tlc and bit by bit going to wild rather than managed. I’ve posted some pics of the stair buffoonery in the 2yrs post and the final house here.

After yet another loonngg time we’ve hit the 2 year anniversary of starting the build of Faffing Towers. This is expected to be the final post although I’ll probably add a few more pics to this post. It was hoping to write this when the house was completed but clearly I was dreaming. We are not far away but the blxxdy staircase has proved to me a stumbling block and the house is still short of all the stair and balcony glass balustrading. The stair oak treads were all fitted over xmas and we then measured up for the glass .. all 9 pieces. It then went very quiet so I chased, it then went very, very quiet and finally Steve admitted he’d not ordered the glass and handed the project over to me. Seven months after starting we still have only 2/3rds of a staircase but, on the plus side, it means I’m faffing away and becoming an expert in glass balustrading: regulations, types, widths, hardware, measurements. It’ll be completed in another 2 months, hence the post today.
We’ve waited six months for one bespoke door which finally arrived, is osmo’d up and Gavin revisits on monday to hang it and finish the oak door-frames and skirting. Frankly my memory doesn’t go back three months so I’ve had to look at receipts to see what I’ve done. Ah yes .. I needed more oak flooring and have finished laying 60sqm. Door ironmongery and bits fitted, final lighting (mostly internal and external wall lights), curtain tracks and blinds, bits of paint. The home-cinema system was installed in the snug which much faffing tuning the system and automating it. I built out our dressing room furniture with key-clamp galvanised metal and reclaimed wood from the last house. Lavely, and key-clamp is Lego for adults .. great fun to use.
Once again we’ve had superb spring weather this year and Ang/I moved outdoors in late March to get back into the garden to rescue it after 2 years of neglect. I have also built 40sqm of decking which was an inordinate labour of love, putting in foundations that a digger has compressed for a year while building the house. And of course endless faffing with the home-controls system.

So, two years on and we are 98% completed. Of course its never finished and we will faff endlessly on the garden. The static is still here and Ang’s sister Lynne moves in for a few months. We are dead chuffed with the house and there’s not many areas which we feel we could have done better. Finally a dedication to Goeycat who has lived through all of this and passed away today at 14 .. bless ‘im

eek its been a while !! We’ve had a few weeks in Ibiza in October window but otherwise we’ve been in lockdown or tier3 with not much we can do .. other than work on the house. Its been relentless attempting to finish things which at times has been great fun and others tedious. The worst job was bodging: filling, sanding, painting, repeat above the 12 doors making the plaster good .. fortunately now done. So:
Andy and James found the odd day over the weeks to finish all the electrics in both the house and the garage. All done, with only a couple of problems where cables were unconnected, one being due to the plasterers leaving it inside the wall and the other we are none the wiser.
After 10 weeks from order we have all the oak doors .. well, apart from two and we’ve had Gavin, another of Alex’s recommendations as a joiner fitting the doors, oak architraves and skirtings. Couple of coats of osmo oil and they look a treat. I fitted the softwood skirting in bedrooms and workshops with a top new toy .. a nailer. Endless fakin painting but the last one done today. Also the five eclisse pocket doors are fitted and look v nice and clean.
From the screeding I’ve laid the workshops and services rooms floors with a concrete-effect camaro loc flooring (50sqm). The first sqm took a day as I made a right bollocks .. the last 15sqm took half a day as I’d learnt the knack. This is true for getting the hang of most things.
Most rooms are finished .. carpets due to be fitted in the bedrooms on monday and then the only area that needs doing is the hall and hallways. We even have some mirrors, pictures and ‘stuff’ making the house more homely. Ang has been busy in her workshop making the soft furnishings which are steadily going up around the house.
All bar one radiator is fitted and the five heating zones are all working as they should. I was v concerned as I thought I’d made a bollocks (yes, another one) in the design of the heating system as we simply couldn’t get the lounge warm enough – despite the 10kW wood-burner. Without doors we were unsuccessfully heating 2/3rds of the house from the one room. Fortunately with all the doors its a lot better, but I gotta say the house is not as warm as I expected. Thermal mass and insulation is all very good but when the inside of the house is cold it takes time and energy to warm it up. We’re learning but maybe my antipathy to underfloor heating was unfair.
Many good evenings have been spent faffing on technology. The home controls system is maturing and reasonably working. I had some worrying nightmares with the whole system dying a death twice (sd-cards and databases getting corrupted) but I’ve simplified the systems (with the home controls running on a dedicated computer (pi)) and it seems happier. There are now 20 odd devices with the wired devices (switches, lights) being wifi sonoff-tasmota and zigbee ikea and the battery devices (thermostats) zigbee sonoff and xiaomi. I run homeassistant on a raspberrypi. There are about 30 automations – many associated with the central heating but I also do things like automatically shutting the garage door at 9pm .. in case I’m stupid and have left it open. The final part of the jigsaw is I’ve built a replica pdp11/70 .. the first computer I ever programmed over 40 years ago. Apart from running ancient software it will be a retro front end to the home controls with knobs and lights .. faffing at its best.
I had big problems with supply of materials mid-year with the covid lockdown but now have endless hassle getting simple things – like door handles with supplier problems due covid, brexit, fukit and to the ports being blocked.
Finally, finally we are making progress with the stairs. Bob and lads from Ark Engineering have finally installed the metalwork and it looks a treat. Another of Alex’s recommendation, Dave Sykes is making the oak treads. Its a pretty complicated assembly with 4 pieces jointed and glued so they don’t crack. They are due next week so xmas will be varnishing 30 treads. Steve can then get on with the glass balustrading. Then ….

Can I say weeks gone by rather than months .. just about. Also we’ve managed a few weeks away in the van and on the motorbike thru scotland.
The house looks very different as the landscaping has been done by ‘t ‘uddersfield builder Alex, Tom and their lads. It took them 3 wks with a digger, dumper and spades to move 60ton gravel, 20ton sand and 30 ton graded soil. I sketched a design that has used gravel on matting through the driveway and paths, with a stroke of genius (if I say so) of turning the old tarmac drive at the front (or rear) of the house into a grass-garden. We also opened up the entrance to the house from the long drive. Other touch was to use the reclaimed floor joists from the old house as path-edging which has softened the path-garden borders. The minute we had a space Ang went nuts buying plants (grasses) to fill it, and of course the weeds are quickly filling all the gaps. Only another 3 (0) years to sort the patio and garden out.
The Kitchen fossilised worktop from Mandale quarry has been installed. An indulgence and it looks a treat, including a sharks tooth embedded in the worktop. With Andy wiring up and myself finishing the plumbing its now all running. ‘t modern kitchen technology has moved on. Venting hob, a dishwasher ! and I can turn the oven on with my phone (er, wow).
The wood flooring has been put down in the utility/kitchen, snug and living area, some 50sqm.
We’ve moved in !! after 18months in the static. Running out of gas forced the move and we’re living in the snug, kitchen and bedroom while we continue with the house. As of 7pm last night just as temps were plummeting we even have hot radiators. Eleven rads installed with only one forgotten joint and one leak although a lot of faffing under the house with pipework. Now I’ve got the winter evenings to sort out the home automation system.
Gavin has started the joinery work with the oak door frames. I’ve gotta admit I’ve mucked him about with supply problems of wood, doors and ironmongery but he seems a chilled chap and we’ll crack on later in the month.
QSP had a few days on site finishing the window reveals (we could not get the accoya in the lockdown) and snagging. To their huge credit we’ve only had one build issue that needed some visqueen and concete and is now sorted.
We had Jim and son screed the lower ground floor, 3 days of prep (insulation) for 3 hrs of pouring the screed. Gawd knows how much water was hard in a couple of days when we moved all the work tools and stock to leave the upper ground floor bedrooms to be fitted out. Floors is as smooth as a baby’s bum .. now we leave it a month or two and cover it up.
The only major outstanding item is now the staircase .. which .. who knows.

Months rather than weeks have gone by. Since the last post little happened for a few weeks with complete lack of materials and people during the covid lockdown. Bags of plaster were not available for about six weeks, with out-of-date finish being sold on gumtree for £30/bag. I faffed as much as I could, building an old-skool worktable and old wood walls in the lounge and bathroom from floor joists and boards recycled from the old house .. even then I ground to a halt. Fortunately in June Alex at Abode, whose given me great advice during the project, managed to source plaster and Stuart with team of plasters spent the month plastering the whole house. This allowed Ang (primarily), Phil, Birdie and myself to roll behind them and paint everything. The lounge ceiling with wood beams and inlaid plaster was a inordinate effort but now looks a treat. Final painting was the hallway, hiring a couple of scaffolding towers which Ang hung off reaching into corners. We re-cleaned and treated the stone-work and I made a bespoke concrete/jute chandelier.
During lockdown by chance we talked to Ryan at Square kitchens who came up with a lovely design, good cost and started fitting the kitchen and util rooms in July. I was immediately re-appointed as a sparkie as most of my first fix of elecs were in the wrong place. Kitchen/Utility now await the flooring.
Regular guests during this period has been Andy and son James, who seem to spend -almost- as much time faffing on electrics as I do.
Steve from Kompass (windows guys), his buddy Rob from Ark engineering and I have a joint project designing the staircase. We had a trial fit, remeasure and partial redesign (my fault) in mid July.
From loosing momentum through the spring it was great getting a buzz back on the build in June. Ang/I then shutdown for a few weeks in Ibiza to recharge batteries, snorkel, bike and drink sangria. August is back on the project with a loooong todo list

Just about a year has gone by and the house .. and the world look at very different place. The crappy plot with the debris from a demolished 70’s primary skool has the new house and everything is in lockdown. My life is not that different .. a grumpy old man faffing about on his land with his biggest concern being the last of multifinish. There is seriously more heroin available in the UK than plaster. The guys who’ve been helping me on phase 2 have all disappeared as there’s nothing to do without the materials to plaster the rest of the house. Ang/I have been steadily working on. Ang has painted as much as she can, having just finished the dining room (‘media room darling’) and we have curtains upstairs. I’ve recycled more wood making a wall behind the fireplace and have build a very retro workbench. I’ve cleared out and done first fix elecs and plumbing to the lower ground floor – so this, the halls and two bedrooms are ready to be plastered. We’re going round things for a second tidy up eg the prototype home controls electrics are all properly wired in. We’re also finding some things go well and others take an inordinate amount of time .. we must have some 50 hrs fukking about to converting an old singer sewing machine into a washstand. We’re talking with folk designing and getting ready to start the kitchen, staircase and landscaping around the house. April has been lovely for weather so the garden is even looking tidy. In the good weather I’ve needed frequent essential £1.60 bolts that’s resulting in motorbiking to screwfix via a bit of countryside.

Hmm, I started the last post with ‘What a surprise’ .. little did I know that the world would grind to a halt with a global pandemic. We caught a few days in Majorca and a week later we were in lock-down. This means that the building companies, QSP and Kompass both shutdown and are unable to complete their snagging. Some big-ticket items: kitchen and staircase are on hold – partly the companies not operating but also I’m managing cashflow for the time being. Supplies have been variable, we’ve managed to get most of the materials we want to keep going from Screwfix, Wickes, B&Q and the web but that’s getting more difficult as they are not restocking.

On a huge positive we have (kind of) moved into the house. The first floor bathroom, dressing room and bedroom are 95% completed. We’ve plastered, painted, plumbed, sparkied, IT’d and even laid flooring and carpet. Access is via a ladder (I try to convince Ang staircases are only posh ladders). The final bit was building a walkway for the cats .. but they are far from happy. OK .. so far we have a bedroom .. but we’ve noticed some excellent surprises: the loo and shower work, the hot water and radiators work from the home control system, we get birds flying by at eye-height and .. we see sunset from the bedroom west window. Maybe the past year was worthwhile 🙂

Mick is doing a couple of days a week and has finished the first floor bathroom, moved on to plaster and tile the loo and is now plastered and tiling the bathroom. Phil and team have spent the past weekends (with a couple of breaks) plastering away. We have the kitchen, utility and dining rooms done and lounge 80% complete. Unfortunately this has ground to a halt as there is no plaster available for 100 miles (or more). Ang is painting away – with the loo, kitchen and utility rooms completed. The lounge and dining rooms are next but she’s far happier in the garden and making curtains. Peter, the carpet fitter came in last week for a morning – the fifth house he’s worked on with us. Chris commissioned the boiler with no issues (other than a crisis when he thought I’d capped the radiator pipes – given that I hadn’t they promptly flooded). Andy and son – the sparkies have given us a good part of last week and we have the garage half-complete and two of the five rings (the first floor and the kitchen-utility) running. I seem to be running around doing little as usual. Alex (Ang’s eldest) and I laid the bathroom wood floor – the first couple of sqm of a huge amount to do. I make progress with techno-shite – highlights being the garage cameras, wifi, poe etc running and the house control system coming on with the heating system and some security running. Al and I have started recycling the old house timbers, with Al making raised garden beds and me preparing a wood wall.

What a surprise, we’ve had another month of shite weather, a few big storms and possibly the worst flooding the UK has ever experienced. Fortunately it hasn’t caused too many problems as a lot of the work is now inside. We’ve had regular minor floods in the LGF which we put down to the windows not being in, but ironically the worst flood was the day after the windows went in during storm Dennis when we had ~2″ of water throughout the ground floor. After a big cleanup we started flooding 2 days later .. which was good as we got to the root of the problem with faults with a downpipe, a stream running down the side of the house and water coming through the services ducting .. which QSP has now sealed up. Coming days will tell whether we are watertight.
The shell of the house is essentially complete with the guttering finally fixed. QSP have to return to do the window reveals, brown roof and remove spoil but all not urgent.
Kompass, the window guys (Steve, Olly, Paul and Will) have been on-site for the past few weeks installing all the windows. 35+ windows and sliding doors installed and we had to hire a telehandler to move some the bigger ones around. The lounge sliding door was over 4sqm, 350kg that took five of us to lift into place .. QSP would have had a dicky-fit with the breach of ‘t elf and safety. I’m dead pleased with them as people and the Reynaers product – Steve is sufficiently chuffed he wants to bring prospective clients around.
Chris, the plumber, finished his fit-out and is now waiting to commission the system. Andy and son James, the sparkies have started. To their huge credit and with much head scratching and shaking, they adopted my wiring with good humour. All the ceiling elecs are connected up so we can now board and plaster.
Phil, Dan, Chris and Mel are plugging away over the weekends boarding and plastering. We have the first floor rooms plastered and maybe a third of the ground floor boarded out.
The ashlar hearthstones have been cut by Hope stonemasons (Greenstone and Ivy) and been laid byPhil/myself. The fire is sitting there waiting for James to connect up (next week).
After a year Ang is coming into her own. She’s painting rooms, sorting tiles and flooring, arranging the kitchen fit-out and even bought linen fabric to make the curtains.
Mick started last week and has tiled the first floor bathroom .. a lovely job. With my faffing all the FF bathroom needs a floor and is ready to go.
I have spent the past month, er, faffing.
We had a good site cleanup and can now see the house pretty much finished from the exterior. I’m dead chuffed with how the corten and accoya are settling in. Of course we’ve had fakin’ perfect weather to let the corten rust away.
I write this as another blxxdy storm rolls in. Sod this, we’re going to majorca for a few days to grab some sun.

Xmas went by with QSP having two weeks off, the site was deserted and I had time to faff with no interference. I did have a xmas day with family but otherwise I was busy doing – er – I cannot remember – although it was very important.
QSP have been back a couple of weeks and making good progress finishing their part of the project. The accoya and corten cladding is complete (barring the window reveals). Drains are complete and tested. The ground is levelled up – as much as possible with the wet ground and spoil. The workshop and main house doors are 2/3rds fitted. Barring the wet back wall of the garage all the rendering to garage and lower ground floor is done. Laid 10t of type1 to make n0n-muddy paths around the house, garage and static and I madea mini-rockery and steps the the door. The plan is they finish by end-month, apart from ……

The gas,elec and water services and cat6e are running from the driveway to the garage (where the meters are sited) and on to the house – we are now legitimate for the first time in 9 months. My acquaitance, the scrounging malingering Birdie spent a week with me making pocket door, drinking and eating to excess and 3 days installing the garage door – 2 days of abuse and 1 productive. The garage has doors, windows, elecs and fakin’ coolness.

Chris – a plumber-delinguent friend has been hard at work installing the heating system in the services room and is now crawling around under the house making grunting sounds. We have a working loo !! with most water and waste services tested out. Oddjob (Phil) has finished the soundcoat, boarding and plastered the services room – waahayy we nearly have the first room of the house running – ok, minus the electrics. They’re now boarding and plastering the FirstFloor – bedroom, dressing room, bathroom and corridor. . Electrics for phone, sat-tv and solarPV are now routed onto the FF roof.

The hearthstone (remains of the ashlar hall) has been taken away to be cut and shaped and the woodburner arrived on Friday. The windows are starting to be installed in anger (or love really).

Four weeks have gone by and, despite the ongoing weather, great progress has been made. There are two reasons for this – firstly QSP and their subcontractors: roofers, joiners, groundworkers got on with the work in hand and secondly I went away, couldn’t interfere and left them to it.
Three weeks (ski) touring soviet brutalism in Kazakhstan was a very welcome break from living through a rather wet autumn and winter in a static caravan continually on top of hairy-arsed people you barely know (no, not Ang, the builders). It was a distinct pleasure travelling in the remote steppe, visiting the biggest steel mill and town in the world, the polygon – site of 40 yrs of Russian nuclear testing, abandoned military airfields, towns overcast with polluted coal smoke, breaking down in -20oC steppe 100km from anything, skiing 10″ of snow over a boulder field. Yes … I’m a weird fukker.

Anyway, I returned and had a manic week assisting the bldrs with the net result that they have handed the house back to us. yeah – oh yeah baby : ) We have the four roofs on, 90% of the cladding finished, scaffolding removed, drainage in and the site cabins/fencing all removed. We can finally see the house we dreamt of nearly four years ago.
There remains a month or more of work for QSP to finish their phase of work (the water-tight shell) and then the years of work for us to truly finish the project.
Kompass and Steve, the new windows guys have (hopefully) come up trumps with a start date to install the windows on the wk 13th Jan.
A few things stand-out for us in the design:
– the corten/accoya mix of cladding is a beautiful blend of colour and texture, a testament to sheffield history and a contemporary build that manages to integrate into the outdoors due to the brown colouring. (yes I’m sure others will disagree – but – am I bovvered ?)
– the rectangular areas comprising the house (>300cu m) break up the size nicely.
– the lounge with its views opening into the garden is great
– the hallway, with the openness, local ashlar stone and large amounts of glass.
– the upstairs bedroom and roof open out into the garden and surroundings.