Off grid house build Orkney

Ply under the stove is schoolboy :( Hope they are going to fix it for free!

Chin up! This is a fantastic project, your home is going to be wonderful and you've worked extremely hard to get it there. A final few hiccoughs that will quickly be forgotten when you're in and snug.

Plus you've been causing serious envy in lots of middle aged cycle forum dwellers dreaming of escapes.

Hopefully they can either move it down easily, with enough spare in one of the sections of chimney to deal with the 11mm, if not they may be able to add an extra ring immediately above stove or below where it increases in diameter.

So close - you’ve got this!

How’s it going?

Hiya bud, thanks for checking in, I really appreciate it! That comment from the other day helped more than you could know.

No further forward with the stove, but they’re going to come out and sort it. We tried lighting it the other day and smoke came out through the bottom so it definitely needs an air inlet duct into the bottom to help with pulling the smoke up the flue. Stopped in at them on Monday and they’ve said they’ll come out to do it all at once.

After that I visited the quarry the other day too and have secured all the stone for building the porch, I’m really quite excited about that! Just getting details of how much lime etc we need and I’ll order it all in one go. Hopefully it’ll just take two trucks to carry it all as the ferry isn’t cheap.

I put another coat of paint on the kitchen wall before the kitchen started this week and really happy with the colour and how the units/worktop will sit against it. We didn’t buy anniversary presents for each other this year as we’re way too broke with rent, a mortgage and some major invoices just now, but were feeling sorry for ourselves and gave in to buying this wall light instead for the wall between the porch door and the bathroom.

We got a dry day yesterday so got the downpipes on to keep water off the wood cladding and then dug a trench for the electric ducting going into the workshop (and then a drainage trench to get the water out the first one..)

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Some photos in the dark this morning before the boat to work but the kitchen island went in yesterday. He’s framed along the back so we can have a splashback on the kitchen side and on the back side we’re going to use some of our leftover larch to clad it and then mount scaffolding board shelves. I was worried the kitchen might encroach too much but it seems to be sitting pretty nicely and feeling relatively tucked away for quite a large kitchen in the main living space.

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boat to work ... kitchen island

:)

kitchen island

don't you mean the island kitchen kitchen island ;)

Looking great.

Are you affected by the undersea cable damage that’s been reported on today? Sounds well shit.

Orkney != Shetland

A good point well made - I had my islands mixed up.

.

@hvsds Haha I didn’t even notice that when I was typing.. my partner can work remotely with her electrical engineering work so I guess she could technically work on island on island..?

Here’s the guttering on and some daylight pictures of the kitchen.

@Soul thanks very much! Fortunately once it’s all finished the only cables we’ll need to worry about are the one from the turbine to the workshop and the workshop to the house.

@andyp thanks for clearing that up. That seems like a tough situation up there for them. They’re saying it looks like accidental damage, wonder if it was a trawler or something? Or, m the start of an autonomous Shetland movement, a pretty solid break from westminister if there’s literally no connections haha

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I think our cat is going to love it!

Very late coir mat + cat chat:

Cat may use it as a litter tray so be warned. If you don't twig that they are doing it it may take a few days before you realise what the god awful smell is...

No problem - I’ve been in a similar position and it was shit. I’m glad things are still progressing, keep the updates coming!

One of ours did that too. Only silver lining was that it stopped her from using the decommissioned shower.

It can be such a rollercoaster can’t it, very exciting parts but very low lows.. no other option but to keep going I guess.. mum and dad are up again which is always really productive but just reassuring too. Mum was filling and sanding all the mail holes in the door surrounds and dad and I started on making the kitchen cabinet doors. Just 3 more to go tomorrow and we can start on cladding the frame behind the kitchen island. They’ve all to get perfectly squared off and things, but that will come when we’re getting the sanding and oiling done.

@Howard @stevo_com That’s a great heads up, thank you very much for that! She’s a sneaky thing and has ruined a couple plants using them so I wouldn’t put it past her. I swear some of our tomatoes our first year here had an ammonia aftertaste..

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There are citrus based sprays that can help (not for ours, though). But as long as it's removable/replaceable should it become an issue that's the main thing. Also just making sure she has access to her normal method of going to the toilet will help (again, it didn't help ours - outdoor cat who for years has never used a litter tray, had no problem actually being outside here, but still insisted on condemning the shower even further. And then the front door mat, and then the temporary carpet we put down).

If it does become an issue, the only thing we found to remove the smell was Hydrogen Peroxide. Worked wonders. You only need the 3% solution and easily available in spray bottles. Thinking about it, the smell of that may have actually been what ultimately put her off.

That’s good to know, thank you! Tempted just to preempt it with a wee spray first. Although, she’s a weirdo and quite likes the smell of lemon.. I’ll think of something!

We’ve been cracking on the last few days, finished the kitchen cabinets (the rest are drawer fronts that match the tall cabinet that we got with the kitchen), started painting door surrounds and skirtings as they’re being put down, oiled the internal doors, tiled behind the stove under the heatshields and we’ve started on cladding the framing behind the kitchen island. I picked out the lengths with the most interesting grain for that. It’s a shame as we’ll be mounting some scaffolding board shelves to it which might hide some but reckon it’ll finish that off nicely.

The joiner spent today working on the thresholds at the large windows and rounded off these nice bits of oak. Just seeing things a bit tidier around the edges is making it feel so much closer!

Popped back to the quarry yesterday and got the building stone organised. They’re going to dump it off the pallets and just deliver it loose meaning they’ll be able to fit it all in the one truck. They’re going to run it over the weigh bridge and if there’s space left they’ll throw a ton bag or two of building sand in with it which I’ll need for the lime mortar. Hoping we’ll fit that and it should save me a pretty penny in getting it all across! Then I’ll be able to grab the bags of lime myself and just bring them in the car. Should be coming on Friday, looking forward to seeing it all here.

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That wood kitchen is going to look lovely.
But FYI the brace is the wrong way around, it should be like this

Thank you, I realised that after we’d done it.. Think once I put the brace on we ended up flipping the door upside down because of the grain.. we glued in the tongue and groove pieces so it shouldn’t sag, but I think it’ll annoy me and I’ll probably just swap it round anyway..

Logical

But still learn something new every day

Tension or compression brace would be of little difference for a dinky cabinet door. The extra fixings into a triangulated brace will be fine either way.

Compression is only better if it's done well, with the ends of the brace being in full contact and fixed to the rails. Any gap or slippage of the joint negates it being any stronger as it ends up using the nails fixing the boards to the brace to resist sagging, just like a tension brace.

https://tp69.blog/2018/12/31/the-best-way-to-brace-a-wooden-door-or-gate/

Again... Logical...

But still learn something new every day

That’s a really handy link thank you. I’m going to be building more things in time I imagine so having these details will be really handy. Gave the bedroom a tidy and a paint touch up today and got the skirtings and loft hatch done in there. Door hung again after being oiled and now all that room needs is lights and sockets!

We got loads more skirting and door frames painted and all the internal doors have been oiled and sanded and are back hung again. I cleaned up the tiles behind the stove that I’d done yesterday too and it’s looking a lot cleaner behind there now.

The kitchen is causing some problems.. the hob sat too low for the oven and needs some space between the two for air flow so things don’t overheat. Our joiner is brilliant though and dropped the shelf in the unit and put a brace up at the top to create the spacing we’re needing. He’s also having to brace the big drawer unit beside it as that’s where the joint in the quartz worktop is sitting and he wants things more solid underneath.

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So cool seeing this all come together.

Is the weather up there as stupidly mild as it's been in London? I was in just a t-shirt yesterday.

I sort of hope it is so you can get everything you need done before the weather turns! Looks pretty cosy though.