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Pictures of the kitchen after last update, plus dad and I started on putting together the two big lights for the apex. Got them both to this point as the start is tricky then just 12 more staves to add to each. The other one is exactly the same, but from a different barrel so the staves are 100mm longer. I’m thinking I will probably sit that one on the side not above the kitchen as it’ll have a hanging driftwood light above the island so I think the more perceived distance between those two the better. I really want to see what kind of shadow these cast up into the height of the ceiling

Solid couple days before mum and dad headed south but got loads of things ticked off the list. Now the grout is all scrubbed off in the bathroom I’m really liking that wall, we got the shelves fitted in there for the sink as well. Now just for the plumbers to show up, need to get them to confirm a date still.

We also got the bench seating/ shelf finished in the porch, just some trims round the edges of things and I’ll start on getting that undercoated.

That’s the kitchen finished except for water and power (two pretty major elements I realise) and the splashback tiles, which I might aim to do this weekend before the electrician comes on Monday. Got the end of the kitchen run and the back frame capped off with some more leftover larch cladding which I think keeps it all really tidy and tucked away. Looking forward to getting the shelving mounted behind it too.

Yeah it’s been lovely but enjoying unseasonal warmth feels a bit like celebrating the coming doom these days..

@nuke haha yeah, delays with other bits have pushed that back I’m afraid, there’s always the spring post deckbuild though..

@user69121 I’m hoping so! He’s been busy recently but is due out a week on Monday for getting all of that done, can’t wait!

@skinny cheers, it’s so close to what I’ve been visualising for years now

@jontea there were whispers of revolt I had to stifle, the rest got them working even harder today though! I feel like I’ve been saying the end is in sight for months now, but it’s feeling good really tidying things up and seeing ideas we’ve had actually become reality!

While we were away yesterday darren the joiner was here getting all the cutouts sorted for getting the sink fitted. I really love it, big chunky ceramic thing!

Mum got loads more wood a second or third coat of oil and sanded down the live edge bathroom shelves ready for treating.

Dad and I finished off the tiling on that bathroom wall and started on the cladding in the porch.

The tiles look like they’re kind of floating in the middle of nowhere right now, but they’ll be butted right up to where the slate shower wall panels start. I quite like them stopping at the top of the door frame as I think it stops that wall feeling too dark or too heavy and bringing the ceiling colour down might make it feel taller. It had been a consideration before, but the decision was forced when we realised we would have run out of tiles. We bought these as a £45 job lot from a topps tiles that was closing down about 18 months ago and knew we’d find a use for them somewhere.

The porch will have that wall cladding going round to the window and the same depth on the other wall too and we’ll fill that with loads of coat hooks. It’s all going to be painted “lady Penelope” which is the same colour as her car in thunderbirds which I’m really excited to see! Those frames were meant to be loft hatch frames, but are now the start of a bench seat we’ll be putting there, with shoe storage underneath and above the cladding we’ll be making a shelf for baskets of hats and gloves.

@PeteJChurchill thank you, it really does feel like even though there’s still a long way to go that it will be habitable soon. It is pretty mild here just now indeed, which, although great for now, is pretty concerning generally.. it can be so changeable though that we’ve already had weeks that feel very much like winter too.

We’re still cracking on, painting and oiling skirtings and finishings and cleaning off rooms now we can close doors to keep the dust out. We started on tiling one of the bathroom walls too. I love these tiles as they really look quite convincing. Quite a dark wood, but it’ll be a white ceiling and the wall facing it will be light blue tiles up to window height and white above which should balance it out a bit.

We got the porch stone delivered yesterday too, 17 tonnes.. that’s going to be a tough couple weeks organising, cutting and getting that up..

Got to show my folks some northern lights last night and the weather was great today so gave them the day off so we could have some nice wee strolls together

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.

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..

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.

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..

Lovely, glws!! If you’re willing to let go of those pink gks please let me know, cheers.

@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

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.

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..)

Been a few difficult days with things just not quite working as they should. Folk came in to fit the stove and have just covered the outside flashing in screws which don’t look so pretty, but, aesthetics aside, it took me a minute to notice but they’ve left the ply they used to position the stove on the hearth underneath the legs.. everything is all sealed up, but will need to drop by 11mm so don’t quite know how that’s going to happen. I’ve put it back to them and expect to hear back today.

I also thought I was done with cutting stone, but we’ve had to take some out in the bathroom as I thought the edge of the slab we tiled to was where the shower tray would sit. Turns out it’s 10mm further so we’ve lifted them and I’ll cut and lay new ones to sit flush. Also going to run a 100mm strip of tile underneath those metal heatshields behind the stove as skirting can’t go there..

I also contacted the builder to make sure when the water connection happens there’s a stopcock or something in place. Thank fuck I messaged him as he’d forgotten to put stop caps on so water would have flooded into both buildings as soon as the connection happened..

My partner’s health is getting worse, I’m sleeping poorly on a couch, work is intensely busy at the moment and I just do not have the time or energy to be chasing up professionals to make sure they’re actually doing their job..

On the plus side the joiner is back and he’s at least one safe pair of hands. He’s fitting internal doors just now and it’s making it feel a lot more homely.

Jake with the digger showed up yesterday as well because he had to start a new job on Monday. Didn’t quite know what to expect when that part was finished, but this seems like it’ll be the finished groundworks for the moment once the last of it has been packed down.

Those works being done is going to let me order the stone for getting the porch on soon as as the weather up here is definitely turning. Despite what the photos show, it’s been really windy and very wet recently.

Last wee edge bits of the floor done and everything else has been mopped and scrubbed to a point I’m happy with before the joiner and folk come back in and walk over it anyway. The pitting on the tiles caught a lot of the grout and even with the sealant being on it made for a time consuming and difficult clean.. Only part left to do is a tiny wee bit of grouting on either side of the utility room where all the worktops and shower screen are currently sitting. That can happen once they’re moved and then what felt like the never ending saga of tiling the floor is done, although.. that means bathroom wall tiling can begin..

Perfect, thanks very much, and really good to hear from someone with experience. I’ll pass that on to the sparky and see if he reckons that could work. It’s a bit above my pay grade, but from my understanding it’s controlling when the heat pump tries to draw power so it doesn’t just keep draining the system trying to start when we’re just building up our battery storage after running out.

The continuation of groundworks and the mains water exposed. Nice to see the ground level coming up. Scottish water coming for the connection on Friday.

I think our cat is going to love it! Going to make it a pain in the arse for cleaning up all the fibres, but a small price to pay.

There’s still the big pile of dirt below the wastewater treatment plant that they won’t be able to reach until the spring but they levelled off the pile right behind the house. That’s the drainage in and they’re going to be working on the water connection today. Because we’re off grid they’re also going to bury a half sheet of concrete reinforcement mesh north of the workshop to act as an earth for the system too.

Honestly, I really like it! I might need you to help with mine as I have no idea of a layout for our workshop. Hard for it not to end up a dumping ground without all the plastic cases for individual tools but I think you’ve managed it really nicely.

That wee light is great too, is it motion sensor or just a kind of tap or push for on/off?

Haha very true! I must trust the joiners as I didn’t even think to check how many solar panels were left when the winds passed.. definitely was a tough one but trying to keep upbeat and told my partner that if a while ago I was told I’d be spending an anniversary with her scrubbing the house we were building I’d have signed up instantly!

Yeah, we had hoped for end of this month, but with the sparky being on holiday and the heat pump not being quite sorted we’re hoping for next month..

@crossedthread let me get the snagging done first so you’re not inconvenienced!

@ChainBreaker no not yet but living in the house beside the field you can see in some of the photos. Can see our house build from our kitchen window. It’s not the greatest place (no central heating and a plug in job etc, but will do for now.

I will do, it can be really powerful outside and watching from there is going to be pretty great. With the wind and rain it can sometimes seem like there’s someone just out of shot just throwing buckets of water..

They popped back after dinner last night to get the chips into the trenches as is meant to be heavy rain again this morning and any dirt falling back in isn’t an issue if the pipes and chips are down already.

End of the photo dump, After a few brutal rainy days it got pretty this afternoon..

Drainage works

some more of the floor progress and scaffolding down

That’s really useful, thank you. There’s white mdf windowsills going in too so hoping that will lift it a wee bit. Really tempted to find a bit of live edge to use for a few of the windowsills though.. Sorry, I’m not up on this at all, is that bulb temperature?

@spotter we went with a natural coir one from here;
https://www.commercial-matting.net/ seems tough and like it will last a while, but I would consider going for the synthetic if I was to buy again because this feels like it may molt a lot..

Bit of a photo dump upcoming, had some really good things and really frustrating things happen over the last few days but keeping on keeping on, we’re almost there..

Render finally arrived and went on the final gable on Thursday, and then slipped off when 60mph winds and really heavy rains arrived Friday, spent our anniversary up scaffolding in wind and rain scraping the last of it off, bit of a blow that..

However, yesterday the digger showed up and fortunately did the stuff in the lower bit of the field first, we had a ton of rain forecast overnight and he said that would have been just boggy and unmanageable this morning. They spent today working their way up the hill and digging the waste and drainage around the house!

Joiner has been stuck fixing a family barn but says he’ll be back as soon as he can. He showed up Monday to get the barge boards in and the scaffolding down for the drainage starting today.

I’ve just been continually sealing tiles or grouting, or scrubbing grout or mopping with any time I’ve had. It’s very close to done though!

Have had a couple positive chats, but, no concrete answer from the grant technical team about how the heat pump can be controlled or managed in an off grid system. They seem to think it should be manageable and I found out it can be controlled by hive or nest so there must be a way to, somehow..?

Yeah I’ve had a soft spot for them for years, went to ailsa Craig one time and one followed the boat back pretty much the whole way.
Like you say, I’m living hopefully, but all the figures suggest the decline is going to continue, I get really choked up and melancholy seeing them in flight now.

Haha, definitely not calming, but we’re getting there! Almost done with the grouting and scrubbing now and will be able to move the piles of skirting tomorrow to finish off the bit around the stove and along the back wall.

There was a gap in the weather and the render arrived so that’s the outside almost finished apart from around windows. The digger should be out for the groundworks next week which will let me get the stone ordered for building the porch too.

Also, a friend dropped this off for me, 50 years later and still kind of trailblazing as we pillage for more gas and oil instead..

Thanks very much, it’s feeling more like a home inside with the floor coming together. Here’s a sketch we’d done years ago which kind of shows it. We’re going to have a few spotlights above the worktops on the wall side of the kitchen and a wall mounted light the other side of the door into the porch, a bit of driftwood with 3 or 4 bulbs on cables wrapped around it hanging above the lid of islandy worktop, two big lights up in the vaulted space and some up and down lighters on the walls in the middle of each gable so hoping we should have enough different lighting ambiences for the different weathers. We’re just going with recessed spotlights in the bedroom and bathroom and just a standard pendant light in the utility, office and porch. The big lights we’re making from whisky barrel staves which I think will project a really nice shadow

Actually got callouses on my knees from all the kneeling over the past few weeks but almost there..

Oh wow, if I can ever have a space half as good as this I’ll be happy, really nice work!