more wood…

 

We just love this wood… big thanks to Russ and Neil.

Got wood

Well for the last week we have been playing with our wood from Traditional Oak

Neil, founder/owner of Traditional Oak, delivered the oak in person, bright and early on the Monday with a trailer on the back of his Discovery. After all the time with the wet trades of lime mortars and concrete bases it was great to see something with grain. Before Neil had even finished the porridge Vicky made him,  John and Ian (our new apprentice) had started unloading, and the enthusiasm hasn’t waned since.

There is something special working with such beautiful wood… the smell, the textures, and of course the promise of the finished traditional ceiling.

Traditional Oak were great at every stage of the order and we are now going to use them for much more, including oak farmhouse doors, facias, and possibly even for the timber frame for the extension.

Of course there are always learning points – these are ours…

• Specify your tolerance on sizing. Sounds obvious but we forgot and a variance of +/- 10mm between beams means that every pad had to be individually levelled rather than running to a standard around the room. If you want to get pads in before hand then you need to specify +/- 2mm or your floor just wont be level enough.
• Moisture levels. Our oak is great, looks lovely, BUT it seems a bit moist… we would recommend agreeing a moisture level.
• Sanded finish: if you go for a sanded finish then agree the standard of that too… ours was fine but it was not to a level where we could not bother sanding it further… make sure you have a heavy weight sander ready for tidying it up… it’s tough stuff so you  are going to have to start really coarse before you can even think about 100+ grits.
• Routing: good router bits pay dividends and keep going where others overheat and lose their edge. The best ones we found were the diamond tip ones from Axminster Tools

     

The Search for Stable Oak

A few weeks ago we began our search for stable oak that we could use to put in a traditional exposed oak beam and joist floor. We decided that this style would be used in both of the traditional barns, taking our queue from the style in the main  farm house. Sadly that structure is not salvageable due to the huge deflections in the beams, but we felt it was appropriate that we recreate this and both restore and enhance the character of the traditional buildings.

After consulting with our structural engineer, measuring once, twice, thrice, we ended up with an oak cut list for THA and THB oak. With deflection being an issue and stability being of the highest importance we could not risk using green structural oak… and so our search began for the most stable and costs effective oak supply in the UK. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to believe we actually achieved that, but we are very happy with the result.

After much deliberation and clarifications we chose to go with the father/son team of Neil and Russell Traditional Oak and Timber Company. Not only were the prices competitive but the oak is dried for 5-8 years and delivered within 10-14 days. Having dealt with Russell primarily we finalised things with his father Neil whilst Russell went off on honeymoon. Neil closed the deal with honesty and a friendly supportive service, and whilst the oak is yet to be delivered we all have a strong feeling that this was the right decision and their Normandy oak will become one of the important features of the property.

Cob, stone, lintels and secret passageways…

One of the features of the Playroom we are currently working on is a secret passageway within which is a “window seat” from which you can look into the room through the eyes of a painting… we wanted to create some unexpected surprises and encourage “play”. Entry to the passage will be by opening a book case… mechanism likely to be the cliché of pulling the spine of a book!

Right now John has been suring up the walls and now adding the pads and lintels to support the cob above. The stone coming out has also been invaluable in filling gaps and supplying some large chunks for the underpinning in one corner.

     

Lime happy

Well we got our first delivery from Mike Wye today which put a smile on everyone's faces. This felt like the first constructive task after so much deconstruction… John immediately got into some pointing and it just felt, smelt and looked right, natural. The 3T delivery vehicle was perfect for our small lanes and allowed the 1st lot of product to be dropped nice and close to the building.

 

Secret passageway

Well aside form the frightening bits of the foundations we are now starting to get an idea of how much fun the building will be when finished. One of the features is a secret passageway for kids to play in and surprise people from… complete with bookcase door.

Here John measures up for the pillar and beams whilst I am scrutinising the plans.

 

Stone the cobs…