Whittakers Abroad: Plans and progress

Plans

I've just realised that the only plans we've posted on the blog are the first set we had drawn up, which were designed by an architect. As you may already know, we had to abandon the original design because it would have been too expensive to pay someone to build it for us, and too difficult for us to attempt ourselves as first-time builders.

So here, at last, are the plans of the house we're actually building! Iain and I decided on the layout together, and I produced detailed sketches which Phil (our tame architect) then transformed into proper plans that would cut it with the planning department. Not so much Grand Designs, more like The Playschool School of Architecture ('Which window will it be today?'- the square window!)

The floor plan

After my friend Melissa and her son Nikko came to visit us on site, Nikko expressed concern that the bedroom might be too small for our bed. I can assure Nikko (and anyone else who's wondering the same thing) that the bedroom is big enough for the bed, but that fitting anything else in the room once the bed is in (such as a person, for instance) might be a bit of a tall order. There's a reason why the bedroom door slides into the wall rather than opening inwards like a normal door.

The sitting room's not a bad size; in fact, it's bigger than the sitting room in any of the houses we've lived in since we got married. The kitchen is compact, but no smaller than the kitchen of the rental we're in at the moment, and that's plenty big enough for us.

We're not bothered about the size of the rooms, but there are a couple of things we think will take a bit of getting used to. Firstly, the lack of storage (there's just one small cupboard in the entire house) and secondly the fact that we've effectively only got one usable room, so we can't get away from each other very easily. Still, there's a whole lot of outdoors to escape to!

A view of the cabin from the front

Here's a view of the front of the cabin. At the moment we're thinking of painting the cladding red and having a green roof. There are lots of north-facing windows (the equivalent of south-facing windows for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere) so the interior should get plenty of light, but the veranda will keep out direct sun, which should keep the house nice and cool in summer. Both rooms have sliding doors out onto the veranda. We're planning on extending part of the deck a couple of metres past the veranda, so we've got a nice outdoor living and entertaining area.

Progress

At long last, we've completed the wall framing, which is quite a milestone! It's taken us six weeks to do what a team of builders could have accomplished in a couple of days, but we're chuffed to bits about what we've achieved so far. It will take us as long as it takes us, and fretting about how slow we are won't help us to finish any faster.

The two photos below show us both in action, nailing the ribbon plate onto the top of the external walls. We're using clamps to make sure the ribbon plate is flush with the outside of the top plate.

Iain shows off not only his hammering skills but also his double chin

I prove that hammers and double chins are not just for blokes

After we'd nailed the ribbon plate down we had to secure it to each stud with a wire dog. The wire dogs require a lot of force to drive in, and I wasn't getting anywhere with an ordinary hammer, so I used a lump hammer instead. Every ten minutes or so I had to take a 'pathetic girly' break because my arm was aching so much.