A little bit about the origins of the house.....

Our house was built in 1968 and designed by Eirikur Walton of Brown and Buttrick Architects from Scunthorpe.  Eirikur was clearly influenced by the clean lines of modernist design and, whilst watching a programme on Sky Arts this weekend, my attention was drawn to two houses that share a lot in common with our home.  These two houses are now managed by the National Trust and as such can be visited. Personally, I love this style and these houses, built in the 1930s, were referenced in 1960s when modernism was revisited and our house was designed.

So for all of you who are interested in great design there are plenty of great books about this movement and just a quick trawl on Amazon comes up with examples like these if you want to find out more.

 

Some examples of 1960s modernism here - the first is owned by Leonardo di Caprio I think!  The website Houzz is a good place to look to contemporary interpretations of this style too.

  

The two 1930s houses are

2 Willow Road - designed by one of the most influential figures in the modernist movement Erno Goldfinger.

The use of large windows, wood panelling and framing and wood flooring is very much in evidence in our house.

We have inset fireplaces like this but set into a brick feature chimney breast rather than the sleek white one here

  
The pictures to the right and below are of our house before we moved in and in its unrenovated state.  I think you can see the modernist influences at work here.  Wood panelling, wood floors, open tread staircase etc.

The Homewood by Patrick Gywnne

Exterior and gardens at The Homewood

These huge windows with their sheer light curtain treatment will be a little like the windows in the garden room here. - i think I will try to do our curtains like this - maybe in a natural lightweight linen.

Patrick Gywnne used fitted furniture throughout and designed every detail of the house. - much like Eirikur Walton with this house.  We even have a secret coat cupboard in the dining hall, use of different woods and fitted cupboards in many of the rooms.

One of the bathrooms at The Homewood with a vanity unit that bears no small resemblance to one one in our bedroom - below.  Patrick Gywnne designed it to be hidden away behind sliding doors, a great idea.

Hopefully.. without sounding too pretentious - the garden room extension we have commissioned from Century Architects is taking some inspiration from another iconic early modernist building by the architect Mies van de Rohe - The Barcelona Pavilion (without the water - sadly!!) .   Pic below so as it takes shape we will see if you can see what we are aiming for!! You can also see why the current fascia board in our project has turned out too deep to achieve the elegant horizontal lines that we want to achieve.

Artist's impression of our house with garden room extension to the left.

 

Timber framing continues and just a few problems to deal with.......

This update is a little later than I intended but I have been ill this week and not being very active.  However.... work has been going on apace in the joiners' workshop (soon to be garden room!) 

timber framing under way in the garden room extension

The original plan was to have structural insulated panels (SIPs) made off site and brought to be erected when complete.  However, what we are actually doing is making the panels on site.  The crane is booked for Tuesday 1st December to lift them all into place - that should make for some brilliant pictures - and the flat roof of the carport and service rooms at the back of the house is being prepared to take them. 

These wooden frames will be clad in board and packed with lots of insulation.The two largest panels are having to be made outside.  They will form the two ends of the new bedroom at the back of the house.

One of these two large panels forms the first floor wall to the left of this elevation (clad externally in vertical larch) with the lovely big window. The other mirrors it on the other side (not visible on this picture)

Using timber panels works really well because we are building over an existing ground floor structure.  these panels are much lighter than a brick or block construction and so we haven't had to strengthen the foundations at all. 

Now, it would be a strange project if everything was going fine with no setbacks - and I cannot lie - we do have some!  The first problem we have is that the fascia board on the garden room has turned out too deep and we are looking at ways of getting it reduced down by about 6 inches to give a more streamlined elegant finish - less shopfront!  (you can see this problem in the photos on the blog post The Big Reveal)  The second can be easily seen today as it rained hard last night and we have buckets set up all through the back passageways and service rooms catching water drips!!  The water is coming through where the flat roof is being prepared for the timber panels to be erected.  The original roof covering has been cut through for these preparations and water being water it finds its way in anywhere it can.   So, buckets are out all over the place and the electrician might be needed on Monday (these things always happen at a weekend don't they)  as some of the circuits are tripping out.  

Meanwhile I am still busy researching details like lighting - my copper pendant lights for the kitchen have arrived from Pooky.com and are lovely. 

External lighting is next on my list.  We are still getting quotes for the wood burning stove as they seem to differ wildly and I have to finalise the bathrooms this week! 

The big reveal....

Well, the first of many reveals actually, as the scaffolding comes down on the garden room extension and we can get a feel for what it will look like. The scaffolding will have to go up again at a later date for cladding, roofing and windows but for the time being the lovely new room is revealed. 

Above you can see what we are aiming for and where we are now - taking shape!!

This room is now having a temporary lease of life as a joiners workshop as the roof has been made waterproof and the SIPs for the first floor extension are being made on site in here. Soon it will be busy, busy as all this wood starts to be worked. 

This is a huge job but luckily we have some great joiners on the task and the plans look like this! - I'm glad it's not me having to sort this out. 

Plans for the first floor extension which is to be built out of timber framed panels (much lighter on top of the existing carport and garage

Looking at the garden room from the front entrance

Placing orders - this is the serious bit!

All those decisions we have been making in the last few weeks are now getting serious and turning into orders.  That means deposits to be paid and, in some case, full payment because items are for immediate delivery.  The budget is constantly monitored and updated as even minor changes can have unplanned financial implications.  

This also gives us storage headaches as we still have huge numbers of removal boxes yet to be unpacked (by the time this is finished some things will have been in boxes for 2 years!)  So we seem to be living in a gradually decreasing space and constantly moving things around to squeeze in materials, fixtures and fittings.

The biggest single item is the windows and these have now been ordered - long delivery time on these with delivery February 2016 and I believe they are being made in Poland.  The windows have been ordered through Olsen Doors and Windows based near Newark and they have been really helpful.  They are aluminium outside, triple glazed and wood inside so should look spectacular (from inside and out) and they should give us a really light, tight, warm home.  LINK HERE to the product.

The mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system will also be ordered shortly for immediate delivery.  This is coming from CVC direct who I first met some years ago a Grand Designs Live! Items for the two bathroom refits are also in the process of being ordered.  

So what progress have we been making on the build?  Well - the garden room roof continues and my next update at the weekend should have a good picture it the scaffolding removed.  

Garden room roof joists - these are now boarded over and about to be covered with waterproof membrane.

Inside the house we have been renovating some of the original 1960s features - remember our mantra is re-use, recycle, reduce!  There is some lovely wood throughout the house and this is being brought back to life using some magic stuff called Bald's Furniture Balm.  It smells gorgeous and the wood soaks it up and glows once it has been applied - it gets rid of marks and scratches too!

This original vanity unit has been restored with a new basin, LED lighting and a clean bright white finish

original wardrobes brought back to a gleam with Bald's Furniture Balm

Finally you just must have a blast of this soon to be removed carpet - it will have new life under the butyl liner of our pond but those 60s colours!!!!

  

Let there be light!

This week in the foggy weather it seemed like a good idea to think about lighting.  More of those decisions I mentioned in an earlier blog post!!

We are going over to LED lighting in the house, and all the new lighting we put in will also be LED, because of their low energy consumption.  There are many different bulb options available now and many ranges of lighting including bathroom fittings so I have been able to find LED options for all the lighting for the bathrooms.  The house has some great existing fittings which I intend to keep and renovate - including these beauties - already fitted with their LED bulbs. 

This one just needs respraying with copper paint and will hang over the kitchen table

There are 4 of these in the lounge

...but we need to add to this and keep the 60s feel.  

As copper seems to be in fashion at the moment, as it was in the 1960s, and that brilliant kitchen light is copper I am going to have 3 of these lights (below) over the island in the kitchen as task lighting - with LED bulbs of course. They are from pooky.com

I am also looking at this copper and glass shade for the three light fittings on the upstairs landing

 and I have found gorgeous copper ceiling roses from enamelshades.co.uk 

Finally I there is a shop in Greenwich that we visited on a recent trip to London that has the most fabulous and unusual lamp shades - this one will be on its way for a lamp in the new garden room courtesy of Lush Designs .

   

I should add that there are lots of wonderfully creative people selling lampshades through websites like Not on the High Street,  Etsy and social media - checkout http://www.facebook.com/laluzlampshades  

   

So plenty of brilliant light to cheer up the damp and foggy autumn weather!