Sudden Branch Drop

In the middle of last week (just before all these storms broke) I was in my workshop when I heard a massive crash and bang, I rushed outside and saw three very scared children running for the house. 

They had just been 20m away from this giant oak tree picking berries when a huge branch had suddenly dropped from the tree. Luckily far enough away from it to not get hurt but close enough to scare them! This sudden branch drop is quite common during times of drought with broad leaf trees. 

My Brothers Porch

A few weekends ago I finally got round to putting the porch up that I've made for my brothers new house. 

I'd made the truss up a few months ago so it was great to get it up and into place.

Oak Floor In Manchester

What a busy weekend! 

I'm sure as many of you know I don't like to leave the village unless I have to (managed 6 weeks without leaving it last year at one point).

But sometimes I do - mainly for family. I visit my parents farm quite often, but I'm not so great at going to see my sister who lives in Manchester. She's great at seeing us and spending time with the kids and I'm terrible at going back up there. It is a three hour drive though but I still feel guilty.

With her partner, they've just bought a house and are in the process of doing it up. One area that's having a complete overhaul is the living room, and one thing they really want is an oak floor to set it off.

Making A Huge Desk!

So even though I've been busy with everything else around here (trying to finish the extension etc) I took on a large commission a few weeks ago. 

It was to help create a new music studio for a customer. There was a list of jobs that needed doing, construct a ceiling, lay a floor, fit a soundproof door, build a massive 3.5m horse shoe shaped oak desk...

Fitted Oak Cabinets - A Shameless Plug

I finished fitting some oak cabinets I'd made for a customer last night, they were really pleased with the results and so was I, so I thought I'd put them on here as well as my other blog.

It's been tricky to fit this in around looking after the children, with late nights planeing and gluing up boards plus a few Saturdays on site fitting it all. Making everything myself from scratch takes longer but at least I have no one else to rely on and I can guarantee that I'm going to be at the customers house when I say I am (something that's very important to me).

The finished job

The space to begin with

The TV unit before oiling

All finished ready for some oil

Left hand unit oiled up

It really changes the feel of the room

I'm sorry that this isn't a post on my usual self sufficiency type thing, but I thought that as this is my part time income that helps support us I think it's interesting to show what I do.

If you want to see how I constructed this in more detail then take a look at my other blog for more photos.

Thanks for looking!

The Man In The Oak Tree

I was sat under one of our old oak trees at the weekend.

When I looked up I decided that it's "face" didn't look to happy!

This is a beautiful old tree and I'm fairly sure it's hollow all the way down. I must climb it one day, or get my brother to! We are lucky to have such interesting trees on our land, this old oak is slowly dieing as it's hundreds of years are drawing to a close, maybe we will be it's last custodian or maybe it will out live me yet. 

Can everyone else see the face or am I just being odd?



P.S Sorry to the person who posted on this when blogger put it up too soon the other day - I seem to have lost your comment.

Floating Oak Mantle Piece

A picture heavy post sorry and one repeated from my other blog.
This is our own mantle piece in our living room. It's been on my "to-do" list for quite some time!
Who says the clobbers children go bare foot! They just have to do without for a little while!

The top of our fireplace looked like this all winter, so it was time to make it look a little neater!

Plywood template made up the exact same size as the oak.
This is so holes could be accurately drilled and match up between the wall and the piece of oak

Fixing the template to the wall. Making sure it's level

The stainless steel threaded bar fixed into the wall. The holes behind are a couple of mil bigger to allow for the resin to fix the bar. 

Using a template in this way means that the bar will be in exactly the right place. I used the nut to make sure it was the right distance out from the wall.

The three pieces of threaded bar resined into the wall. The middle one is purely to locate the oak and to stop it from warping.

The underside of the two ends.
The oak is then tighten to the wall making it very strong. This hole will eventually be filled with a Walnut plug for a contrast - If you can't hide something then make a feature of it!

A good spanner had to die to fix it though, as a normal one wouldn't fit in the hole! 

The finished mantle piece

The mantle piece looks quite modern but, in my opinion, goes well with our fireplace, giving it a good mix of the traditional materials with the sharp lines of the rest the fireplace.

Our Oak Floor "Investment"

When we fitted our oak floor last year I'm sure to some people thought that it was a little extravagant to people that preach about frugality, but to us it was an investment.

And looking back on it six months later I can safely say that it was a good investment.

If we had fitted a new carpet instead then we would be replacing it again about now. We have a very lovely baby that is sick a lot (for the first four months she'd be sick at least 4 times a day) and a very messy two year old, between them they could wreck a carpet in a little under a day.

There are some disadvantages to having wooden floors. They're harder if you slip, fall or drop something (our two year finds this out quite often (the slipping and falling - not being dropped!)). And although a wooden floor is easier to clean it need to be done more often and it never feels as cosy under your toes as a carpet (we all wear slippers all the time so don't notice this one).

For me, having an oak floor was an easier decision to make. Being a carpenter I can fit it for nothing, this reduced the price to the point where it was only going to be an extra £500 pounds for oak compared to having a good quality carpet and underlay fitted, this also meant that it was within our budget for the room. Another advantage was that as I fitted a solid oak floor, rather than a laminate, if the finish is ever looking a little tired, scratched or worn I can just sand it all back and completely refinish it saving even more costs in the future.

I think in our situation we made the right choice with the floor and although it was expensive at the time it will be here for a lot longer than a carpet or a laminate substitute, meaning that over time it will save us a lot more than it cost us.

Anyone else made an investment that someone else thought was a bit of an extravagance?

The Price Of Timber

As a carpenter I have to buy a lot of timber and it's more expensive than you think.

This little lot of wood in the picture above was the best part of £300, although it is oak and planned to size for me, some for a job in the next village and some for our house.

So my message for this post is that if you have a tree that you think you could plank, make sure you do rather than cutting it for firewood. Even if you sell the timber once it's done the value will be much higher than firewood.

On a axe workshop and chainsaw milling course a few years ago

Although it seems expensive to get someone in to plank it with a mobile mill it works out to be a good investment once you've left it to dry for a few years. Also this way it can normally be milled on site and then each piece is easier to move meaning there is no need for big machinery. There are hundreds of varieties of trees that make great timber with lots of uses; like Larch for cladding or Ash for furniture, the list just goes on and on.

Has anyone else milled their own timber and gotten good results? There are no trees here that would make good timber so I'll have to keep buying mine for now!

Living Room Renovtion 5 - We're In!

It's not a 100% finished but we can use the living room again and the baby's not here yet so I've hit my deadline!

Floor finished, skirting's on and fireplace done!

 The last week has seen me put in some long hours again but the result is a finish on the floor that I'm really proud of. Friday night I had to leave an industrial fan running all night so it was dry enough so I could work on it the following morning - like living in a wind tunnel for 12 hours!
Saturday was spent putting on the skirting and architraves as well as giving them a lick of paint. Then today I've been painting again giving everything it's final coat before we put the furniture back in.


Furniture storage - farmer style!
Less than ideal but it seems to have done the job!

 Our storage for the furniture for the last couple of months has been a little worrying to say the least - A stock box with the vents taped up. I wasn't sure what we were going to find, whether everything was going to be mouldy or not. Luckily our old sofa and bits and bobs were fine (besides having a few dozen butterflies wake up when we brought it all in the warm - they must have been hibernating under the seats)


Still some bits of trim needed and a mantle piece over the fire but usable as it is.

 I'm really pleased with our fireplace and although I've got to find a mantle piece for it (or make one probably) I'm glad we spent the extra and went for a high efficiency stove. In the long run it should pay us back and it will make our living room extra cosy on cold winter nights

Furniture in - it all feels a little too posh for us (exccept our old three piece suite)!

It all feels very posh.
We need to get a couple of rugs and and put pictures back on the walls and then it will feel a bit more like our own. Also I've no doubt that when I get back tomorrow night from work it will feel like ours as our little girl will have moved all her toys in and I'll be lucky to find somewhere to sit!

Crash

Last night at about 11 o'clock I think I crashed!

I did some painting, got the floor filled and ready for sanding but that was as much as I could do, my energy levels were too low! An hour a day seems to have gone out of the window at the moment!

Crash land

I had to do the wimps thing today and not go to work (the one advantage of being self employed). This was so I could sand and stain the floor ready for adding the top two coats of oil tonight. Unfortunately the coat of stain hasn't gone off yet (hence why I'm on my blog) this means to get two coats on tomorrow I've got to get up very early, say four o'clock, as it takes two hours to get a coat on and I need to leave for work by half six. I might seem a little grumpy tomorrow!

Living Room Renovation 4

This last week has involved some late nights and a very tired Kev. The end is in sight though.

I managed to get the ceilings finished painted, some more plastering done (in the hallway this time). The slate slabs cut and laid for the fireplace (these look really good now I've sealed them) and this weekend one of my best mates, Andy, came over to help me lay the oak floor.
He is, in fact, the guy that trained me to be a carpenter. We worked together for 5 years whilst I learnt the ability to earn a living from my hands. We had a great time working together and when I set off to work on my own he even sent me divorce papers through, as we used to joke that we spent far more time together than either of us did with our wives. I owe this man so much and yet he's always still helping me.
Unfortunately we didn't manage to finish putting the floor down as we run out of adhesive but I should get the rest down tomorrow night, as well as the step by the patio door.
I'm aiming to have it all finished by the weekend but that means this week I've got to stain the floor, clear oil it at least twice, fit all the skirting and architrave, fill it, paint it, get the bricks round the chimney rendered, paint the "feature wall", fit the stove, curtain poles, sockets connected -  there still seems to be plenty to go at!
Hopefully I'll be back doing more smallholder type post soon and catching up on every ones blogs!

Trying To Preserve Our Old Oak Trees

On our little 5 acre patch we've got nine large oak trees. Four of these are huge and none have had any work done to them in a long time.

The large branch on the left is the one with a split right up the middle

Separating two of our fields are three of the biggest oaks which are quite beautiful. The middle of these has a long branch that is split right down the middle, the branch itself is the size of a tree and I was worried that if it breaks it might rip a big section of the trunk out with it.



Roping in

 So I called an the expert. My expert! It's quite handy having a brother who is a fully trained tree surgeon. He decided that I was right and the branch needed some work on it but to remove the whole thing would make the tree unbalanced, So instead he removed the last 25ft or so.


Spot the brother

I'm under no illusions here, although I'm fine with heights, there is no way you could get me up there wielding a chainsaw!

An April morning up a tree

A much lighter branch a few weeks on

 He did a really good job and having the weight removed from the branch seems to have made it much better. Hopefully now when it's in full leaf it won't catch the wind the same and it should last a few more years!

Some firewood into the bargain

All I've got to do now is burn the brash and split the firewood! If we can do a little bit of work like this every year then we should make these old oaks last a lot longer and provide the material for keeping us warm over winter!