Project Cubby House

I wouldn't say Dr B is one for DIY, especially not 'outside' DIY involving sharp sand and other really boring products that come in polythene bags. I was desperate for a wooden playhouse in the last house (yes, me, not the kids) but I knew we'd be moving on and didn't want the hassle of taking it apart so it's waited until now. We had a huge corner of the garden hidden behind a crab apple tree that had seen better days, so Dr B lopped the tree and cleared the bushes and...called his brother.

The patio took them three days to construct and was formed partly from flags donated by my friend Jo, who was ripping hers up. In return I'm donating our old plastic playhouse for her son - perfect example of freecycling, I'd say.

The playhouse arrived today - we bought it on e-bay but couldn't pin the seller down to confirm delivery so I was a bit taken aback when it arrived this afternoon and even more taken aback when they expected cash on delivery, which they didn't get. The girls seem to like it. And I see a perfect getaway from the builders.

Brick Matching

So the planning permission was granted. Of course, these things are never as simple as they sound and planning permission rarely comes without conditions attached; you must start the project within three years, you can't add any windows at the side - that sort of thing.

In our case, there's a condition about the bricks. We can't start the project until the planning officer is satisfied with the brick match for the front elevations, which presumably means we have to go into the planning office and show him the actual bricks we'll be using. We could always recycle the ones from the garage - there's enough of them - but the cleaning and removing of mortar will cost more than it would cost to source new ones.

I was home today when the brick matching man came to look at the house. He'd been sent by Carl the builder, who was sitting at our table last night firming up the finer details before we decided to commission him. We e-mailed him to offer the contract this morning and within two hours he had the brick man round. The brick man's called Aiden and he spents his life identifying the differences between buffs and greys, reds and browns. In our case, it's a purple.

'They're a bugger to match,' he comments. 'Give me an older house any day - anything less than fifty years old and the bricks will be discontinued. In your case you have one choice - I'll bring you a smple board and hopefully you'll like them.'

'One choice. Is that an actual choice?'

'Well, you know what I mean.'

Elevations - The Rear

And then there's the back. Yes, it's WIDE isn't it? That was the first thing I said to the architect when he drew the plans, but the house at the back can't see it and I've got used to it now.

You'll notice the side extension is slightly lower at roof height - this is purely to satisfy the planners, as you know. Of course they wanted us to abandon the side extension and build across the back.

The floor to ceiling windows will actually be bi-fold doors (we think). The far left hand window is a playroom off the family room.

We were mulling the plans over last night and I noticed we won't be able to ventilate this room if it's raining - velux windows and bi-fold doors offering no shelter from the rain at all. there's a sliding patio door round the corner that you can't see on the plans - same problem.

Haven't found solution yet but we will.

Elevation - The front

Now we have planning permission, I can show you how the house is going to look. The huge amount of potential space for a side extension is probably now apparent - imagine if we'd built to the planner's suggestion of knocking down the porch instead....

From the front you'll notice the cedar wood cladding removed and replaced with smooth render. The windows are replaced, the garage is demolished and rebuilt as a longer and wider structure with that highly contentious first floor extension jutting out by a metre above it (the two windows there are bathrooms). The porch is re-glazed and has a new pitched roof and oak door. There's also only one chimney stack where currently there are two.

The garage door won't look like that - it will be smooth and operated by remote control - have glorious visions of self driving into it during snowstorms and entering house through the utility room, where muddy boots can be deposited...

Our Kitchens

I've probably never shown you the difference between the house we left and the house we bought. The kitchen illustrates our pain. We built that kitchen ourselves, so we know we can do it again, but like the damp-proofing, I've largely forgotten the pain.

Our lovely fridge wouldn't fit into the new kitchen so it's been relegated to the garage. The beer fridge from the garage is now standing in pride of place in the kitchen. That's not the law of nature is it?

I don't know how old that dishwasher is but we also inherited the manual, which depicted a lady with a bee-hive hairdo displaying her finest earthenware goods. They apparently only used it at Christmas, which means it saw 11 years use in the first fortnight we were in the house. After that it died and we got a new one from e-bay for £6. The new one belonged to a Chinese bloke who was emigrating to Australia. He'd managed to melt the side of the dishwasher on his cooker until it looked like Freddie Kruger's favorite kitchen appliance. That's why it was £6.

Our loss is Australia's gain.

Aerial View

This is how we currently channel our TV pictures - it's an attractive feature of the windowledge in the main bedroom. I think Noah built it with the left over wiring from his ark. The original owner of our house was an engineer - we find his stamp all over the place.

Damp Proofed

I neglected to mention our damp-proofing, probably because it happened four days after we moved into the house and I didn't have an internet connection, let alone a blog.

On reflection, it wasn't the wisest move when you've just moved house. Damp proofing is a messy job - we'd done it in our old house 13 years previously but 13 years is long enough to numb the pain. This is the 'dining room' by the way. We don't use it as a dining room, we eat in a corner of the sitting room because the kids have colonised it. One day soon it will be a study, and a dry one at that.

On reflection, it