Welcome to our blog.

This blog will follow the ultimate in home improvement: demolish and rebuild!

This is our starting point: a 1930s bungalow. While not a bad house; it is too small for us with three teenage children so what should we do? A full storey extension versus complete rebuild - ultimately the stronger eco-credentials and more certain finances of a new-build helped to guide our choice.

For a number of years we've been trying to find the right route for us to build an eco-friendly, low energy home. We tried various architects and building companies and have eventually settled with a German prefabricated build. The new house will be nearly to passivhaus standards (but not quite due to budget constraints). In any case, the house will be heavily insulated and airtight.

As a family, we have not built a house before so everything is new and exciting but the risk of making a mess of things is quite high!

This blog aims to outline the day to day steps involved in our build.

Monday 6 December 2010

Pimp my garden

Finally, it's pimp my garden time.

It looks like it was a quick process but far from it, there have been days of preparation to get to this point. Tonnes of type1 stone have been whackered down all around the house. Phil has spent days getting the paving slabs in just the right places and in the best orientation to lay our garden path, getting the front path just right - and all of this in near freezing temperatures. I had a couple of hairy moments driving some the extra slabs back from the builders' merchants to our house on the dual carriage way.... but now the final stages are taking place.

As usual, Phil is trying to hide that digger behind the trees again, too late, I think the neighbours have noticed.



 Meanwhile Jerry just keeps sweeping.
After another long cold day Phil and Jerry have nearly finished, just a few little jobs left but that shouldn't be more than a day's work for these guys. We just need the weather to improve.

Good job guys!



 Finally the sun comes out so we can see the front path in all its glory.

So here we have it, a beautifully manicured front garden. Maybe one day we'll get some plants but for now we're just enjoying having the path. The postman really likes having a clean path to walk on, and has made comments about the yellow brick road. We just love it, well and truly pimped, wickid!