Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Hello all  (Read 3260 times)

borg

  • Joined Apr 2010
Hello all
« on: September 19, 2014, 03:28:18 pm »
Like lots of people both Dawn and I had dreamed of one day escaping the rat race and trying to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle, we had also become very interested in low impacted building and in particular straw bale building techniques,(ok now most people are properly thinking we are part of the knit your own sandal brigade and will soon be running off to hug the nearest tree lol)

We had fallen in love with France and our idea was to try and find a piece of land with CU (planning permission) and that we could afford, which would be large enough to build a house and barn and setup a smallholding, after about 12\18 months of spending all our spare time surfing the net and spending our holidays looking at various plots we found a piece of land that ticked most of the boxes, the purchase of the land took about six months and we became the proud owners of our piece of France,

Then next big step for us would be to get the planning permission for our straw bale house, we know that the French do like to keep things traditional when it comes to buildings, but have also seen that they are open to eco ideas if they are properly thought out and planned, with this in mind we employed a local French architect who had already had a set of straw bale house plans accepted by a planning committee,
Our house would be a little different from the last straw bale house that this architect had planned, ours would be of the Nebraska style which relies on the straw bails alone supporting the roof and not a timber frame, this way we can use less timber, we also decided to live off grid so all our electricity we will have to be generated ourselves but more of this later

Dawn had spent many an hour at the weekends and nights drawing up a set of plans for our house and barn using a very cheap software program, we took a print of our plans and met with the architect to show him the site and what we had in mind, he seemed very interested in what we are trying to do after taking lots of photographs, he said he would be in touch with us again soon.
After about six weeks we received the architect’s drawing through the post and were really pleased to see that he had made only one small change to Dawn’s original drawings, he had changed the way the stairs came down from the loft space.

We returned the architect’s plans for him to submit to the planning committee, and waited for what seemed like an eternity for their decision, but just before Christmas 2009 we received the best Christmas present ever our plans had been accepted we had full planning permission for our straw bale house, wooden barn and a large poly tunnel

We visited France the first weekend in February this year to plant 1000 fast growing willow sets and 100 poplar sets this will be coppiced on a four year cycle which will go some way to making us self- sufficient in fire wood, we will also be able to use the willow to make hurdles and baskets. The weekend we picked to plant must have been one of the wettest and coldest or did it just feel like it lol it was really satisfying to see the last tree planted but oh did we ache, (it felt good to be back in England and back at work for a rest lol) glad we got the willows planted when we did because the next weekend I slipped when getting out the car and broke my elbow ?

The next few years are going to be very busy for us, as we hope to do most of the building work on our house and barn ourselves. By the end of this year we are hoping to have the foundation for the house and barn laid and the barn up

We are hoping to source most of our materials as locally as possible and try using as much recycled materials as we can.

We will try to keep you posted on our progress from time to time and hope to include some pictures

« Last Edit: September 20, 2014, 08:24:12 am by borg »

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Hello all
« Reply #1 on: September 19, 2014, 06:57:34 pm »

Hi Borg

 :knit: :knit: :knit:   :hug: :tree:  :hug: :tree:  ;D

The whole project sounds wonderful, but lots of work.  When are you planning on making the move?   What plans have you for the smallholding itself?  :farmer:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

Lesley Silvester

  • Joined Sep 2011
  • Telford
Re: Hello all
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2014, 09:19:56 pm »
 :wave: and welcome from Shropshire. It all sounds wonderful. I hope you are going to take lots of photos (and share some on here). What will you do about water supplies?

devonlady

  • Joined Aug 2014
Re: Hello all
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2014, 06:56:29 am »
 :wave: from Devon. This all sounds so exciting! OH and I went to buy some chickens a few years ago and commented  to the owners on their lovely old house. It was actually only two years old and made of straw bales_amazing :thumbsup:

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: Hello all
« Reply #4 on: September 20, 2014, 07:40:22 am »

Wow, what an adventure! Welcome to TAS, and yes please do keep us posted as things develop. We had similar thoughts of building an eco-house of some description, but instead ended up in an old old farmhouse in Scotland. We figure this is sustainable as well since rocks grow in the fields here, and if you don't put the heating on, that's totally eco friendly too!  ;D (the heating has been out of action for 6 months now  :innocent: due to me not having time to finish re-plumbing it for a new wood burner that we actually bought two years ago!!)

(ok now most people are properly thinking we are part of the knit your own sandal brigade and will soon be running off to hug the nearest tree lol)

Ach that's ok on TAS. It's harder to knit your own wellies though, so you may still need to buy some. Just be sure the nearest tree isn't prickly (as he eyes up the overgrown holly bush out of the window)...

 :thumbsup:

"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

borg

  • Joined Apr 2010
Re: Hello all
« Reply #5 on: September 20, 2014, 08:18:12 am »
thanks for the warm welcome everyone ,



The main structure of the barn is finished just the guttering to sort out, so now we have somewhere to store the martials for the house.

with regards water we are lucky enough to have a water main running alone the road so will be connected to this.

we are aiming to be completely self sufficient food wise so will be keeping chickens, ducks, geese goats and sheep we will be growing all our own veg we have already planted a small orchard and plan on planting more fruit and nut trees later this year.



we still both work in the uk,so have to do all the building and planting in our holidays we are over again this November and will post some pic's when we get back



thanks again for the welcome 
« Last Edit: September 20, 2014, 08:20:33 am by borg »

benandjerry

  • Joined Jan 2014
Re: Hello all
« Reply #6 on: September 20, 2014, 04:38:06 pm »
Hello & Welcome, it all sounds amazing! and a lot of hard work.

Treud na Mara

  • Joined Mar 2014
  • East Clyh, Caithness
  • Living the dream in Caithness
Re: Hello all
« Reply #7 on: September 20, 2014, 10:21:18 pm »
 :wave: from Caithness. Sounds like you have found you own little bit of heaven. Welcome to the heavenly way of life too.  :thumbsup:
With 1 Angora and now 6 pygmy goats, Jacob & Icelandic sheep, chooks, a cat and my very own Duracell bunny aka BH !

lilfeeb

  • Joined Feb 2013
  • Kinross-shire
Re: Hello all
« Reply #8 on: September 22, 2014, 07:37:34 am »
i love the sound of your plans and look forward to hearing more about it here on the forum,

welcome from kinross-shire.  :)

 

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