Building our own Home

Raising it from ground level to roof level

An accurate jig was constructed and used to make all of the window and doorframe templates needed by the bricklayers. The actual doors and windows could not be used, since the lime in the cement would have blackened any mahogany it touched.

These show the window and door templates in use as the building slowly rises out of the ground.

Scaffolding was soon needed to continue with the vertical process.

The dentil course of bricks under the roof-line can clearly be seen over the kitchen window.

We hand-trimmed and fitted the floor joists, 4½m by 225mm by 50mm ourselves, having pre-drilled them where necessary for the plumbing and wiring services.

Note the steel joists, supported on concrete lintels. and our first hay crop in the background.
All of the early field fencing, shown here, we erected without mechanical assistance,
(highly recommended for building arm muscles!).

Eventually, the roof trusses were placed and secured.

Finally, the chimney stack was topped out, a momentous day.

The upper roof was finally pitched in August 1989.
At the kitchen end there was a delay until some of the scaffolding could be moved out of the way.

A forest of timbers.

The water tank had been placed in the loft while access was still available.

Some brickwork and tiling details.

Brazilian mahogany fascias, treated with Sadolin, were screwed to the rafters.
The soffits were of marine hardwood.

The roof trusses needed cross-nailing to the wall plates, a pleasant job for a hot summer's day.

The view from our bedroom window, our cropped hay field having already 'greened up,
and looking far neater than our back garden.

The view from our dining room window across the front garden.
Our street is hidden by the trees.

By the end of September 1989, the roof was tiled, the windows were fitted and glazed, and the scaffoldng was removed. The door-frames and doors had still to be fitted in these pictures.

Return whence you came.