individual elements and flesh out ideas. “I’ve got very good at maths,” she jokes. A key element for the couple was the project’s
environmental impact – all the furniture inside the house is ‘preloved,’ and the design has considered every eco-possibility. The wood used in the build is a slow-grown arctic pine which becomes a hardwood and the house has a heat exchange system (which keeps the house at a temperate 18 degrees at all times by taking warm air and circulating it in cold areas of the house). There’s also a source heat pump and underfloor heating, which Trevor laid himself. “We included as many eco-friendly features as possible as this is very important to us,” says Sarah. “We couldn’t find a suitable kit house in the UK, and would have obviously preferred this. We have installed solar panels, an air source heat pump for heating and rainwater collection for flushing the toilet. And we also used as much insulation as we could possibly fit in.” Installing the many eco-friendly elements in the
house came with many challenges. The toilets use a pump-free rainwater collection system which uses gravity. But the couple found it required a lot of adaptations to get working. The device used to take spare energy generated from solar panels to heat water had – at the time of writing – stopped working. There were other challenges along the way.
“Probably, the worst part of the build was digging the foundations which is something Trevor hadn’t done before, but on the other hand he did quite
18
www.sbhonline.co.uk
enjoy driving the digger,” Sarah says. “I think our best buy was probably the slate tiles for the roof which cost us about half the cost of new ones and had been taken off a school and were being sold second-hand in perfectly good condition.”
The interior is kitted out with second hand finds and often repainted or stencilled with Sarah’s own designs. She also found a place for home accessories and furniture from her favourite shop, the Swedish store Gudrun Sjoden. “I bought quite a lot of furniture while we were living in the caravan and knew where everything was going and what I was doing with it.”
The building itself sits within the landscape as though it has been there for many years. It is tardis-like: from the outside it looks unlikely to boast four bedrooms and a huge living/dining area that extends far above your head. The five- metre high ceiling is treated as an architectural feature with three Velux windows that draw the eye. Above the dining table an oar from the family’s old rowing boat has been repurposed as a chandelier, while elsewhere hang large tree branches which hang with seasonal ornaments. Despite the many changes to the original design, the one storey house maintains its Scandinavian log cabin feel. “We have achieved the style we hoped for,” says Sarah. “Trevor is a carpenter, so not only did we want to build something environmentally-friendly but also something made of wood.” Giant ceiling beams aside, Trevor admits
may/june 2022
LOW POINT
“Digging the foundations ourselves, and having to raise a 12 metre beam up to the five-metre high ceiling. The beam weighed three tonnes!
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
