From Stables To House: #2 Underfloor Heating

Good Day Everyone,

I never thought that something as nondescript as underfloor heating would ever get me excited - but boy was I wrong! To say that I was very excited would be an understatement. Perhaps it's because summers in the UK never actually get that warm... you can forget about hot! Also, having spent the last four+ years living in temperatures of 30+ degrees C, the thought of actually getting some warmth into my bones was just too much for me to remain calm about ;o).

Hubby and I are always cold. You'd think that having been born and raised in the UK, we'd be accustomed to the climate, but no. You will always find us in front of the fire or sat with our backs to the radiator whenever we are in the UK. Growing up, my bedroom was the only bedroom in the house that, as well as a central heating radiator, also had a gas fire. As a child I was always cold, even in summer. In fact, me feeling cold all of the time was seen as being completely at odds with the rest of my family (who feel warm very easily), so much so that my mum actually took me to see the doctor about it when I was a teenager. She felt it just wasn't normal to feel this cold, all of the time - but it was. This is just the way my body is. My mum has always said that having a hubby who feels the cold as much as I do, was a real blessing for me because now there are no arguments in our house about the heating, unlike when I was a child ;o).

When I used to work (pre severe arthritis) there was a joke in the office that I had the world's most traveled hot water bottle because I used to take her (yes, my hot water bottle is a pink and fluffy 'her') on every overnight trip, and I traveled quite a lot with work. Not only that, but I also used to and still do, take her on every holiday even if it's to a hot climate like Australia or Dubai because often I find that I can never get the air conditioning in hotel rooms warm enough. The thought of feeling cold is just too much for me.

Needless to say that it came as no surprise that hubby and I opted for underfloor heating in this renovation. The idea of walking on warmth pleases me more than I can explain! Not only that, but it also meant that we would not have to have radiators on the ground floor which gives us so much more freedom on where to place furniture, and what we can do with that unoccupied wall space.

Underfloor heating pipes

Now, there is no way that I can write this blog post without giving a massive shout out to my amazing hubby because he laid all of the underfloor heating himself, having never done it before (with a little help from Andy, our carpenter). Hubby spent many nights researching, reading and watching YouTube videos all about underfloor heating.

Insulation being laid

The ground in our house was prepared with a concrete base that incorporated a damp proof membrane. Hubby then started by laying 100mm thick foil faced rigid insulation board all over the ground floor which buildings control came out to check, as this is a requirement in the UK, in order to meet energy saving regulations. 

Ground floor insulated

Over the insulation board, visqueen sheeting (the black sheet you can see in the photo below) was laid to create a waterproof membrane. Hubby then spent days on his hands and knees laying the water pipes in accordance with the design provided by the underfloor heating supplier. Basically, he was creating continuous loops of pipe with no joints, that started and finished at the underfloor heating manifold. Hubby laid over half a kilometer of pipe which was pinned down into the insulation by white barbed pegs.

No underfloor heating pipes under the kitchen island

Hubby created different zones with the underfloor heating pipes so that we could pick and choose which areas of the house had the heating on at any given time. There were specific areas such as the kitchen cupboards, kitchen island and the corner where the wood burning stove would be going in the living room where he didn't lay any pipes as those spaces don't need to be heated. The pipes were then pressure tested with water to ensure there were no leaks. 

Screed being poured with laser leveled tripods

The day before the screeding mix was poured over the pipes, workmen came to place metal tripods all over the ground floor. These tripods were set up to a pre-specified level that the screed would be poured to, and they had been laser leveled to ensure that we would get an even and leveled floor throughout. The screed is a liquid mix which covers the water pipes and sets to form a solid floor that we can then lay floorboards or tiles upon.

Lorry with screed mix

Screeding day was very exciting, particular for hubby who loves all the machines and gadgets involved, and because he'd literally worked his socks off getting the floor to this point. The screed came in a large lorry which was then poured into a machine with a sieve in it to sift out all the big pieces. The liquid screed was then pumped from the machine via a large pipe, into our house's ground floor. You can see it in action in the vlog below.

Once the screed had been poured and leveled it gave the floor a glass like, reflective finish. The screed was then left to set for 48 hours before we could walk on it. As it dried, the floor lost it's shiny finish and became a lot more matte. Over the course of those two days I had a bad arthritic flare so hubby stepped in with the vlogging and shows you the finished floor in the above vlog.

The floor just after the screed was poured

I hope you enjoyed this update. I can't imagine underfloor heating is something that most of you reading this would be particularly excited about but it was exciting for us ;o).

For mini progress updates, don't forget to follow me here on Facebook. The rest of my social media links can be found to the right of this blog post, when viewing on a desktop :o).

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: #1 Living In A Caravan

Good Day Everyone,

If you’ve seen this post (and I recommend you do before proceeding :o)) then you’ll know that hubby and I are currently in the middle of renovating what was once a horses stables into a house. It’s what we have been spending our time/energy/money (and everything else) on since our return from Japan, earlier this summer.

Some back ground on our building - historically, the two part building was a stables along with a gardener’s house. Together, these two properties belonged to a large estate home with its own fruit orchard and gardens. Unfortunately the large estate home was, at some point, knocked down and replaced with a small apartment block. The land has since been turned into public parks and gardens. All that remains of the original estate are the stables (which we own) with the gardener’s house (which our neighbour lives in), and another building nearby which has been converted into a house. From talking to our neighbour and some of the local residents who have lived in the area for decades, we understand that over the years the stables was used as some kind of storage building, and then a vehicle depot before being left vacant for many years.

The old stables block

The stables building we bought is near the beach, in a conservation area which means that the area, and buildings with in it, are considered worthy of preservation or enhancement because of their architectural/historical interest. What that meant for us was that we had numerous restrictions/conditions on how we could renovate the building and the materials that we could use. One such condition was that before any work could begin we needed to call out the batman to conduct a bat report. Luckily for us no bats or evidence of bats was found, otherwise no work could have begun until the bats were safely removed and rehoused, as bats are a protected species in the UK. Other conditions focussed on restoring the building to the way it would have traditionally been. We've had to replace all of the plastic guttering with traditional cast iron guttering, and all of the windows with traditional handmade wooden sash windows. The local authorities want our building to be preserved as close to its original state as possible, so we couldn’t create an opening for a front entrance. To access our property we have to go round to the back and use the entrance that the horses would have traditionally used.

Our neighbour has the upstairs, whilst we have the downstairs

As you’ll see from the Youtube video below, there is a natural divide between our building and our neighbours due to the height difference, with our stables block being the shorter building. However, our building also came with half of the ground floor space that sits under our neighbour’s bedrooms. It’s quite strange because we now own half of what looks like her downstairs space and she owns the upstairs. Our neighbour has lived here for over 30 years so we assume that this is how the buildings were originally split. Perhaps because traditionally, more of the ground floor space was used to keep the animals, with people occupying more of the upstairs sleeping space? Who knows!

When we bought the building it was very much derelict with just the roof and outer walls. The inside was dirty, rundown, damp and falling apart. On the ground floor there were two stair cases, two toilet cubicles (random!), and the space had been subdivided with some rooms bricked up and partitioned off from others, and some of the windows had been boarded/bricked up. Upstairs there was a large room, and a smaller room with a kitchenette. There was also an old garage in the garden. I have inserted photos of what the inside of the building used to look like in the above video. We bought the property with plans to turn it into a family house. We subsequently gained permission to convert the old garage into living space, on the condition that we matched the exterior to the existing building. We had a little bit more freedom to make changes at the back of the building as it is out of public view, so we were allowed to brick up one of the doors and turn it into a window.

The old garage

The old garage being renovated

We have completely changed the layout upstairs by turning the two rooms into three bedrooms (one with an ensuite) and a family bathroom. The upstairs rooms are built into the roof space with low sloping ceilings and small windows. Luckily we were able to insert skylights into a couple of the rooms as skylights are quite a subtle addition. Downstairs there is an ensuite bedroom/study, a living room and an entrance hallway in the double storey part of the building. At the single storey end (the part under next door neighbour’s bedrooms) is an open plan kitchen and dining area which lead on to the main living area (that used to be the old garage).

Dining area (to be) with kitchen area blocked of by the grey bricks to the left

Dining area with bricks removed to open up the kitchen area

The building work started on the property whilst we were in Japan but when our time came to an end there, we decided that it was an ideal opportunity to come back to the UK and live onsite, so that we could manage the project ourselves. It wasn’t easy to manage the project when we were living on the other side of the world, especially with the time difference. Putting our trust and faith into the hands of strangers doing the work was also quite difficult, especially when it involved all of our life savings and more! Plus, with it being summertime in the UK, we thought living onsite in a caravan wouldn’t be too bad.

We’ve been onsite all summer so far and whilst work has been progressing steadily, the renovation hasn’t been smooth sailing that’s for sure! As is often the case with such projects, there have been delays, unexpected costs and problems that just could not have been anticipated. Needless to say, it is costing a lot more and taking a lot longer than we expected, but with all of the structural work now complete, we are finally getting to the stage where we can actually see the progress. This has been tremendous in giving us the motivation to push on. As the temperature begins to drop, and the novelty of living in a caravan wears off, hubby and I can finally see the light at the end of this very long tunnel :o).

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and vlog of our renovation journey. I will share more as things progress over the coming weeks. Have you ever done a renovation or restoration project? What did you renovate/restore? What was your experience?

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: Coming Soon

Good Day Everyone,

I thought I'd do a little update post telling you what hubby and I have been up to since leaving Japan. After a stopover in Singapore (vlog to come soon), we arrived back home to the UK in June.

Never ones for a quiet life, we jumped straight into our next adventure. This one wasn't quite as glamorous as moving to Japan, in fact it was a bit of a step back when it came to our living space... a caravan! We bought Cora the caravan (that's right we named her) the same Saturday that we landed in the UK. We picked her up on Sunday and come Monday morning hubby drove her to her new location, and that's where we currently live!

Change is always on the horizon

Hubby and I are currently in the process of turning what once used to be a horses stable into a house. This may sound a bit random, especially compared to our recent expat life in Singapore and Japan, but it's not too random for us. In all the time that hubby and I have been together we've had a tendency to jump from one adventure (and at times disaster) to another, with little time in between. I'm not sure why, but our lives never tend to remain stable, calm and routine-y for long. Change is always just around the corner. I know change is the only constant in life but we just seem to go through more change than most people we know. It just seems to be our thing!

For example, a year after I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis and realising that it was spreading quite aggressively, we decided to simplify and re-prioritise our lives.... by moving half way across the world to a country where we knew no-one, Singapore. It sounds crazy, but in reality and with hindsight, it really was one of the best decisions we've ever made #NoRegrets! I'm not yet sure I'll be saying the same about the horses stable but you kind of get the idea of how our life tends to work.

So what possessed us to buy a building in a part of the UK that we'd never been to before, miles away from friends and family? The fact that it was a beautiful blue sky sunny day on the day that we went to view it might have had something to do with it. I'm not sure the outcome of that visit would have been the same had it been typical British weather of rain and drizzle. Also, the fact that the building is less than 30 seconds from the beach, surrounded by beautiful public gardens with a little stream running in front of it may have played a part. The setting is very idyllic and I promise you, the fact that the building came with it's own teeny tiny bridge taking you over the stream had absolutely nothing to do with it- honest! Although, it does make our friends chuckle when they visit and we tell them to park their car on our bridge. OK, so the bridge, even though it's very small, is kind of cool ;o).

I'm going to be doing a series of vlogs on YouTube as well as blog posts here sharing our journey from stables to house very soon, and in the meantime, here's a little taster of what's to come.

For those of you that enjoyed the Japan vlogs/posts, don't worry I still have a few more of those to come from the end of our time there :o).

Love Sheen xxx

Moving On

Good Day Everyone,

I hope you’re all keeping well. It certainly has been a while since I sat down to write a blog post! Life has been all sorts of craziness these past couple of months but things have finally settled down, albeit only for a short while ;o).

As you may know, our Japan adventure came to an end in May. Japan was always going to be a short term thing, and I know some people may question whether it was actually worth it for just nine months. Moving to a new country requires a significant investment of time, energy and money but for us it was totally worth it. Japan is sooo unique and different to anywhere else in the world that we just couldn’t pass it up when the opportunity arose. Having visited Japan a few months prior to moving there, I can tell you that living in a country is a completely different experience to visiting the country as a tourist.

Mount Fuji

Once we found out that our Japan adventure was coming to an end, there was one trip that we just had to make, and that was to go see Mount Fuji. This famous sacred mountain is visible from Yokohama, where we lived, on a clear day but we just had to go see it closer up. Fuji-San (as it’s known locally) is surrounded by five lakes to its northern side, and so hubby and I planned a two day trip to the Fuji Five Lakes. This is what will be coming up in subsequent blog posts and on my YouTube channel.

Our last sunrise from our Yokohama apartment

We spent most of May in a bit of a whirlwind. We had days where we were drowning in bubble wrap as we started to pack up our belongings into shipping boxes, and days where we were rushing around taking in some last minute sights. I tried to capture as much as I could on my vlogging camera so that I could continue making videos about Japan once we returned to the UK. My arthritis riddled body can capture footage more easily than it can edit it into vlogs so please bear with me.

We also had the challenge of selling all of our furniture that we’d only recently bought. We soon learnt that Japan does not have a big second hand market and recycling furniture is a very costly affair. If we hadn’t managed to sell our furniture, we’d have had to pay a lot of money to have it collected by a recycling firm. This explains why expats often give their furniture away for free on the local Craigslist. Luckily for us, we managed to sell everything, albeit at a fraction of the price we paid, with just a week to go!

This meant that we then had to spend our last week staying in various hotels. We spent three nights in Tokyo and used it as an opportunity to visit a few of the sights (I’m sure there will be a blog post &/or vlog coming soon). The rest of the week was spent in Yokohama liaising with the local authorities and utility companies to wrap things up before we left.

On our way back to the UK, we stopped off in Singapore for six days to de-stress as the last couple of weeks in Japan were pretty taxing, and to catch up with friends. It was sooo good to be in a country where we could speak the language and get vegetarian and halal food ;o). I did do a bit of vlogging whilst in Singapore and will post that on my YouTube channel soon.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore

The iconic Singapore Merlion

We adjusted to being back in Singapore so easily that it was a bit like coming home, although I had forgotten just how hot and humid Singapore was! The heat definitely got to me, as did the stress of the move and consequently I spent a couple of days on bed rest as my body started to react to the past few weeks. The six days went by way too quickly and before we knew it we were on another plane making our way back to the UK.

Cora the Caravan - our current home

We’ve not been back a month yet and already Japan and Singapore feel like distant memories, more so for me, as hubby has had a trip back to Singapore for work purposes. It feels strange to be back in the UK after four years of living in Asia. And what feels even stranger is living in a caravan…that’s right, hubby and I are currently living in a caravan. Not something I ever imagined doing but then again, I never imagined living in Japan either ;o).

Love Sheen xxx