Paintbrushes at the ready!

Who woulda thunk it? Three months in and we've finished the plastering. Hurrah! It feels like a small step for buildingkind, but a leap mentally, since once the walls are 'in', so to speak, it will look just like a house. Only with pinkish walls. That is, of course, until I stamp my magnificently boring stamp all over it in that palest of shades (white). The sprogs are up in arms. "Mummy! Not white AGAIN!" they wail, determination written all over their anguished little faces that this, surely, will be the house that we'll fill with colour. Not so, darlings, at least not on the walls. Colour comes, I reassure them, from all the STUFF with which we fill our houses. And there is a LOT of that!

Although not as much as we've chucked away. Oh my goodness - who knew there would be so much waste generated from building such as teeny house? When a skip was requested, I thought (rather naively, clearly) it was a bit large for the few black bags we would chuck in over the course of the months. But we've filled two already, and I've taken endless trips to the tip. It feels iniquitous. It IS iniquitous. Probably not as much as the sin of lining the walls and the floor twice with plastic. Or pouring concrete into the ground and then another layer over that for the screed. Or the fuel used driving back and forth to builders' merchants and DIY stores.

One day we'll build a house entirely from wood hewn from our own forest, like a couple I read about in the latest Build It magazine. They live on 25 acres of woodland, and apart from their naturally-sourced home have installed a ground source heat pump, rainwater harvester and PV panels. Sigh. One day. Meanwhile, I'll console myself - and assuage my conscience just a teeny bit - with my ventilation system which warms the air to reduce heating needs, helped along by the swathes of insulation stuffed into every available nook and cranny and up-to-the-minute windows and doors. And of course the underfloor heating which is very energy efficient.

Now, where did I put my paintbrush? Oh, there it is. Off I go! Feel free to join me sometime - I'll provide the materials and really good coffee; you bring a strong arm and an old jumper!