House build blog

[woodguy7]

This Blog was passed on to me Yesterday & I thought I would share it here.  If you have a little spare time give it a read, I don't think you will regret the time spent.

Basically an English chap builds a timber house from Finland in the remote West coast of Scotland.  It had me chuckling to myself, mainly at his misery but the journey is a good one with some stunning photographs to accompany it all.

Hope those that take the time to read to the end enjoy it.

Wood guy.

Oops, link - http://www.stevecarter.com/build/build.htm

 

[DKurzweil]

Am I totally blind to a link?

Daniel

 

[Kev]

Great blog ... [blink]

 

[woodguy7]

Sorry guys, there now  [embarassed]

 

[Kristian]

Looks to be a good read. Thanks woodguy!

 

[Kev]

Nice car.

 

[peter halle]

I have to say - What a Great Blog.  What a beautiful setting.  What an ordeal.  What a sense of humor.  What patience.

 

[Alan m]

what a great read.
amazing pics.

 

[Theshipstore]

What a fantastic adventure

Sal

 

[Tim Morris]

Wish that had been linked off of here mid project. I think I could have suffered relocating to the loch for a year and "help him out" of his dilemma. Beautiful location and I have a bunch family South of there.

 

[tiralie]

Thanks for the link. Spent a very enjoyable entertaining couple hours reading that.
Great photography. The Pine Martin and shots of the otters really give you an idea of how "wild" it is there.
I enjoyed Scotland (Aboyne and Speyside distilleries) when I visited there in '07. We went for a hike in the "mountains" saw a couple elk and traipsed through some Heather which was much harder than it looks in the movies.

Why are tapers called "decorators"?
Tim

 

[Jalvis]

Thank you for sharing the link.  Very interesting work....reminds me of remote builds in my area.  With the right money and will power one can build great homes.

 

[woodguy7]

I thought you guys would enjoy it.  Tim, this far north trades cover a wide range of tasks.  Decorators here do tapering & filling, painting & varnishing & usually the tilling as well.  I'm sure in the city's those tasks would have been split up into 3.

A lot of the joinery company's do undertaking as well  [crying]

 

[Tim Morris]

I mostly remotely and have the skills and equipment to take a project when the tapers are finished and complete it. Trim, paint, wood finish, case work, tile, wood floors and most anything else the owner can come up with  [big grin].

 

[Jeff Zanin]

A most excellent read.

But it makes me wonder...

Obviously Mr. Carter had some peculiar issues to deal with because of the location and details of his project, but I can't help but notice the recurring issue of people and material not showing up when expected, or at all.  In some cases they gave very thin or no reasons, in other cases there were plausible reasons but there seemed to be very little inclination to provide an alternate or substitute, leaving the client in the lurch to find something to keep the project going.

I have seen this personally on projects where there were none of the difficulties faced by Mr. Carter, and read and heard many more anecdotes of similar non-arrival and non-performance.

Why is it that tradespeople, contractors and delivery people just don't show up, and seldom seem to care or do anything about the impact their failures have on a project?  But of course they expect to be paid.

I am not in the trade myself but as a participant / observer on a recent project I am beginning to see what might be one of the reasons: on this job almost everybody was multi-tasking, and so they (being the project manager, various workers, a consultant, a sub-contractor) were constantly telephoning, texting and attending to multiple other jobs that were ongoing or pending.

I suspect nothing had their complete attention, and the results on the project I was on certainly reflected this.

No doubt keeping multiple jobs going is one of the tricks of the trade, but it doesn't seem to work to the benefit of any particular project and I really wonder if it does much for the multi-tasker.

Sorry for jacking the thread about the blog.

Jeff

 

[peter halle]

Jeff,

I think that you bring up a valid point about conditions here.  I know that I am guilty and I don't have multiple jobs or crews.  The electronic age does have an off switch or a pause switch until later.

[popcorn] [popcorn]

Peter

 

[Alan m]

some good point jeff.
im not sure why you think you hijacked the thread. it is all about the blog. 

peter
i dont think the electronic age has a stop or pause button.
i have often went to bed and a story or issue was everywhere all day. when i got iup the next morning nothing about it. the world had moved on.

 

[peter halle]

some good point jeff.
im not sure why you think you hijacked the thread. it is all about the blog. 

peter
i dont think the electronic age has a stop or pause button.
i have often went to bed and a story or issue was everywhere all day. when i got iup the next morning nothing about it. the world had moved on.

I believe for contractors (including myself) that when it comes to phone calls, emails, text messages - there is a pause or stop button.  Until later.

I could be wrong.

Peter

 

[Alan m]

i agree peter  but iv always found that the problem on your end only pauses (anoying phines etc ) . the problem on th eother end doesnt . unfortunetly.
i often put thinks off like that when you just want that week end of peace and pleasure .

 

[Scott B.]

I read a chunk of this blog and skimmed a bunch more. While I love the romance of the home in the wilderness, telegraph road, and it is beautifully written and nicely documented visually...it does seem to have something of that "homeowner acting as gc" cautionary tale about it.