Third frame

Frame one and two in the background, while frame 3 is assembled on the benches.

Sawdust, camera, action.

Video of OJW team in action working on frame 2.

Second frame, Take 2

Girt and knee brace being fitted to frame two

First frame complete in the background with the second frame all ready, the joints cut and about to be assembled.

Girt

Being framed...

First frame complete

The complete ash frame will sit in custom-made hot dip galvanized mild steel foot plate which in turn will be chemically anchored into the existing low height brick wall.  This steel bracket keeps the timber frame away from any potential moisture leaching out of the wall.  This in turn will prevent the frame from decay.
The solid ash frame could last for hundreds of years, by which time the sea may indeed have risen to engulf it (thanks to global warming).

Second frame on its way

Mid week progress

3 tie beams receiving mortises

Queen posts fitted

Arches being machined and tenons being cut

Girts with off-set tenons

Getting in the groove...

Sharp Chisels and Mikey-Mike scratched their heads to get around this compact joint.
To put you in the picture, there is a post shown with a long haunched tenon going through the tie-beam into the principal rafter above it.

All three joints come together and are secured with hard wood 19mm pegs which are driven through the joints.

As you can see from the pictures the tie-beam (horizontal timber) has 38mm mortises chopped into it ready to receive the arched knee brace

Left hand knee brace template positioned on the frame 

Chop, chop half day Friday

Even and Eric in high spirits tweaking a bridal scarf joint (Sharp Chisels thinks there is more posing than chiselling going on).

Beam there, done that...

One of four extended principal rafters for the RHS roof of the pitched car port.

These rafters had to be extended with a bridal scarf joint pegged with a 19mm hard wood peg due to the fact that the length of posts available were a problem, but not for OJW.

Bridal scarf joint

Completed bridal scarf with pegs showing

Other bedrooms .....

This is our lovely bedroom.  The brass bed is an old Victorian one which I've had for ages, but it was a three-quarter size.  Mark Rupert from Plett Industria very cleverly changed it into a double-bed for us.  The painting above the bed is by Elizabeth Blackadder, and is one of our favourite paintings.

 This bed's still waiting for me to get behind my sewing machine and make the valance (night frill).  It's a south-facing room, lovely in summer, chilly in winter.  Note the super collection of old buoys, ropes and life-belts collected off the beaches during storms.

This is the only bedroom that has been allocated to one of our grown-up children!  That's Rosy - who is still at university, and "dependent" !  

It's window is north-facing and lovely and sunny all through the year.

Go to Sleep my Babies

 We had these little gypsy bunk beds made for one of the upstairs alcoves.

They were made by Sybaris of Knysna - a company we like, and which we have used a lot for the interior work at Orca.  

Like many other aspects of the house, I have yet to paint the gypsy patterns on them, and am in the process of making patchwork curtains for them.

The two drawers at the bottom are for toys.

 

Little Nicky fast asleep! 

Fireplaces and Tiles

A selection of the tiles which we put behind the Esse stove in the kitchen.  Rosy made some of these in Cindy's studio, but the majority of them were made by Cindy.  Nicky and I glued them on the wall, and I'm sorry to admit that we still haven't done the grouting.   We also have tiny ones behind the kitchen sink.  They are the only tiles I like;  none of the bathrooms have tiles anywhere.

This photo is looking down from the upstairs balcony.

 Rosy and James King keeping warm next to the Esse stove.  We brought this wood-burning stove in from England, and it works magnificently.  The steel pipe goes up through the upper storey landing, and through the roof.  Initially, we had trouble with smoking, and we found that if any window upstairs was open, even just a crack,  the chimney smoke would be  drawn into the house.  However, by extending the exterior chimney so that it is higher than the highest apex, the smoking problem went away.

In the winter months Nicky and I bring our chairs up close to this stove, and it makes a wonderful welcome when we have friends round.  I find myself looking forward to a wet and cloudy morning so that I can get it lit before breakfast.  I have baked bread and cakes in it,  and roasts.  Somehow it gives cooking a new meaning altogether.  There are three ovens, the top right being the hottest, the one below that the medium oven, and the one below the firebox is the coolest.

It really is the heart of the house.

Cindy and Sam!

Yay.... St Valentine's Day - and we tied the knot...

Our First Christmas in our new Home!

 If you look carefully, you can see the little knitted Christmas stocking hanging from the mantel!  I'm afraid we don't take Christmas terribly seriously at Orca House.  I suppose it's because we don't have strong religious leanings, and also, it's mid-summer here in South Africa, and the warm weather and beckoning seas and beaches mean that we're all usually outside enjoying ourselves.

Anyhow, because lots of Christmas card designs feature fireplaces, I thought it was a good time to show ours off.

Nicky designed the fireplace, pinching some space from the spare bedroom behind it.  He based the design on an old Inglenook type, but then read a book which a friend lent us.  The book featured the fireplaces and the stories of a certain Count Romford.  More about him later.

The beautiful decorative tiles around the opening are made by my daughter Cindy, who is a potter.
Many of them feature various of our dogs - Iris Binney, and Figgie, and funny quirky sayings.  I did the tiling myself, and didn't bother working out the sizes.  I just stuck them on, and was lucky to be able to go and help myself to her stocks of tile sizes whenever I needed to.

The big tile on the chimney breast shows a ship-wreck, with a desperate man on the rocks waving....

Now, to get back to Count Romford; briefly, he was an American of the 18th Century, who worked out a method of altering inglenook fireplaces so that they really WORKED!  His success took him to England, where he changed the fireplaces of members of the aristocracy there, and from thence he was invited to Europe to make the measly European fireplaces work properly too.  Someone in Europe was so chuffed with his work, that he gave him the title "Count".

Inside our fireplace there is a stainless steel fire-box, with an adjusting rod, to open or close the chimney.  From the firebox, the smoke goes into a 25cm diameter stainless steel chimney, which protrudes through the roof, and is higher than the highest apex of the roof.

In this picture, you'll notice the step-ladder that served as our very dangerous staircase from December (when we moved in) until the end of August (when James and Teddy came to install our permanent and very beautiful one).  Apart from ourselves Helen & Nick, there were Rosy, James, Cindy and Sam with Bea and Nicky.  Also, we invited John and Pippa Sanderson-Smith and their son James (Ryan is in the Caribbean studing medicine so couldn't come);   Pru and Richard Bolus, Orioe and Cos and Cos's girlfriend Njeira from Kenya.    Andrea Richards.  A lovely time was had by all.

Stunning Panoramic Shot

September 2013

James took this panoramic shot of the open-plan downstairs living area at Orca, with his new I-Phone.

You can see the stair-case, designed by James and Teddy together, and made on a very swanky brand-new, very expensive machine that James has just imported from Italy, for his workshop in Cape Town.

The stairs are made from French oak.

We still have to get banister-railings made to attach to the wooden wall, and when we do this, the overhanging ledge which the upstairs railings are supported by will have to be cut off.  On-going work, but we are pleased that we are doing things slowly now, with great thought.

The staircase steps are all different from each other, one of the difficulties of this design was fitting the stairs in between the two king-posts, and at the same time accommodating the doorway into the passage-way behind.

It's beautiful, unique, and visually very exciting !

PHASE 2, HELEN, NICK AND OJW BACK IN ACTION AGAIN...

It's almost unbelievable that it has been 10 months since the OJW team were last at Orca House, how time has flown by.  The time has also arrived to pick up where we left off with the addition of a car port / garages, you know the place.
A delivery of solid ash beams arrived at the workshop today as we begin manufacture garages.
We will keep you 'posted' :) on the progress.

150 x 150 solid ash posts