I wanted to minimise the use of steel in the building and I like the texture and appearance of untreated hard woods – that led to the importation of two eastern European oak beams for use in the barn.

That long journey (let’s not worry about carbon footprints for now) and a few weeks sitting outside on my yard left their marks on the beams. Both were water stained and blackened and in this state were installed into the barn and the first floor was built ‘on’ them.

Based on a combination of hind-sight and time earned experience here is the MyBarnConversion guide to cleaning oak (hardwood) beams.

If at all possible, clean the beams with a pressure washer prior to installation, that will save a lot of effort later.

oak beam before cleaning

oak beam being steam cleaned

cleaned oak beam!

If you’re unable to clean the beam before construction, then get out the elbow grease.

• Wash down and scrape the beam to remove surface dirt and mold.
• Use a steamer cleaner to open up the grain and clean into the beam, this will also have the effect of sterilising the wood. A wall paper steam remover will work fine.
• Steam cleaning will begin to bring engrained dirt to the surface. You will find that badly stained wood will need to be scraped to remove the worst of it.
• Using a combination of scraping and washing down (preferably with warm water and detergent) your beam will slowly become clean.
• Rinse and repeat…
• The wood may take some time to dry out, you’ll not be able to tell the final colour and finish until it’s dry, so don’t panic yourself into unnecessary cycles of the cleaning process.

Sand to remove particularly deep stains, splinters and scruffs.

[UPDATE]
I’ve read in a couple of places that sugar soap works well. Will give it ago as I have some other beams that need cleaning.

The bath I bought doesn’t quite fit into the bathroom if it’s placed along the same wall as the shower…

It does fit if placed across the corner as in the picture, so the question is corner bath? Does it say badly planned bathroom or boutique hotel?

Corner bath?

Please excuse the slightly pompous title to this post – guess I’m pretty happy with way this aspect of the conversion has gone.

The initial design was a little bit strange, with two doors through an internal wall that didn’t really have enough space for them and an over-large en suite bathroom that was a waste of space.

After a fair amount of thought a new plan was decided upon and after some juggling and guess-work started to be put into action.

Entering from the landing

So now, with the walls and doorways in place and the finishes beginning to be applied the layout begins to emerge and pretty happy I am with it as well.

You enter through a door from the landing – ahead is a storage / dressing area, to the left the bathroom and to the right steps up to the bedroom.

View back to the bedroom

I really like the ‘view’ back from the bedroom as it takes in the only piece of exposed stone wall that we’ve left internally and both old and new wooden beams.

Having spent much time pawing over VAT documentation in preparation for my VAT reclaim I discovered that the HM Revenue & Customs definition of items ‘ordinarily’ incorporated in a building makes for interesting reading and may suggest a few VAT free inclusions for your design.

In short, you can claim for building materials that are ordinarily incorporated into that type of building during the course of the conversion. These include:

• Air conditioning; Not good for the environment – definitely not encouraged!
• Dust extractors and filters (including built-in vacuum cleaners); Built in vacuum cleaners! – Cool!
• Flooring materials (not carpets); If you needed an excuse for tiled or wooden floors this may be it.
• Light fittings (including chandeliers); Chandeliers for the country estate.
• Saunas; Tipping our British hats to our Scandinavian cousins – great for cleaning the pores.
• Solar panels; Go on you know it makes sense.
• Solid fuel cookers and oil-fired boilers;
• Swimming pools inside the building, including water heaters and filters but not diving boards and other specialist equipment; Go swimming on the VAT man, but no diving boards!
• Turf, plants and trees (as detailed on a landscaping scheme approved by a planning authority);
• Fencing permanently erected around the boundary of the dwelling;
• Wiring (including power circuits and computer, telephone and TV cabling). Boys toy wiring is VAT deductible!

Now here’s a conundrum…

First the facts:

• The barn lies just outside of the South Wales Coal Field.
• Our heating system will comprise of solar thermal water heating (from in-roof panels) with a multi-fuel burner as the ‘primary’ heat source (& a backup electrical heating coil in the tank) [Read the background to that]
  (I’m still not sure if this stripped down heating system is a brave or foolish solution, but the decision is made and plans in place).
• I will have a need to keep the multi-fuel burner fuelled, albeit infrequently, and providing some heat over-night and into the next day.
• I have a free source of a couple of tons of anthracite that was mined locally – probably the longest journey it’ll take is from the garage where it’s lain unthought-of for the last 10 or 20 years to my place 7 miles away.
• This is an area with no mains gas, so that isn’t an option.

Now the story:

Although I intend to burn the coal and buy coal in future to allow me a longer (overnight +), slower, gentler burn than I can get with wood alone, this has bothered me a little bit from the environmental perspective of the CO2 release.

However, the other day, as I was driving to the barn musing on that very point, I passed a big dirty tanker making a delivery of fuel oil to a house. That put a different perspective on things for me…

Why am I feeling guilty – surely it’s better for me to burn (relatively) clean, high grade coal that has been sourced locally than oil that has at least come from the North Sea and potentially from half way around the world!?

Add to that the fact that I plant trees and plan to plant more shortyly and I have to ask, do I have anything to feel guilty about?

Answers on a postcard or please post a comment below please!