Somewhat in anticipation of being able to take up residence we’ve bought a great new bed for the barn. King sized, so an extra six inches for the baby to spread out in during the middle of the night whilst his mother and I teeter at opposite edges of the bed.

Ours is a Snowdon organic mattress handmade in Wales and 100% organic (organic cotton and sheeps wool). We also invested in a hardwood bed frame which complements both the mattress and the room that the bed is in perfectly.

There were two factors that influenced this purchase, firstly the bed has been manufactured locally, only a handful of miles from the barn and secondly the materials from which it is made are in line with the healthy house ethos of which I am an advocate.

But most importantly, this is one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever been in.

Abaca Organic

In their own words: "The organic bedding products used by Abaca are produced using materials created by traditional farming methods, avoiding the use of highly toxic fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. These production methods not only offer great benefits to the farmers and the environment, but increasingly enable you to choose products which will be safer for you and your family."

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Whilst way beyond my own humble aspirations for energy self sufficiency, the fantastically named Island Micro Grid just commissioned at the Centre for Alternative Technology is an interesting development.

I was shocked to read:

The developed world’s centralised electricity system wastes around 65% of energy through heat loss in power stations and transmission lines, before reaching our homes.

How wasteful! And what a great reason to consider and for governments to encourage local energy generation.

An Island Micro Grid is a way to connect together diverse electricity generation technologies (wind, hydro, photovoltaic etc.) and to use generated power locally rather than exporting to the grid. A grid connection is mantained (in effect a bridge from the island grid to the national grid) to allow excess power to be exported to the grid or to allow a draw down from the grid when sufficient power is not available locally.

Read more at the link given above.

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The rainy damp Summer of 2009 continues … damply …

I’ve completed regrouting the grubby bathroom tiling at long last. I’ve not fully cleaned them yet as I’m trying to avoid spending any more time on tiles at least for the next few weeks.

The travertine floors downstairs have been completed and look great. I’ll publish some more pictures as and when we get it things a bit more shipshape - the sink is currently in the middle of the living area having been moved out of the way to allow tiling in the kitchen.

I’ve made a slow start on finishing the untreated oak stairs and bannisters having started sanding and filling. This is the next indoor focus for me.

The kitchen is pretty well getting there now, the sideboard has been put together, corner unit assembled (after having to rework one of the end pieces having been supplied with two the same, rather than two opposing pieces) and wall and shelf units have been put up (and stayed up so far - touching wood on that one).

Outside work has started on the paths so at least we can get in and out without a trail of mud … as I said, this has been a very damp Summer …

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As I’ve already mentioned I bought a chandelier from Scavengers. It looked great on the web:

My Chandelier
Not too fancy (if that can be said of any chandelier and I think I’m having second thoughts on that one), classy (well I thought it was when I bought it) and in pretty good condition. When it arrived, [...]

I wrote about the Lammas ecovillage back at the start of the year. At the time, I aired my feelings of ethical support, but real-world unease. Now things have moved on and the development has been granted planning permission not by local planners, but in an act of centralised government colonialism, by the Welsh Assembly [...]