10mm may not seem much when you’re drawing a design at a desk, but on site 10mm it’s a lot, especially with window reveals and precision façade details. I’m sure I have the heads wreaked of our façade team, trying to get all the reveal and recess details spot-on. But in fairness to them, they have all have responded with such positivity and patience and want to get the job done right. The guys on site are well used to problem solving and it’s often left to them to sort out the details that are unresolved on the drawing board.
A lesson I’ve learned is getting the installers involved in the detailing stage, they understand how a detail is put together and what’s involved in getting it to work on site. We have a brilliant carpenter Tadhg working with Vertex roofing installing our Cedral, he understands what’s required to get it done right, and what tolerances he can work with. When the installation started, he flagged a discrepancy in the cladding panel, it annoyed him that the panels were not all perfect and it gave me confidence that his head was focused on the detail. Sometimes it feels like we’re building a formula one car, there is a knock-on effect for every dimensional variation. There were probably some changes we could have made earlier to increase the tolerances, but we need to keep the project rolling and our home will look sharper for the focus that we are applying at this stage.
We are cladding the sloped parts of the house in Cedral Click cladding, we chose a smooth finish in Pewter, I’m very happy with the colour and how it sits in the landscape amongst the rocks and under the grey leaden skies. It’s great to see the first finished part of the building other than the windows and roof. The neighbours have been commenting that they really like the colour, so that’s good sign. It’s all positive feedback so far, with one passer by saying, ‘If I do my house again, I’ll get Gemma to do it’. This rugged modernist building is beginning to look like a finish line is possible.
