The original design for the profile of the chimney piece showed vertical sides up the pillars and then straight slopes up to the roof. A triangle with the top sliced off sitting on a rectangle. We didn't like the feel of that - it just seemed too ponderous and heavy. We started to look for something else, something a bit lighter, a bit more exciting. Coincidentally we watched a programme on TV about architect Günther Behnisch and the engineer Frei Otto who designed the Munich Olympics stadia in the 70's. They used soap bubbles and string to create fantastic curved shapes which they then scaled up to model their designs. The beauty of such a system is that you end up with structures that are, by definition, balanced and in equilibrium. Inspired by their example, we thought 'how about making the sides of the chimney catenary-shaped'.
Now, as every schoolchild knows, a catenary is the curve of an anchor chain, or a rope fixed at both ends, hanging under gravity. It's a natural curve and perfectly balanced - at each point along the curve the tension in the rope is in equilibrium with the force of gravity. It would have been possible to plot out the precise curve on a piece of paper. But how would you then transfer it to the brickwork? Talking to our bricklayer we came up with a simple solution. Hang a piece of cord from the top and fix it to the outside of the brick pillars and there's your catenary.
Next trace the curve onto a piece of plywood, cut along the curve with a jigsaw, and use the resultant edge as a form.
Replicate original curve on another piece of ply for the other side and away you go. Magic.
Wrestled with the character of the barn this week. I was reminded of the old saying 'One man's character is another man's pain in the neck'. Behold, a diagonal stud across the doorway to the main bedroom. Charming and full of character as already observed elsewhere in the barn. Unfortunately it was right across the middle of the opening, meaning one would have to do more than duck to get in the door - it would also require a sort of lop-sided limbo dance quite beyond all but the most committed. Furthermore, this particular diagonal stud was holding up a major truss. Chop this one and the whole barn could collapse. Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but you get the idea.
The solution was to install a new post from sole plate to wall plate. Fortunately the remaining reclaimed elm beam from another part of the barn was big enough . (The other one had been cut up to use as bressummers.) Nice to think we've managed to use them both.
Our engineer specified that the steel beam not be allowed to bear on the facing brickwork spanning the fireplace (and bressummer) but should rest on the lintels behind. The lintels span across to the brick pillars so the load path goes down brickwork all the way to the foundations whereas the panel of facing bricks over the fireplace bear on the bressumer - kind of. Anyway, our bricklayer trimmed the height of the central brick so that the steel beam flies over it and rests on the concrete lintel behind.
Beam bearing on lintel, not the brickwork. It's called a soft joint apparently. A centimetre of air is pretty soft I guess.
Once the joists and steels are in you can chuck a load of plywood across it and, hey presto, you've got a floor. So now we've got a first floor in the barn - in places at least. Here's the main bedroom en suite. Fantastic isn't it. Might look a bit better when there's a shower and stuff in there, not to mention a partition wall.
Another view of the main bedroom.
We decided the window frames will be black on the outside, to match the weather boarding, and natural wood on the inside, to match the timbers in the barn.
View of a bedroom floor at the other end of the barn. Could be a bit exposed as it is so we'll have to build a wall.
King post over the main bedroom. The plan is to leave it exposed. Bit of a dust trap maybe, but gorgeous.
The boarding has been removed from the internal wall between the double height area and the main bedroom. The open studs, and the view through, are just amazing. It would be great if we could retain that somehow. But we can't think of a cost effective, safe, reasonable way of doing it.
The flue and chimney will go up through a bedroom floor.
And finally
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