Barn Chance

It may not look like the best start. 

Asbestos roof, willy graffiti from local school kids, decades of compacted animal poo on the floor… It would take even Kirsty and Phil a spot of imagination. 

But somehow it feels like home. 

It will be home.

After years of doing battle with planners and locals bearing metaphorical pitchforks, we finally have planning permission to live and work at Rowan Farm. It’s the chance of a lifetime. 

Here is Site Manager, Chloe (aged 4), overseeing our first efforts to transform this run-down barn into our family home. 

The build will be as sustainable as possible. We’ve already dug a borehole for water and worked hard to improve the ecology of the site, including planting an edible hedgerow and native trees and providing new owl and bat boxes. 

Next up… Our building materials, energy provisions for our home, furnishings, interior fit out, life once we actually live here… Will all be as green as we can possibly make them. 

But being green isn’t always easy. Just trying to find out exactly what the greenest options available are isn’t always very clear. So we’ve been busy doing a lot of homework and there’s yet more head scratching to do. 

We will keep you posted about what we learn in case it helps others doing their level best to be fractionally greener than Jeremy Clarkson eating Blue Fin Tuna on a Transatlantic flight. 

Watch this space.