Client: Mr Mark Waters
Project: Bespoke Design, New Dwelling
Size: 1743 sq. ft

Our client Mark Waters has a lifelong love of wood and the choice of an individually designed oak frame home was the perfect solution for the scenic ½ acre sloping site in Wales. “I had a very close look at all the oak frame companies available and chose Welsh Oak Frame because I was satisfied that they were very good on detail. I found there was no cutting corners and the way they created the frame and intricacy of the joints was extremely clever. I also found their team of men first class; they did everything as it should be and they always stopped to listen” reports Mark.

Working closely with John Edmunds, Design Director with Welsh Oak Frame, a carefully planned design was developed which would cut a deep terrace into the south facing hillside to allow the erection of two giant jointed cruck frames which would provide a two-storey barn-like annexe at the rear of the house, forming the main sitting room with a magnificent wooden ceiling. The living room annexe forms the long section of the ‘T’shaped floor plan, with the main rectangular shaped house forming the top of the’T’.

“As the garden and hillside behind face south we can just extend our sitting room outdoors on nice days. The views on all side are absolutely wonderful, but we particularly wanted to see this section of the garden from the house,” says Mark. The exterior of the house is clad in a combination of rendered oak frame panels at the front, reclaimed stone on the gables and oak weatherboarding on the living room annexe. “The house is so well insulated and warm that although we like to keep the log burner going, we rarely use all the zoned underfloor heating and the heating upstairs was really unnecessary,” Mark adds. “We had a little movement earlier this year, but you must expect that in the early months of living in a new oak framed home. I like to reflect that with every creak and groan you know the frame is tightening up and the house is accommodating to its site.”