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Hi my name is Jo Young. Originally from north of the border, I have been working my way down the country, first stopping in Sheffield to study Architectural Technology and now I have found myself further from home in Hereford after being offered the opportunity to join the Oakwrights team a year and a half ago as a frame designer. Part of my initial training was to spend 6 months in the workshop, where all the oak frames are assembled in 2D before they are sent to site. This is an important part of the training as you see first-hand how the oak frames are assembled so when you are designing you can visualise how a frame comes together.
| [Above] Partially constructed elements speeds up the erection process |
| [Above] Mr & Mrs Hasted lending a helping hand |
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The house is a three bed, two storey post and beam oak frame, with a WrightWall Light encapsulation system. The frame is beautiful in its simplicity and not over complicated, perfect for this build where Mr and Mrs Hasted wanted to create a light airy home with high ceilings to create the wow factor whilst sitting in their lounge.
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| [Above] The Skeletal Post & Beam Frame |
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| [Above] Post & Beam frame under erection |
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Once my 6 months was up I moved into the design loft and with the mentoring of head of design, Roland, and the other senior designers I was soon starting on my first projects. At first they were quite small to ease me into things, such as garden rooms. Then I had a larger frame that was for a swimming pool, and that lead me nicely into my first house for Mr & Mrs Hasted. When I first got the project, back in the depths of December, it was hard to imagine that I would be going out to site in the middle of summer as part of the team that would erect the frame, but here I was on a glorious Monday morning in Hampshire, full of excitement and anticipation at my first house being built.
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| [Above] Central Aisle of Frame |
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The site was originally an old cow barn and, due to planning regulations, two walls of the barn had to be retained. This generally raises some issues as usually old barn walls tend to have a mind of their own and are rarely ever straight. When I was designing the frame I had to keep this in mind and kept a ‘buffer zone’ of 100mm between the existing wall and the frame. This would then give the client enough room to insulate and plasterboard. As it turned out the wall was not as bad as I had originally envisaged it to be, perfect!
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I arrived on site and was greeted by my very excited clients Mark and Cath and the camera crew that would be filming for the TV show ‘My Flat Pack Home’. I have to say I was a bit nervous about the camera crew and I just hoped that everything would run smoothly.
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