Now for the first floor

Thanks to a small crane which we hired for the morning, the RSJ is in place and the french windows can be measured up to the nearest millimetre by the window manufacturers. Next step -- the first floor. We've opted for a block-and-beam system. Made of concrete, it's a really simple and quick way of constructing a floor.

At this point, you might wonder how environmentally friendly this house is. After all, the walls are made of polystyrene and filled with concrete, the same material that the floors are constructed with. Concrete, as Kevin McCloud said once on 'Grand Designs', produces more C02 in its creation than the combined efforts of all the world's planes. But building in an environmental way isn't just about the materials. You've got to think of the house's long-term carbon footprint. And ours, we hope, will be small.

Once it's gone up, we'll be heating it with wood-burners only and solar panels will provide 70% of our hot water needs. So while we aren't building in cob and straw bales, we are hopefully making for a more sustainable future.