dunno how that'll stay up either

The snapshot shows the gallery in the 12m diameter roundhouse. We have had a long debate as to how we are going to get it to stand up and meet Building Regs. I've just sourced the hardwoods for the stairs and balustrade and the three structural posts shown in the drawing. We'll use ash and have waney edged beams fixed to the posts on knuckles to support the floor joists for the gallery over the open plan.

The joists will cantilever out and follow the curves in the drawing. we are going to fit curved lighting around the front edges using low energy fluorescent striplights behind diffusers and with stained glass panels in front. We'll make these ourselves. Henri Macaulay runs the Gigha Gallery and works in glass herself as well as running courses at the gallery.

We get hardwoods from any of the Scottish hardwood dealers but our main timber supplier is highly recommended - Archie McConnel has a sawmill at Penpont in Dumfries and Galloway (where Andy Goldsworthy lives). Archie understands that we are very keen on the Scottish style of finishing wood that TIm Stead and Paul Hodgkiss follow and is finding wood for us that fits their respective approaches. We are using mostly ash, elm and yew but the stairs will have mahogany treads from recycled timbers with ash stringers. We'll do all the finish woodwork ourselves - I have a full workshop. We are pretty committed to using our own interests in arts and crafts to finish the house. It's also the only way we can afford what we want by doing it ourselves.