In April last year I wrote about a start-up called Kachingle for The Guardian. I explained Kachingle thusly:

After registering with Kachingle, users decide on a maximum monthly donation, currently set at $5 (£3.50). When they see something they like, they simply click on the Kachingle “medallion” to initiate a donation. Kachingle tracks their reading habits, tots up how many times they visit each favoured site and divvies up the money proportionally at the end of the month.

It’s equally simple for site owners, who just need a PayPal account and a snippet of code to display the Kachingle medallion. The revenue split gives content providers 80% of the donations, with the rest covering Kachingle’s costs and PayPal fees.

I’ve been quietly keeping an eye on Kachingle to see when they would launch and was excited to get an email from Bill Lazar, Kachingle’s Marketing Engineer, last week saying that they were ready for beta testers to come on board. They will be launching properly in early February.

I think Kachingle is a really interesting idea, and I’m very excited to have the opportunity to test it out. That’s the medallion, up there in the top of the right-hand sidebar. All you need to sign up with Kachingle is a PayPal account and a spare $5 a month (although you can spend more if you want to). That works out at £3.07 per month, which even in a recession I think I can spare!

Kachingle sits very nicely with my recent decision to buy as many hand-crafted present for Christmas as I could. In an economic downturn it is more important than ever to support small businesses and I really like the fact that the vast majority of the money I spend on sites like Folksy go to the person who made the item I’ve bought.

But Kachingle is not just a way that I might earn a little spare change, it also gives me a way to support others. I’m hoping that over the course of the next few months, bloggers I enjoy will be able to join up and let me show them my appreciation.

If you want to sign up as a Kachingler or as a Site Owner, get in touch with Kachingle’s beta programme. And, of course, let me know what you think in the comments!

Kits and Mortar has been very quiet, even possibly moribund, over the last year. If you can remember that far back, you’ll recall that I was suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome and had to dramatically cut back how much I was writing. It took a lot longer for me to get the CTS licked, although I think we are pretty much there now.

Whilst I’ve been away, I’ve moved house (well, flat) and have become the very proud ownee of two kittens, Grabbity and Sir Izacat Mewton. They are two tabbies, currently 8 months old and as adorable as can be. You can expect a lot of cat posts and videos over coming months!

2010 is promising to be a year of great change and one of my aims for this year is to get Kits and Mortar to pay – even if it’s only just enough for cover a half-day’s blogging each week. If your business is interested in sponsoring us, then please do get in touch.

It’s good to be back, though. I hope you’ll enjoy the new improved Kits and Mortar – Now With Added Kittens!

Kevin and I were watching Grand Designs’ Kent Eco Arch episode with a little bit more interest than usual because it was billed as a “sustainable” build. But what caught our eye wasn’t the green aspects (which were hardly discussed anyway), it was the amazing design. The most striking feature of this build was a parabolic arch, made of thousands of locally hand-made clay tiles stuck together with plaster of paris, which sets very quickly. Called a timbrel vault (link is really worth following!), it’s an old-school lo-fi way to create amazing structures. Developed in the 14th century in the Mediterranean, it’s also called a Catalan vault, and the technique produces some of the most spectacular vaults known to man.

Richard and Sophie Hawkes’ vault is simple compared to some historic vaults, but it’s sweeping elegance is striking.

The vault is designed to have gravel and earth spread over the top of it, in the central channel, so that it will grow up to be a living roof. The grasses and flowers will help insulate the house and, I’m sure, please the local bird population.

Inside the vault is stunning. The stills here don’t do justice to the moving images in the documentary, which I’m sure themselves are a pale imitation of reality. The ceiling, with it’s warm clay glow, is beautiful. It gives a sense of age and history to what is otherwise a very modern design.

They used the same technique to build their staircase too – creating half a parabolic vault which then supports the stairs, each made of tiles and topped with a wooden tread. The Low Tech Magazine’s article has a diagram showing how it works.

Much as I love Grand Designs, rarely do I see a build that totally changes my thoughts about what I want. I have been pretty set on the idea of a green oak frame house now for a long time, but suddenly I’m looking at this timbrel vaulting and thinking how amazing it would be to have that for a ceiling. I’m not sure if one could combine oak frames and timbrel vaulting – it would take a pretty amazing architect to come up with a design that didn’t look like a hotchpotch.

Timbrel vaults, and vaults with a similar look, are something I’ve admired for a long time. I’ve always wondered how on earth they stay up, and that sense of the ceiling floating above you in a very Douglas Adamsian manner, (i.e. in exactly the same way that a brick doesn’t), is awe inspiring. Just take a look at all the photos on the architect’s Tumblr site – gorgeous. Is it a game changer? I don’t know yet!

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One of the most attractive things about old houses is that many of them have been extended and remodelled over the centuries, often using quite different materials and styles. This gives the building a sense of change, especially when the owners have resisted the urge to make the innards all look the same. I love it when when you walk through a house from one phase of building to the next; it gives a real richness that’s lacking in most modern constructions. Even houses that were built all at once, but have distinctly different areas that were used for different purposes, such as townhouses with back stairs leading to the servants quarters, have this richness. The contrast of the large public/family areas with the smaller, servant’s areas gives some character to the building.

It is perfectly possibly to plan this into a new build, as John and Jo Mew did when they built Braylsham Castle. Their castle (!) incorporates three distinct ‘phases’ – the castle tower, a church-like middle section, and a medieval timber framed phase, complete with wonky wall and roof.

The build certainly does have character, and whilst I’m not sure I’d go so far as to try to recreate a part of the past, I do understand why people yearn for something that looks old. We’re surrounded by very plain, boring mass developments, not to mention some absolutely hideous post-War carbuncles, and something like Braylsham Castle is truly pleasing to the eye. It chimes with our expectations of what is characterful and interesting and warm. Of course, castles weren’t warm, but build one with double glazing and your dream can come true, Cinderella.

What I want isn’t so much a sense of the ancient, as the Mews have created, but a house that has different and complementary atmospheres in different rooms. The main part would be a green oak framed house, with some double height spaces and a lot of glass, with a cob “extension” that had much lower ceilings, open fires and a much more cosy feel. I can’t cope with dark, dismal houses, especially as I work from home and so have to deal with the home environment all day. Light and air is really important to keeping a clear head and being able to focus. But equally, sometimes I like to snuggle up with Kev and watch a movie or read a book. That’s something that’s difficult in our current flat due to the Stalinist nature of our sofa (it does rather force one to sit up straight, rather than flollop), but I think it would also benefit from being somewhere with slightly lower ceilings, an open fire and smaller windows.

I imagine myself using the light, airy part of the house during the day, and thus more during the summer, and the cob extension when the sun’s gone down, especially in the winter. I suppose, in a way, it’s just the same as having a solarium or conservatory – a bright, sunny area that you use depending on time of day and weather, except our “solarium” would be the main part of the house.

The key part of having a cob extension is that, whilst I wouldn’t take on the building of a green oak framed house myself, I would feel happy digging into a cob extension on my own. I want to be a part of building my own house, not just as a project manager, but by physically taking part in the build. Cob is not the only way to do that, of course, but the idea of playing with mud patties is just too good to pass up!

Although I had been hoping that my carpal tunnel syndrome would clear up in a few weeks, it’s actually taken a few months. I had my last appointment with the physio in November, and started to phase out the night-time splints over Christmas. My wrists are much better, but I still need to be careful, particularly with the jewellery-making (which is what started it all in the first place!).

I’m going to try and reinvigorate Kits and Mortar, and start posing again at least weekly, but forgive me if I lapse. Kev and I had another trip back to Illinois, for Thanksgiving in November, and it re-inspired me to start looking again at houses. It snowed whilst we were away, and Kevin lit the log fire, which made the house so cosy and warm. I relaxed so much that I ended up with the ‘flu!

Since we got back, Kev’s been talking about us perhaps going on a course this year to learn about building oak frames, or building with cob or straw bales. That would be a fabulous way to learn more about the materials that we’d like to build with, and if we get something booked I will, of course, blog it in great detail here!

I have just got back from the physio, who confirmed I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I’m going to put Kits and Mortar on hold for a few weeks whilst my wrists get better. Apologies!

Oh dear, mea culpa. I haven’t blogged in weeks, and the guilt is piling up into a big heap. I’ve been meaning too, but life got in the way. Kevin and I went walking along the southern section of Offa’s Dyke for a week, which was a break we desperately needed. When I got back, things went a little bit nuts with work, then we had to go to New York, now I’m off to Leeds, and when that’s done, I’ll be off to Cologne. Or is it Berlin? No, I think it’s Berlin in October…

The up side of all this is that I’ve got some new and exciting work on the horizon, (I’m a freelance), which I can’t wait to get in the bag so that I can tell everyone about it. The down side is that I’m going to have even less time to blog now than I did before. I’m going to try to write something every other day, but the posts may end up being a lot shorter than they have been. And maybe more often about cats.

That said, Kev’s in the US for a month and a half from next Wednesday, so I may end up blogging more, just to fill the empty evenings…

Kev and I are off to Offa’s Dyke next week, to walk from Chepstow to Knighton, so Kits and Mortar will go on holiday until we get back. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain too much on us!

One of the reasons that I love cats so much is that they are, like me, very finicky – particularly regarding what they eat and drink. How many cat owners have put down a perfectly clean bowl of water, only to watch their cat turn their nose up and go and drink from the toilet or the bird bath? Mmm!! Tastes like sparrow!

Fflwff always preferred drinking from the bathroom sink, so I’d often turn the tap on for her whilst I was doing something else, turning if off when she was done. She’s a bit old now to be jumping up to the sink, but if she had her druthers that’s where she’d drink. Trouble is, it’s a bit tedious to keep getting up to turn taps on and off.

Now, thanks to the ingeniousness of Sixerdoodle Electronics, you can now make your own kittie-controlled tap, so that your moggie can have a drink as and when s/he wants without bothering you, and without wasting water. (Covered also by Make and Engadget.)

The system uses an infrared sensor to detect when the cat is near, and a 1/4 inch tube to deliver the water to the thirsty kittie. You can also set it up to detect when a human is near, so that the kittie tap doesn’t turn on when the human puts their hands in the sink.

You need to have a few plumbing and electronics skills, but if you’re including such a system in your self-build, you can always design it in from the beginning and get your tradesmen to do the work. You can order a complete kit for just $90 (about £45 at today’s exchange rate), or download the schematics and pull together the bits yourself.

This puts it roughly on a par with commercially produced cat fountains, such as the Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain or the Catit Drinking Fountain, but has the added advantage of never requiring a refill as it’s drawing water from the mains.

Personally, I shall definitely be including a IR sensor controlled cat drinking fountain in my house – I can very easily imagine a wet room or kitchen that includes a spout in the wall and a small bowl at about cat height, a bit like this old Roman drinking fountain:

Thanks Papalars.

I’m sure our FutureKitties would be very happy with such an arrangement.

(Thanks to Peter for the heads-up!)