by Kevin Mason
I’m a degree qualified engineer and have been involved in a number of industries over the years. I’ve passed numerous caravan parks in the UK full of static caravans. Basically, I always felt they looked like countryside slums and I always figured I could make something which looked a lot nicer from the outside, but I never had the space or the money to do such a big project. I always loved small whitewashed cottages and felt I could replicate one.
Anyway, nothing happened for a few years until by chance I stayed in a friend’s pub on our famous coast to coast walk and he was looking at camping pods to generate some income from his camping field. I now knew people wanted to stay in small houses, at least for their holidays. I could therefore afford to try these out.
I wanted to build something which was rot proof, well insulated, and would last pretty much forever. I decided on glass fibre with foam insulation incorporated into the structure. I also went a little further with the ‘hobbit’ like house and designed this so that it would eventually have a turf roof and maybe some ivy growing up the walls. Although this is still to come I stuck some fake flowers and stuff on it to get some idea of what it could look like. I think I managed to get the white ‘rendered’ finish to look pretty good and it should never need anything more than a wash to keep it in good order.