Restoration to date

Well the “Oooh Aaah” quickly turned into “Oooo, how much?” and “Aaargh what have we done!”

The first priority was a complete re-wire – well we did only have 3 sockets in the kitchen, and round pin sockets dotted about the house – there was some pretty dangerous DIY work too…!

Anyway 6 months – yes 6 MONTHS later (no cavity walls!), after much dust, repairing floorboards and re-plastering we switched over to our new wiring, and turned our attention to the rotten beams and windows, and the local council listed planning applications…….

You don’t want to read a rant, so we’ll just tell you where we are to date!

As at September 2008 we have.

Removed most of the uncomfortable moisture retaining concrete overcoat from the front of the house, repaired the poor oak beams that hadn’t been able to dry out, revealed and re-pointed some of the lovely old sandstone base, and the house is now able to breath a little!
8 new oak window frames are now in place, with lead work repaired and re-puttied and the beautiful old metal openers repaired.
Commissioned the construction of a hand carved and planed full panelled oak four poster bed (well the antique ones are just too wee for us big well fed 21^st century folk!)
Repaired and re-pointed the exterior of the old sandstone kitchen chimney
Opened up and revealed more beautiful sandstone inside the internal chimney space (chapel remains me-thinks) and YES (oops got over excited there!) installed a big beautiful black and chrome AGA
Opened up the full dining room inglenook, revealing the bread oven
Repaired and replace numerous oak doorframes
Planted more apple trees and created new vegetable plots

But most importantly, we have created 2 beautiful en-suite bedrooms with big roll top baths and lots of curios and antiquey bits that I find on my (too) occasional excursions to the shops!