Installing new homes – just not ours yet…

One of the requirements for our build (assuming that planning permissions is granted) is to install alternative homes for the bats and birds currently living in our barns; in addition to the recommendation to install insect boxes to ensure food supplies for the birds and bats (not to mention the opportunity to pollinate our kitchen garden). It’s taken us a few weeks – mainly waiting for dry and still weather (no-one wants to be 3m up a ladder in wind!!) and so you may have seen some of the photos already.  

But we now have: 4 bat boxes (two single chamber and two multi-room for the more social of bats); 5 bird boxes (a combination of open-boxes for robins and typical bird boxes kindly handmade by my dad); 4 swallow nests; and 4 varieties of insect homes (butterfly, ladybird and what looks like a free-for-all). Here’s hoping planning permission follows shortly!! 

Otherwise this weekend has been fairly mundane – painting countless coats of white primer and satin onto the doors into the hallway and landing to cover the faded yellow existing paint (17.5 coats so far and 10.5 to go); and sanding about the same number of coats off the beams in the bathroom to bring them back to life. At least we managed to get outside for a bit on Sunday afternoon to make a start on the various garden jobs and planting the next few sets of seeds to move into the conservatory. The great thing about the first spring with a new garden is finding out what’s been planted where – so many cheerful daffodils poking their yellow heads through the grass in random places!