Submitted: our second planning application 

Last week we submitted our second planning application – this time for some minor changes to our main building – the farmhouse. The property (which we’ll be renting out in future) sleeps 8 people but only has one en-suite and one family bathroom, which could mean up to 6 people sharing a single bathroom – not ideal.  

The top floor has previously been converted into two bedrooms, but one has a reasonable amount of ‘dead’ space in, mainly caused by the need to store a cold water header tank for our heating and hot water. It’s stored in a wide cupboard, which means nothing can go in front of it. The top floor bedrooms also have fairly low ceilings to accommodate a small inaccessible loft space above. We’ve had so many friends stay and hit their head on the lights hanging down. 

So our plan is two-fold. We want to remove the ceilings and vault them, to create a much more open space (including the landing ceiling). We’ll change the heating system to run off an unvented hot water cylinder and remove the need for the tank on the top floor, and replace the cupboard with a small shower room. This means there’ll be a toilet on every floor, and there’ll be less pressure on the use of the main bathroom too. We’ll also get the rooms properly insulated – at the moment there’s very little insulation and you can feel the cold. And we can get a few of our floorboard gaps closed up at the same time, to stop any unwanted furry visitors popping in! 

Because the farmhouse is considered curtilage listed, we need to get planning for this – we’re adding two rooflights in that change the back exterior of the building slightly. We’ve had a heritage statement written that confirms we’re not removing any old material (the house has already been extended once so any original materials have gone). And because we know the council have a keen interest in our renovations, we want to make sure we do everything the right way, and don’t find ourselves having to undo conversions, or apply for permissions retrospectively. It may extend the initial time a bit more, but it’ll be worth it. 

It’s hard though – to know that we have an entire floor to decorate and furnish, but there’s no point in doing any of it until the building work’s been done. More jobs sat on the to-do list with no sign of a completion date! Hopefully we’ll hear the result of our application by the end of January (although we’ve said that before!!), and start to move a bit more quickly than we can with the barns, which are tied up with complicated detailed designs and discussions about materials. We’ll have to wait and see though – with fingers and toes tightly crossed!!