Getting out of the ground

It doesn’t feel like a month ago that our builders started digging the foundations for our derelict barn (which is going to be used as a garage, a laundry and a shared games room/large reception room). They’ve made great progress despite the weather, and if you’ve been reading our blog each week you’ll have seen them go through the different phases from digging out huge trenches for the foundations, to pouring copious amounts of concrete in, and then finally laying the breeze blocks and bricks up to ground level. By the end of the week they also managed to get the block and beam floor in place – which is a concrete beam floor that will be strong enough for driving over. It’s starting to look very smart!

It was a really wet start to the week, so our builders took the opportunity to lay the drainage in the shippon, where they were mostly under cover. The pipes for the one-bed bathroom and kitchen, and for the bathrooms in our two-bed are all in place and concreted in, ready to be connected up to the main drainage channels and down into our sewage treatment plant. It’s starting to get easier to visualise how the rooms will look – even though we’re still missing walls! It did make us realise we’ve not finished our kitchen designs yet, despite starting this a few months ago. It’s easy for things to slip down the list when there are more pressing tasks to be done – but this has moved back up again and hopefully next weekend we’ll finalise a design for our house at least.

We’ve spent the last few days away at a cottage in Cornwall for my mum’s birthday – it’s been very useful to see what it’s like staying in a self-catering cottage and what makes the experience particularly memorable (both from a positive and a negative perspective). We realised just how the small things count (like supplying enough toilet roll and a decent tea towel) and how it’s worth investing in decent fixtures and fittings (to make sure curtain rails don’t fall on one’s head!). It’s been great having our own outdoor table and lovely cushions to make the most of the glorious sunshine, and Evie has loved playing with the owner’s italian greyhound puppy!

We’ve taken inspiration from the places we’ve visited and driven past too – from unusual bamboo trellises created as screens to fairy lights over garden arches, and new ways to use/present our fruit-based products. And if we do ever end up getting chickens, we saw a cool ‘chicken tractor’ with the coop inside and can be moved around a location so they don’t do too much damage to the grass. All things to consider!