Preparing the farmhouse for building work

Another week of dry weather meant our builders could work uninterrupted – with the amount to be done on site, we’ve now got up to 5 builders on certain days working on different parts. They’ve finished putting insulation along the front of the shippon and have now started to build up the second layer of breeze blocks, starting from the corner next to the barn. This front wall is the only one we’re finishing with render instead of stonework to keep consistent with the original wall – although we’ve gone with a creamy buttermilk colour instead of the dirty grey we had before. We had a delivery of crushed stone this week, which our builders have laid in the one-bed cottage and in half of our new house to level the floor out. This sounds like an easy job but remember this week it reached 27 degrees – not a temperature I’d like to shovel a huge sack of stone by hand… huge respect to our builders.

They’ve also started building up our extension at the other end – we hadn’t realised they were doing this so it was quite a surprise coming back from walking Evie to find a wall had appeared from the previous day! While building up the walls they’ve obviously left a gap for our lounge window – seeing it in reality brings it to life and makes you realise just how big it is, and what an amazing view we’re going to have over the valley. We’re very lucky indeed to have had this approved by the council planners.

Having put the roof lights into the main barn last week, they’ve now finished tiling around them, making sure they’re watertight. Good timing given we had our first rain shower in weeks on Friday night, and are due rain again this week (keeping our fingers crossed for this, as the garden is parched and our well keeps drying up from our daily watering).

Our stonemason Dave has continued working on the garage building, steadily building up the walls, which look incredible! At one stage we were considering facing this building in render because it’s cheaper, but we decided to make cuts elsewhere in order to keep the stonework – and we’re so pleased we did. He’s doing such an amazing job, it was definitely the right decision. Despite the huge pile of stones we collected (part of which we inherited, and part that we salvaged from various places on our site), we’re likely to run out before we finish the building, and so bought some more from a local company. We went for the cheaper option – unfortunately this meant our first delivery of stones weren’t suitable. Luckily the company took them back and replaced them, so we haven’t wasted any money.

We’ve also managed to make a bit of progress this week. First of all, our chimney sweep took advantage of the scaffolding around the farmhouse to thoroughly clean the chimney from the outside, replacing the cowl to stop birds nesting in the chimney. We have birds nesting pretty much everywhere including the chimney, and while we don’t use the wood burner during nesting season, we can’t guarantee our guests won’t do the same, so it’s safer to stop them nesting there in the first place.

As our attic is pretty much inaccessible, we’ve been storing our ‘less-used items’ firstly in the barn, and then (before build began) on the top floor of the farmhouse – as well as using one of the rooms as a spare room. Our builders are getting ready to start work on the top floor in the next week or so, so we needed to clear it all out for them. We waited until this weekend’s visitors had gone, and then spent several hours moving beds and boxes (and repacking some boxes more efficiently) down into our first floor spare room. Over the last four years we’ve been collecting cottage-related items kindly donated by family and friends so we’ve acquired quite a number of boxes!! At least we don’t have any more visitors until mid-July now so we have some time to get the top floor done – and even then we’ve managed expectations so our next visitors know they might be sleeping on one of the sofas!

Last week our local farmer sold us about 350 roof tiles that matched ours – we need extra tiles for the shippon extension and were very lucky that they happened to have a stack that had been sat in one of their fields unused, and were kind enough to sell them to us. The tiles still need cleaning so John’s been back on them this week – not ideal in the sunshine (it burns off the cleaning fluid too quickly) but he’s managed to get through a third so far, with the remaining ones hopefully being finished next week.

We did manage to take a break this weekend too, and took our friends to Dalwood vineyard – which is about 4 miles away and is a boutique vineyard that’s been going for about 15 years. It’s owned by a co-op of local villagers and offers a fantastic tour with delicious wine-tasting and lovely views across the vineyard and fields. We first went last August and knew we had to bring people here in future. Teamed with lunch at the local pub (which we have a soft spot for as we stayed next door a few times when we were first house-viewing in the area in 2019), and a lovely shady walk back along the lanes, it’s a perfect day out. We’ll definitely be recommending this trip to our paying guests.