(Plaster)board and floored

Suddenly it feels like we’ve progressed from having an old cow shed with new walls and ceilings into it becoming a proper building – with the addition this week of our underfloor heating. Our builders put this down first in the shippon as they’re using the barn as a workshop in the recent bad weather and the floor space is used too regularly.

It only took a day to lay all the pipes in both ends of the building – with black floor clips poked through the floor insulation to make sure the pipes were a consistent distance apart. And then just as quickly, on Friday, the screed went down with a cement mixer in the courtyard pumping it into the building. There’s now a beautifully smooth floor in place – we’ve been banned from walking on it until it’s dried next week to avoid marking it. Let’s just hope there’s nothing wrong with the underfloor heating pipes!

The other main change is in the farmhouse where our builders have installed all the plasterboard in our bathroom, ensuite, and throughout the top floor. They’ve managed to keep a couple of the old beams visible (ones with bark still on the wood) which will help the house retain some of its character. We’re glad they’ve made progress in the bathrooms as it’s been a month now since they were covered with sheeting and green plastic and the novelty has definitely worn off. The electrician started the week by drilling holes for the light fittings and extractor fan into the insulation – we’re intrigued by how they’ll know where these are as they’ve now been boarded over with plasterboard. There’s a lovely little diagram on the green sheeting in our ensuite complete with measurements which may help, however we’ve not discovered anything like this in the bathroom yet.  Maybe it just requires a lucky guess!

The walls of our garage / communal building continue to rise. It does feel a little bit like our builders have both ends of extreme weather holding them back – with heavy rain the last few weeks, and incredibly hot sun this past week. Our stonemasons must have worked particularly fast in this weather to avoid the lime mortar drying out – they’re making very good progress though.

We finally heard back from the conservation officer about our front doors, the design of which we submitted back in April. We’d wanted to put in barn-effect composite doors which are cheaper than wooden doors, and are more energy efficient, don’t expand/contract, are more durable, etc.  However it turns out, frustratingly, that our original planning drawings had included fully glazed doors which we hadn’t noticed. This means that we only have planning for glazed doors, and any deviation from this will require a brand new application incurring additional cost and requiring the minimum (!) 8 week timescale (including public consultation). The conservation officer has been helpful and advised that, while we won’t get approval for composite doors, timber doors would be acceptable (once approved through the planning process of course).  As we’re very close to the deadline in our critical path for ordering the doors, it makes us a bit more comfortable to proceed at risk. The style won’t be approved until we go through the formal planning process, but as we’re staying consistent with our existing farmhouse front door and that of other barn conversions around the valley, we hopefully won’t run into any problems and end up having purchased and installed an expensive timber door that the council aren’t happy with.  

The hot weather means we’ve been having some spectacular sunrises. On Saturday, we were up early to head down to the Seaton Park Run on the coast, and despite it being very misty and damp in our valley, as we drove out of the valley towards Seaton we suddenly broke out of the mist into bright sunshine and blue skies. It’s amazing how much the weather differs throughout the Blackdown Hills – it’s almost got its own weather climate. Seaton was similarly misty and mysterious, and only started to clear as we left for home.