Our builders finished for Christmas on Thursday afternoon, but not before yet another productive week. They’ve mostly been getting on with indoor jobs, now working across both our new house and the three-bed barn. The internal doors in our new house have been hung (we chose oak doors so we don’t need to paint them!), and the builders also started installing the skirting boards throughout. We really do need to get on with the decorating so we’re not holding them up – hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze in a few hours each evening this week while they’re on their break…
In the barn they’ve started boarding out the top floor walls on the east side on the pre-existing hay loft (they did the west side a while ago). We weren’t expecting them to do so much in this barn yet as we thought most of it would be a later phase, so it’s very exciting to see it progressing and see the rooms taking shape!
The other big job last week was to start getting the roof ready on the garage/communal barn. It’s taken much longer to build up the walls than expected, and the first floor flooring was only supposed to be waterproof for two months. That was up in October sometime, so getting the building watertight has been a priority for a while now (luckily the flooring looks like it might be ok though). The roof has been covered by tarpaulin, and we had the windows and doors put in a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn’t been entirely waterproof. So despite the stormy weather, our roofers came to felt and batten the roof before Christmas, which they managed to do in a morning!
The next step will be to get the solar tiles on – this was planned for early January but the company supplying them has gone frustratingly quiet. They’re reliant on National Grid approving our install and the last I heard at the start of December, it sounded like there was an issue with the amount of solar we’d be generating compared to the amount the grid could manage. We’re hoping that the company are just waiting to sort this before they contact us, but it’s not ideal not knowing what’s going on or what date they’re planning to come. It could start costing us money if they cause delays to the project… Let’s hope we hear from them soon!
The other progress last week was the council discharging our conditions for the two air source heat pumps and outbuilding that were part of our third planning application back in 2022. Essentially as part of our planning approval, the council set certain conditions that they need to approve – generally for materials or parts of the design. It feels a bit ridiculous that the council get to decide what our build looks like when some of these are elements you’d only see when you’re living here. Especially when they only approve the more expensive options (proper wooden front doors instead of composite look-a-likes, for example).
This time, the Planning Officer has discharged the conditions although the Conservation Officer has decided she doesn’t like the proposed trellis planters we want to use to hide the air source heat pumps (apparently they’re “rather domestic/suburban in appearance”) or the wooden shed design for the plant room (which is “visually unattractive and are an unfortunate addition to the farm buildings”). The problem we have is that we have a new application in for the air source heat pump and plant room for the one-bed property. We’re really hoping that the council don’t decline this latest application because they don’t like our proposals for the approved one…
We’ve been on countdown to get the top floor bedrooms ready for family coming to stay over Christmas, and very nearly made it. The doors and door metal are now fully painted and hung (both bedrooms and the shower room), and we spent Friday night and Saturday morning putting up all the fixtures we’d forgotten about – towel holders, door hooks, toilet roll holders etc – which took more time than we expected it to. The toilet roll basket we ordered wasn’t the right colour (‘antique wash’ i.e. brown instead of grey) so we then ordered some spray paint to spray it, and it looks so much better. We managed to get curtains up in one of the rooms but dismally failed in the second. Nearly there though!
We took the opportunity of having guests to have a break from DIY and explore somewhere new on Christmas Eve. It’s far too easy to spend time working on the house or in the garden, or generally doing other chores, so it’s nice to have an excuse to go out. We drove down to Branscombe, which is a pretty little village in a valley and close to the coast. We’ve previously walked out to the coast and along to Beer (the next village to the east), but this time we mainly stayed inland, and walked up to the top of the valley to look out from the clifftop. Heading a bit further, we walked over to Street, which is really close and full of old thatched cottages with plenty of character, and a lovely old pub. It felt so Christmassy with the tree and lights, and a lovely open fire. Definitely one to head back to and to recommend to future guests.
Ley Farm Cottages 