Lighting up

We’ve got to the stage in our project where we’re ready to have multiple trades on site at the same time, and so progress seems to be speeding up. 

In our house – the builders have laid most of the kitchen out and installed the wall cupboards on one of the walls. The other wall is harder as it’s a stone wall, which means fixing a wooden frame onto the wall first to give the cupboards something to hang off. The next step is for the stonemasons to come and measure up for the work surfaces, although we also need to buy the kitchen appliances just to make sure they fit in the space properly. We were recommended to go to the John Lewis outlet store in Swindon for a bargain so we duly went up there to take a look, but after standing there for ages googling different appliances and features and only finding dishwashers and washing machines with 4-5hr cycles, gave up and went home! Much easier using the internet… 

Our electricians have been in and installed most of the switches, sockets and lighting. We’re so pleased with the kitchen lights – copper pendants against the green wall – and the corridor lights, which are clear sphere lights hanging down in the vaulted space. We’ve also had LED lights put along the beams for a more subtle lighting effect – it looks amazing! I know it’s cliché but having the lights in really does make a difference… We’ve managed to misplace the spare room light in the chaos we’re currently living in, and still need to get the wall lights and bedroom lights (although we’ve actually bought both once already – turns out both sellers are abroad; one couldn’t be delivered because they’re sanctioned from delivering to a non-EU country, and the other is held up because of Chinese New Year). Our electricians have put up standard pendants for now – at least we’ve got a bit more time. 

We’ve also had the plumbers on site working towards our 20^th February deadline for getting the three air source heat pumps installed and commissioned. The outbuilding for the one-bed is coming along well and almost ready for the plumbing to be completed. And they’ve been working hard (with our builders) in the three-bed barn – now the windows have gone in, they’ve laid the underground water and heating pipes, and packed insulation around (and over) them. It’s all been taped down ready for the underfloor heating to go in next week. 

Frustratingly there’s been a setback – each of our buildings need to cater for a different number of people and so have different sized hot water cylinders. There was a mix-up and the three-bed barn’s outbuilding was designed for a smaller cylinder – we only realised on Tuesday that the largest cylinder had been installed in our house instead. It’s particularly frustrating because it means our builders need to increase the size of the three-bed’s outbuilding for the larger cylinder to fit in. Hopefully it’s not too large a setback – our plumbers have already swapped out the cylinder in our house for the right size (which is so much smaller in comparison!!). Our builders haven’t let us down yet though, so the countdown to 20^th February is continuing… 

On Thursday the site office left the site!! The cabin was located at the only flat part of the site on the footprint of a former building, but blocked the route for the new wastewater treatment plant for the site, so it had to be removed in order for us to progress. Our builders have instead moved into the one-bed cottage – an added incentive to get the air source heat pump heating up and running before the weather turns again! It was incredible to watch the cabin be removed – it was a tight gap delivering it at the start of the project but now the garage/communal building is there, there must have been a couple of inches’ grace between that and the three-bed barn. It wasn’t helped by the fact the ground is all broken up and slippery and the furrows meant lorry couldn’t drive straight between the buildings because it would have tipped too much – our builders were directing him every foot and putting things under the wheels to keep the lorry and cabin upright. An incredible job done by everyone involved 😊 

As if that wasn’t enough (!!) our builders have been digging trenches and laying ducts for our broadband connections and for the water supplies to the new buildings. Not as visually impactful or exciting as the rest of the changes this week, but definitely more critical, although – to quote our carpenter – work that no-one will see or appreciate in future. The farmhouse still has an overhead broadband cable which – while it’s not as bad as having the electricity cables – still cuts through the view, so we’re very grateful we’re able to bury the wires to the other buildings. 

And now to our turn! We’ve massively neglected the garden over the last few months, and so spent a surprisingly warm weekend outside fixing things. Our first job was to mend the asparagus bed in the orchard – we originally made this from the sleepers underneath the greenhouse nearly 3 years ago – but they’re incredibly old sleepers and the back fell off over winter as the wood decays. The bed is at the edge of the orchard on a bank between our land and the stream between us and our neighbour, and the back started sliding down the bank. Luckily we managed to recover it before it disappeared completely, and it’s been lying on the bed waiting for the last two months. We reattached it using long shelving brackets and bashed down some metal rods behind it into the bank, to catch the back in case it happens again. 

We also tidied up the flower pots we’ve had on the front wall of the garden, which look like they’ve been growing weeds for the last year. We took the dahlia tubers out to dry them ready for this summer (recognising this should have been done back in November but we’ve had to prioritise the house jobs – better late than never…). Another very neglected job was to clear our wood of fallen branches. While not a large area, it feels like every tree has decided to shed several big branches this winter, and we managed to fill two large dumpy bags. It was probably the pup’s favourite job though, as she kept trying to steal branches before we got to them! 

Our next job was to tidy and clean the greenhouse. It’s amazing how much collects in there over the summer while you’re using it – and the glass had gone green with algae. We emptied everything and I sorted through it while John cleaned it inside and out – it’s positively gleaming in comparison! We still need to treat the wooden bench that we inherited – but now everything is more organised, and anything we don’t need at the start of the season is back in the shed for storage.  

We ended the weekend tending to the peach and nectarine tree. We planted these three years ago to replace the dead nectarine tree we’d inherited, and they seem to be growing more each year. You’re supposed to cover them over the winter to limit the amount of rain they get, as it spreads peach leaf curl disease, but the plastic on the tree covers we made two years ago has disintegrated and needed major repair work with new plastic sheeting. We managed to get one frame done before it got too dark – even then the frame has warped so we’ve ended up putting it back together slightly differently to how it was before! Still – it does the job. Now we just need to find the time to do the other one…