This has been a busy week all round. It’s also been a messy week for our site manager. Our farmhouse septic tank needed upgrading well before we moved in, and we’ve taken our chance with the renovations to connect it up to the new sewage treatment plant that’ll service the whole site. Our site manager, originally intending on just diverting the connection from the old tank to the new treatment plant, ended up digging the entire tank out because it was so small. He did this on what must have been the wettest day of the week and got completely covered in mud… The orchard (where the septic tank was located) doesn’t look much better now, but he filled in all the deep trenches before the weekend to make it accessible again – now we just need to hope the ground doesn’t collapse too much as it settles.
Our builders have been busy ticking other jobs off too – they sanded the concrete floors in our garage and laundry that were poured a couple of weeks ago – as these rooms are currently open to the elements it took a bit longer for them to dry. They’ve laid the broadband cables across the site (each property will have its own connection coming off the main supply, and while we can’t bury the farmhouse connection, we took the opportunity to bury the rest while we’re digging up the ground). And they’ve laid the cabling for the EV charger that will be connected to our house (the other two will be connected to the communal barn electricity supply). Then they’ve dug the trench for the aco drain along the front of the shippon. This is essentially our last line of defence in case we ever get excessive rainwater, and should take the water away from the two shippon conversions rather than going in. And they’ve also started filling in the garden area for the three-bed barn, as they work from the back of the site round to the front.
Our electricians have been back in our new house – adding the outside lights, wall lights, bedroom lights and putting lights on our hanging beam in the lounge. They’ve done a temporary job for now so that we can change the height of the lights easily – it’s so exciting to see this coming together from a photo we saw online and a couple of beams we found in the shippon when we first moved in. They’ve also connected up the lights on the mirrors in the bathroom and ensuite, and in the new shower room in the farmhouse. Given the first two rooms don’t have natural light it was important to us to have different lighting options to make it bright but with more subtle options too – and we love the end result.
Finally – our carpenter and builder has been working in the top floor of our communal building, adding skirting board and installing the loft hatch into the bat loft. It’s starting to come together – although it does mean we need to prime and paint the room pretty soon – another job for the to-do list!
As for us – we made the most of a dry weekend by getting through some of our garden jobs. We started by laying the new patio round the back of the farmhouse. The whole area behind the house was gravelled by the previous owners and we’ve wanted to get rid of it ever since – the clay soil sticks to your boots and then picks up gravel and spreads it everywhere. We went for an old style slab to keep true to our farmhouse heritage – they’re actually moulded from slabs that were reclaimed from a 19th century Lancashire cotton mill. Not so easy to lay though as they’re not flat on the top, so trying to get a reasonable pitch that isn’t too much it feels like you’re sitting on a slope, but that allows the water to drain, is a little challenging. The pitch is also not the same direction as the hill as we’re draining the water away from the house, so it looks slightly odd from the kitchen!
Our plan is to patio half of the space and then build another thinner brick path out to the garden on the other half – there are so many gorgeous summer plants growing through that part of the gravel that we want to keep them but still have a gravel-free pathway round the side of the house. Then we’ll clean up the terrace so it’s a nicer, less concrete-y space. Last week we cleared the gravel off the patio area and laid sand, with the help of my older brother, and this weekend we laid the slabs and grouted between them. It’s such an improvement – jobs like this really are so rewarding.
We also caught up a little on the vegetable garden – digging out the potato patch and planting our seed potatoes (really a job that should have been done a month ago). We planted more seeds – again much later than we’ve been previously. Photos of previous years’ seedlings keep appearing on our Timehop app reminding us how far behind we are – turns out it’s to juggle all the house renovation bit we’re doing with normal life. It’s incredible how people manage to do their own renovation work without builders and still have a bit of a life!
We did start priming the remaining woodwork in our new house, with full intentions to prime everything that needed doing (the skirting boards had mostly been primed before installing) and then make a start painting it this weekend, but we need to take off the remaining doors and ironmongery to avoid getting paint on it, and most of the wood needs sanding anyway. We’ve got a couple of weeks before the carpets are due to go down in the bedrooms – looks like most of our evenings might be spent painting again.
The ingredient labels for our jam/chutney/jelly jars finally arrived this week. We’ve been working on this for months now, trying to understand the different regulations, then designing labels that fitted our jars, and finally working out how many of each label to print and how to design a sheet so as not to print more than we need. It then took a month for the company to send them to us, but now we’ll be ready with produce available to our guests when we finally open.
Ley Farm Cottages 