One of our big ambitions has been to tidy up the farmhouse back garden and terrace and make it more usable before we rent the property out. We started by laying the patio a couple of months ago and cutting back some of the overgrown bushes, which resulted in several dumpy bags of garden waste drying under the terrace as it was the only place we could keep it dry. We moved our freezers there last year when the solar tiles were connected up, and have been storing our firewood there too for the wood burner, so it’s been quite cramped.
John has been gradually burning the garden waste over the last couple of weeks and since the garage is now ready, we made our focus this weekend to clear it all. We moved the final dumpy bag and started off with the freezers, which needed a bit of a clean having been outside for so long. They weren’t as heavy as we thought they would be – although our route down to the garage was through the orchard and so we had to navigate around tree branches – not easy when you’re going backwards! It was actually quite calming to take everything out and reorganise it all. It gave us the bug as we started to move more boxes into the garage, and even made a start moving the kitchen down, although it’s not easy trying to work out what we’ll need over the next week or two and what we can move.
We haven’t yet built our firewood shelter so we moved all the firewood down into our three-bed cottage for the time being where it will stay dry; and swept the terrace. It looks so much bigger already! It’s going to look great once John pressure washes it and we paint the walls.
It’s been a relatively quiet week on site. The renderer came on Monday to repair the cracks and the areas that had blown, which John then primed while I was away for the day with work. We didn’t get round to painting it this weekend so will try during the week if the weather is kind – once this is finished then the protective covering on the downpipes can be removed and the water butts installed. The carpenter has been on site doing various jobs – one of them being to start removing the protective casing around the downpipes on the new communal barn, at the back of the three-bed barn and at the back of our new house, which he’s also added a water butt to. We have two more water butts that’ll be going in the front so we can use the water for the various flower pots we’ll have around the front doors.
While on site he started installing the laundry sink and cupboards as these were delivered on Wednesday. The stone supplier is coming next week to measure up for the work surfaces in the laundry and games room, so we’re grateful our carpenter managed to get both ready in time. His job next week is to install the floor-to-ceiling cupboards in the laundry – we’re using these to store all our cottage bedding so we can’t wait for this to be done as it means we can empty the farmhouse of a rather large pile of boxes!
John seeded the final bare patches that have been left in the orchard and in our wood from the building work, as well as the final patch around the side of our garden. Some of it is already starting to germinate in the warm wet weather we’ve had, although we did get the chance to try out the drains and concrete gradients on Monday after a very wet day. It looks like everything worked almost as it was expected to – although the drain blocked and overflowed out along our drive, and carved a channel in the stone that had been compacted down. It looks like we’ll need to properly concrete it at some point if we want to avoid losing it over time.
We also took a trip to Seaton on Friday morning to choose the games room flooring – we’ve already been once but there wasn’t enough material in stock so we had to choose a different one. It’s slightly frustrating as it means we need to wait longer for the flooring to be ready and before we can start moving furniture in from the farmhouse. Hopefully we can line the various different stages up as efficiently as possible so we don’t lose time.
Ley Farm Cottages 