It’s always slightly disappointing when we have a gap in bookings – but at least this time we’ve put the time to good use. John has been working hard sanding down and re-oiling the wooden farmhouse work surface – it takes a good two days to do it properly and always looks so much better when he’s finished. We’ve thought about replacing it with a quartz worktop to remove one ongoing job but as the previous owner of Ley Farm was a joiner, it’s such good quality it would be a shame to lose it. We also had two blown windows in the Farmhouse – one in the conservatory and one in the top floor bedroom – which John has organised to be replaced in the gap. Typically the conservatory window was the one looking directly across the valley – a view you really don’t want ruined with condensation!
Work has progressed in the Cow Shed although not as quickly as we’d hoped. Our builders have installed the ‘old original beams’ for the living room lights and they look perfect – exactly as we’d hoped, which is as if they’ve been there forever. The lights still need to be installed and perhaps another triangle of wood at the ridge, but we’re so pleased with how the beams have turned out. Especially as there was a miscommunication about the direction of the beams and they could have turned out so differently.
Our joiner Dave has been working incredibly hard to finish all the architraves and most of the remaining skirting board, which enabled me to finish caulking and sanding and start on the first coat of paint. We’d really hoped to get all of the woodwork painted this weekend but it took a whole day to caulk, sand, clean and prep so we only had time for the first coat on half of the Cow Shed…. Always worth doing something properly though. Now I just need a good couple of clear days to get the rest finished – roll on next weekend…
We’ve also had the electricians and the plumbers on site this week. Most of the plumbing has already been sorted so their main job was to finish plumbing in the kitchen appliances in and the various taps. The electricians have connected the main consumer unit and started on the lights, switches and sockets. However our go-to brand for sockets and switches has been discontinued and we’ve gone for a different brand this time – it was meant to be an equivalent style (chrome polished and flush to the wall) but for some reason these ones have a plastic backplate that sits against the wall and in line with the chrome faceplate so the metal isn’t flush to the wall. I fear we’ll need to choose new ones and I have no idea what this means for timings…
We were originally aiming for end of June to get the Cow Shed ready and listed on Cottages.com but it’s looking more like the end of July/start of August. We’ve pushed back the Cottages.com visit for photos to the end of next week even though we won’t be close to ready as the photographer is then on holiday for 2 weeks. Timing couldn’t be worse! So hopefully he’ll take photos of the unfinished cottage that we can then repeat once everything is in while he’s on holiday. With a busy July coming up it doesn’t buy us much time – we’re keeping fingers crossed it’ll be enough though.
As we’ve continued to buy furnishings for the Cow Shed (now all inventoried and a list of ‘gaps’ created), we also bought new keyrings for the Farmhouse. One of our keys has recently been lost and so we decided to find a way of differentiating between the various keys without actually labelling them. It’s been quite fun actually trying to find themed keyrings that reflect the different buildings.
The garden is definitely suffering with all the focus going on the Cow Shed. We managed to get some weeding done in the empty vegetable beds so we can now plant out the remaining seedlings at some point. And we’ve potted up the pepper seedlings and some more of our tomatoes. There are still plenty more seedlings to go out though – if anyone finds a way of stopping time so we can just catch up, I would be eternally grateful to know the secret!!
Ley Farm Cottages 