When we planned out this blog earlier in the week, we had a much more positive title. We were making great progress and moving in the right direction getting the Cow Shed ready to let. The cover photo and description on the listing on Cottages.com had been updated and looked more appealing – even if the rest of the photos do show rooms mostly devoid off furniture. We’re holding off doing a proper promotional ‘launch’ until the rooms have been finished and photos updated.
Over the weekend we moved the first set of furniture into the bedroom – with beds, bedside tables and lamps it looks much nicer already. We’re still missing storage items but have intentionally waited until we set the rest of the room up so we could see what works best in the space.
The sofas have been deep cleaned ready for our first guests, and we’ve mounted both the TV and the accompanying wall unit in the lounge. The electricians have been in to replace all the sockets and switches with ones that sit flush to the wall (and look so much better than what we had before). They also helped by fishing the TV cables through the wall – doing a great job navigating all the insulation that’s packed behind the plasterboard.
And our builders came back to tidy up their remaining jobs – installing the oven trims that we’d had to order separately and fitting the shelf in the shower niche. We planted the final planter with the various flower seedlings we’ve been keeping all summer – managing to clear some of the pots that have needed constant watering in the kitchen garden.
So why the lows? It’s been pretty stressful trying to juggle everything recently – the Cow Shed DIY, getting the listing ready, trying to keep the garden and veg patch going despite the heatwave, the Farmhouse changeovers, and a significant amount of work travel amongst other things. Living on site is great to allow us to help guests, but it can get oppressive too – you feel like you have to be doing something all the time when you’re in the middle of a renovation..
We’ve been lucky enough to get away a couple of times over the last few weekends and have been grateful for the distraction and quality time with friends. But as soon as we’re back it’s back to reality – watering all the flower pots, trying to wash yellow sun cream stains out of bedding, and pulling up broad beans ravaged by both heat and pheasants using that patch as their dust bath.
We took down the netting and picked our gooseberry crop after finding yet another blackbird and sparrow in there this week. After thorough Spring pruning and a promising number of flowers and fruit over the last few months, it turns out we missed a gap in the netting as we managed to harvest a whole 34 gooseberries for our entire crop. Just as we were perfecting a delicious gooseberry jam recipe alongside two new flavours (greengage and quince).
We spent Sunday afternoon in the Cow Shed – mounting the TV (only to find the corner of the screen has been damaged and is just black), painting the bathroom cupboard (the heat means the paint has dried too quickly and isn’t smooth and now needs sanding), putting up the coat hooks (missing the rawlplugs and damaging the wall, and now needing to start afresh), and planning to get the bedroom mirror up only to unpack it and find it smashed to pieces (unsurprising as when we looked again, all the company have done is stuck an address label on the box and not even attempted to package it in any way). Still – at least all of these are resolvable with the right mindset – it may mean we can’t tick things off quite as quickly but we’ll get there in the end.
In the meantime – if you’re looking for a soon-to-be-lovely one bed (sleeps two in a super-king or two singles) cottage in a wonderful rural location – just get in touch 😊
Ley Farm Cottages 