How have two weeks gone by already? I was a little silly to think I’d write this newsletter every week without fail! I’ll post as often as I can, but please forgive the slightly irregular schedule while I figure out what is possible!
The last two weeks have been a little boring on the house front, to be honest. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in front of my computer doing things like my tax return which, let’s face it, no one wants to hear about! So I’ll give you a quick rundown of what we have managed and then let you know the plans for the next few months.
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit
The roofers did finally make an appearance. They still have a bit to finish but they seemed to fix the leak over the estate office bedroom quite easily. We have one new Velux window and the boiler room just needs a bit of leadwork finishing off. Hopefully, they will be back this week.
We finished off the guttering on the back of the house. I want to go up there in a heavy storm now and double-check that it all works properly but it should be fine. It works if you fill it with a watering can anyway!
We’ve also got a bit more painting done. There’s still the odd bit to do but all the fancy gable ends that we can reach from the current scaffolding are nice and black now. There are still the lintels above the windows and the stone sills to do.
But now onto the planning of everything we want to do in 2024. The main goal is to start the renovations on the third floor of the main house. I’ll do a video tour of the third floor very soon. We will be removing a wall to make a large family room, putting in a new bathroom and then redecorating Toby’s bedroom, study and bathroom. We then have some storage rooms to figure out and we still have to get into the (so far inaccessible) attic.
However, before we start on the clearing out of the third floor there are some jobs that I have sworn we will finish. Firstly, we need to finish the work on the scaffolding we have at the back of the house. It costs money to keep it there so the sooner we can get finished the better. It’s a slow process due to the weather but as long as we get it done by April it will still be cheaper than taking it down and putting it back up again.
There is also the Estate Office. We’ve still got the bedroom, living area, kitchen and hallway to go. I’m hopeful that with the roof fixed and the plumbing all under control, the rest will come along quite quickly. I’ve been saying that for months though so maybe I’m just fooling myself. We have. holiday booked in March and I’m hoping to have the bulk of it done by then so that we can finish off in April. Fingers crossed!
Outside in the garden, there is plenty to work on this year as well. I want to get the vegetable garden under control and get started with growing at least some things. That means sorting out one of the greenhouses and doing a lot of weeding. Then, there is plenty of hedge-cutting and tidying up to be done. I do have a fantastic gardener now so hopefully we will at least make some progress this year.
We are applying for planning permission to convert the bottom barn. The plans are done but there is now a hold-up while we wait for a bat survey. This can’t be done until spring when they have a chance to see if any bats are roosting in the barn. The initial assessment didn’t turn up anything more than some butterfly wings and a couple of droppings, both of which could be from mice, but we have to check. It’s annoying that it costs so much money to have these surveys done and they can’t just tell us what we need to do to make a safe habitat up front but they have all the power in this situation. We can’t get a planning application without a bat license so there we are.
We will also be finishing the boiler room, and hopefully the pool and gym area too. The pool surround is quite expensive and so that keeps getting bumped down the list for other more pressing problems. We should be able to finish the gym and boiler room without too much trouble. Famous last words of course but I remain hopeful.
We’ve got some work to do on the drains although thankfully the drain survey was pretty positive. We will need planning permission for the new treatment plant and that’s all tied up with the barn conversion because it affects the size of the treatment plant. So for now, there are just a few repairs to make and we’ll do the rest as we go along.
There are other things that I’d love to do but we probably won’t get around to. There’s the tennis court, which we’ve cleared a bit but will still need quite a bit of work. Then there’s the estate office garden and the front garden/parking area. I’d love to turn this into a little courtyard and extend the parking around the back. It’s probably better to leave this for a bit though. There’s a good chance it will get ruined by other work like skip lorries, huge deliveries and scaffolding.
So what do you think, we can totally get all that done right?! Well, it’s good to have goals anyway. We’ll just have to see if it all works out.
This week I’ve been enjoying:
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (my choice for Book Club)
A Witcher rewatch
My Brilliant Year by Leonie Dawson
A sneak peek at Earthborn’s new paint colours
This week my paid subscribers will be getting my How-To tutorial for renovating the fireplace mantel including all the products I used.