26.11.08 The Middle Bedroom

We have a little bit of money now and have decided to make a start on the middle bedroom. This is Rob's mighty erection! It's taken quite a bit of sawing, fixing, routing and probably a bit of cursing too.
It shall stand in the middle of the room to divide the bedroom area and the small living area. It will turn the other way so that the cupboards face the living area. I have to paint the bedroom and then stain and varnish the room divider. It will probably be ready after Christmas as Phil the carpet man is busy laying carpets before Christmas.

26.11.08 The Bathroom

We were getting a bit worried about the amount of water that goes all over the tiled floor. The grout was looking past it's best too. I dug it all out and re grouted it about two weeks ago while I was on holiday. We ordered a proper shower screen and Rob fitted it last Thursday. He was so excited he fitted it the same day as it came!

The other picture is to shown that I have real plants that live in the bathroom. These have been in for over a year and I haven't killed them yet. I'm sure they survive on neglect! Notice the lovely new grout.

24.05.08 The Front Garden

Here is the finished front garden! We managed to get the rest of the plants today and finished it off. Maybe in three years it will look like it's supposed to. But you get the general idea.

18.05.08 The Front Garden

Whilst we have been renovating, we had acquired lots of old copper piping and scrap metal. Rob weighed this in yesterday and got £250 from it. This has bought the plants for the front garden. I can't believe how expensive the plants are and in this shot alone is £76 worth! We have only completed this corner section as the garden centre did not have all the box hedging that we required.

The garden is starting to transform and whilst it will be about 3 years before it has properly developed, I think it is beginning to look great.

The courtyard where all the scrap metal was has been swept and Rob has hung the hanging baskets up. The pots that the plants from the front garden are in are now dotted around. Rob has also put up the outdoor clock that I bought him for our first wedding anniversary. It's not worthy of a picture, but it does look better.

11.05.08 The Front Garden

We have spent all weekend breaking up the slate into varying sizes. The slate needed to be broken with a hammer, sieved for the bigger pieces and then sieved again for the smaller pieces. It's been a dusty and quite boring job. However, now that it is all in place, I think that it looks lovely.

We have started digging the soil up and getting rid of the big stones in readiness for planting which will hopefully be next week.

I have also scraped the post at the end of the garden and have re-painted it black.

05.05.08 The Front Garden

Rob's been busy today. I haven't been able to do much until the brickwork is complete. The basic structure is there now and Rob's still busy in the garden pointing. If you have a look at the far end, the weed suppressor is in place. We have started to place the old slate that came off the roof to see what it will look like. We think it looks great!

04.05.08 The Front Garden

The garden starts it's transformation.

Can you tell what it is yet?!

03.05.08 The Front Garden

Our garden looked a bit like this when we began to hack it to pieces last Thursday. Rob got the urge to do something and then attacked the pathway last weekend. He cemented the pathway and added a row of bricks down the side of the path and then it rained!. He then started taking up the lawn and I finished it yesterday. We have since moved wheel barrow loads of soil to the back garden. Our neighbour Fred on the way back from his allotment, decided to help. I have never known anyone of his age with such energy and he puts us to shame and doesn't allow us little breaks!

We have a plan. I could tell you about it, but then it wouldn't be as exciting as seeing it develop slowly over the weeks. Or maybe faster if Fred is involved!

09.04.08 Planning

The web site hasn't been updated in such a long time. My apologies! However, we need money to do house renovations. The cottage has been up for sale since the end of September 2007, but with the housing market as it is, nothing is moving, including our house.





But, we haven't been completely slack and we did put a request into the local planning department to see if we required planning permission to alter the outbuildings into a kitchen, utility room and downstairs toilet, with an ajoining conservatory roof and doors from the house to the outbuildings. We don't! so that's a bit of good news.

I can't remember if I ever posted pictures of the outbuildings fully. I know that I posted the newly decorated toilet and the original 200 year old sink. So I shall now, to refresh my memory and to refresh my Mum and Dad's computer home page! That's if I remember how to do it!

The toilet will be a toilet, but you will enter from the other end.

The old wash house chimney will have to come down to allow us to go through to the other room. We shall probably do things with the metal work within it, to keep it in the house and make a feature of it.

The courtyard on the right hand side will possibly have a conservatory roof, but we have been know to change our minds!

The picture with the plant pots in it, poor picture, will be the main kitchen and the small window in the last picture will be opened up, to make a bigger one.

We shall keep the pan tiles the same, but add velux windows for light.

You can see the horse trough through the plant pot picture, which shall be storage space or a utility room, if I have my way! It depends on what happens to the toilet.

The main walkthrough at the moment will be bricked up, so that the middle area is enclosed with a small seating area and plant pots.

We need to sit down and draw plans. So one day, this will all change and our what is now kitchen, will be a dining room. We still need to do the stairs, gardens and middle bedroom.