Author: leonieaustin

One thing you learn very quickly owning an old house is nothing is certain. Embarking on our project to renovate the medieval cottage that is the core of our home we knew it would be a voyage of discovery and there have been highs as well as lows. Discovering the original gable end wall in the smithy end of the sitting room hidden underneath plaster and false beams was definitely one of the highlights.

With our specialist builders back and starting on the restoration of the last part of the planned works, the end wall to the old kitchen and the spare bedroom above, we were fully expecting the worst. They hacked off a bit of the concrete render when renovating the rest of the house in 2019 and found a crumbling wall underneath. They stopped fearing it was going to be a major job that they wouldn’t be able to finish in time before winter and bad weather set in, covered it up and left us to it. Initially they were going to come back a few months later in the following spring. Due to COVID they were delayed a year and the gaps in the walls meant cold draughts for two winters.

Now, finally, all of the concrete render was to be removed and we were going to find out if our worst fears would come true – the need to re-build the whole timber frame and install new wattle and daub panels. We were pleasantly surprised, the timber frame wasn’t in too bad a state. It needed some restoration work but not a full re-build, a relief.

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The view from the inside looked even more impressive. We unfortunately lost a panel to the left of the window as they took the render off. The ones under the window at floor level had been lost years ago and been replaced by plasterboard which we were happy to get rid of. Thankfully it wasn’t too cold as all the builders could do before installing new panels was board it up each night to keep the worst of the weather and animals out of the house.

Once the frame had been re-built they could then get on with a new window frame giving us a larger opening and letting more light into the room. The new wattle and daub panels they create on site in the traditional way with hazel sticks and then daub before a final layer of lime plaster to finish it off.

The ring beam on the back wall where I had removed modern plaster and metal mesh had deteriorated so much that it needed to be completely replaced with a new piece of timber. It is very obviously new which is good practice with restoring an old building so visitors/future owners are clear what is part of the original house and what is not. It does stick out a bit like a sore thumb though so hopefully it will mellow a bit with age. At least the roof is now properly supported which is the main thing.

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On the outside they installed wood wool board over the frame to improve the insultation before plastering with lime render. It will take a number of coats with time left between each for them to cure. It is important to control the moisture loss to avoid cracking and help with carbonation as this is what gives the lime finish its strength. So we’re back to having our outside wall covered in hessian to help manage this process.

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Two organisations – the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Listed Property Owners Club – have been invaluable on our restoration journey and have increasingly helped us make the best decisions for the house. It is inevitable when you start on a project like this that you make changes with the best of intentions that you later wish you had done differently as you learn more. We certainly feel that way with the bathroom, our first project in 2009, where we used a general builder who put in damp proofing under the floor. Sensible in a new build, a real problem in an old house that needs to breath. It is something we will have to come back to and fix once the rest of the house is finished.

With work well under way on restoring the end wall and all the challenges known and being dealt with attention turned to the floors. Downstairs the old kitchen was tiled on two levels. We think this was to create more height in the part of the kitchen where the hob used to be as by the sink you’d hit the ceiling if you were over 5’6″. A good excuse for M to get out of doing the washing up! The plan was take up all the tiles, dig down to create one level and hopefully find the original floor which we had done successfully in the hall and sitting room.

Upstairs the floor had always sloped and we knew some of the floorboards were loose so weren’t sure what we would find when we took the carpet up. When the builders did this we really did uncover the unexpected as we found that the floor joists were not attached to the back wall with the floor effectively free floating in the back half of the room. The builders were more panicked than we were, after all we have lived with this for nearly 14 years and there hadn’t been any appreciable changes. One of them rushed back to the workshop to get some acrow props to hold the floor up while we then decided what to do next. The tale of our two floors is for the next instalment!

Our shed is now done and we had great fun moving all the garden stuff and DIY tools in although it is still a bit of a jumble at the moment as we haven’t installed the shelving yet. It felt great finally bringing some order to the chaos we’ve been living in for three years, even if only by getting the right things into the right space. Sorting and tidying will have to wait.

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As with any building work nothing is ever quite finished. The patio, currently a MOT limestone sub-base waiting for pavers, will give us mud free access to the shed and the house and be a lovely spot for breakfast and evening drinks under the cherry tree. Thankfully the tree looks like it’s survived the building work which cut off half its roots.

We’ve had to wait a couple of months for delivery of the clay brick pavers as, with many building materials at the moment, supplies are erratic. In the meantime our builders have moved on to another job and we’ll have to wait until they’re free to come back for a few days. As they have work booked well into next year I hope it won’t be next summer until we get our dream patio. A gate will complete the link between the extension and the shed giving us privacy and increased security at last.

Focus back on the old house

With everything but the patio finished we were builder free for a couple of weeks over Easter (yes, I’m a bit behind with my updates!). However, we still had a rush to get everything prepped before our restoration builders came back to work on the old kitchen and spare bedroom above. This is the last part of the old house to get the full renovation treatment.

The serious work on renovating our 15th century home started with the chimney and hall in February 2018 outlined in yellow. The new extension and main bedroom ensuite (orange) were next starting a few months later and took nearly a year to complete. Only a couple of weeks after the extension was finished we started on the major restoration of the old house (blue) in July 2019. Building work paused for most of 2020 mainly due to the COVID pandemic. We re-started in January this year with the gabion retaining wall at the back of the garden and the new shed. Now we are embarking on the final stage, hopefully, of the restoration project focusing on the old kitchen, spare bedroom above and the stairs, outlined in pink.

The first challenge in preparing for this phase of work was clearing out both rooms as they have been used for storage and as swing space. Like many people I used some of my time in lockdown last year to clear out clothes and belongings and not being able to get rid of them. They all went into the spare room. While all our books and my wardrobe moved into the old kitchen to free up space for M to have an office as he became permanently home based.

We have managed to stuff most things into the dining room including our PCs and office gear. With the stairs coming out to be rebuilt we won’t have access to upstairs and our studies for at least a couple of months. Everything destined for the car boot sale, recycling, charity or online sites is in the hall. First out of the door will be donating most of my suits to Smart Works, a charity that helps women into work. I don’t need so many now I’m working part-time and hopefully they will still be useful despite the current more relaxed home based approach to office work.

Peeling back the layers

By the end of March the rooms were clear and ready to strip the modern finishes off the beams and walls in preparation for the builders. We brought back Clean Beam Restore to strip the black paint off the beams. Their approach of soda blasting is gentle on the wood leaving the history and patina intact while cleaning off the stuff we don’t want.

That only took a day, although clearing up all the dust which gets everywhere took much longer. More laborious and time consuming was removing all the modern plaster, cement and paint finishes. I decided to tackle this as it would save having to pay the builders to do it and I would be able to take the time to save more of the original features. One of our goals is to preserve as much of the old building as possible so it’s been worth it to us for me to spend time gently peeling back the layers.

I started upstairs in the spare room as we believed this would be in the worst condition. The paint proved quite easy to remove with a putty knife and chisel as the trapped moisture had lifted most of it from the lime surface underneath. Over the years the edges of the panels have deteriorated and been filled with modern plaster. In some cases even concrete. The worst case has been plaster and cement used to cover up some of the wooden beams then painted black to look like wood. This has led to the wood underneath rotting to such an extent that, in some cases, it fell away as I was removing the pink plaster.

There have been less worrying and more interesting reveals including newspaper stuffed into holes and pasted onto the wall. Unfortunately none with a date! Also, the internal dividing wall with the landing had been plastered over with lime render but onto lathes rather than wattle indicating a possible Victorian repair. Wonderful to reveal were timbers of the oak frame which had been covered at the same time.

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Downstairs was a similar story with paint, plaster and concrete affecting the timber frame and wattle and daub panels underneath. The panels are not a structural problem as they basically fill in the frame to create the wall. More of an issue is where it has rotted the wooden timber frame. The first step is to let it dry out and then see how soft the wood is, how much can be repaired and strengthened with a resin filler and how much is so far gone it needs replacing. This is more important on wood exposed to the elements where new timbers have to be cut into the old wood that is still structurally sound.

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It’s been a very dirty and dusty job and I still haven’t quite finished. Only just managing to stay one step ahead of the builders as they work on the frame and floors. It’s a good thing I’ve been used to wearing a face mask as it’s been essential along with eye protection.

The lifting of lockdown restrictions and being able to get away from the building site by going out has been very welcome. Most exciting was a Saturday lunch in London followed by drinks in Covent Garden. It felt almost normal!

May be starting work on a garden retaining wall in the depths of winter was not the best idea. Like breaking eggs to make an omelette things can be a bit of a mess until you get to the finished article.

Our builders had to dig out what felt like mountains of earth with a mini digger to create the base for the gabion wall. It was all dumped in the parking area so they could use it to back fill behind the gabions once they were full of stone. The gabions are installed in decreasing steps to the top so the downward pressure of the earth on the larger steps at the bottom helps to give the wall its stability. Given it’s been very wet every move churned up the earth making it look like a disaster zone. Alongside this we had deliveries of stone and hard core which just added to the mess. Wearing wellies was essential every time we went outside and slipping over was a constant risk.

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Digging out the bank has been a slow process as, understandably, they were concerned it didn’t destabilise too much and risk falling in on them. Thankfully the bank proved to be very robust and, despite the weather, stayed put – probably helped by a mesh of ivy roots. Each gabion basket needed to be built from the flat metal mesh delivered from the suppliers then filled with stone. Finally, after about four weeks of three guys working on it full-time, our wall was up and finished and looking good.

That meant they could get started on building our garden shed. Initially they were just going to pour a slab of concrete and we were going to buy a shed to put on top of it. However, they talked us through the challenges of making sure it doesn’t end up standing in water and so we asked them to build it for us. With long lead times for garden sheds we also thought we would get it done more quickly.

Not ones to do things by halves our builders started by putting in footings and a proper foundation for the shed. As the frame went up it looked more and more like a mini version of our extension, which they built for us. We are certainly going to end up with one of the most robust and comfortable sheds I’ve ever seen with insulation, double glazing and even a heater!

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With the gabion wall done they were also able to turn their attention to clearing the car parking area. This included putting in a soak away as when it rains we were ending with lagoons of standing water. Not much fun when getting out of a car with heavy shopping.

They also laid a drainage pipe from the French drain installed in front of the old house more than a year ago which has been sticking out of the ground ever since. We had the challenge of trying to identify where the gas pipe had been channelled as part of building the kitchen extension so they didn’t accidently dig through that. It’s a good thing I take so many pictures – I had an accurate record so they knew which part of the drive to avoid.

Now we are back to some sort of normality with a much clearer car park and the shed frame built. It still needs a roof, windows and door which hopefully will be done in the next couple of weeks.

Already I’m having to turn my attention from this work to the next stage of the renovation of the old house as the restoration builders start with us on 7 April. Before then I’m getting the black paint stripped off the beams in the old kitchen and spare bedroom above where they will be working. As both rooms are full of stuff – books, clothes, furniture – yet again we’re having to move things around the house to cater for the builders and no shed yet to use as swing space!

Regular and eagle-eyed readers may have spotted some changes in this blog. I’ve finally learnt how to insert photos side by side. It had always been my plan to learn how to use the wordpress tool that hosts my blog site and actually turn it into a proper website. I finally signed up to a course and started it last week. In the second module I learned about different layouts so expect more improvements in the weeks to come.

The first module focussed on the reasons for starting a blog and the intended audience. It’s been very helpful to take a step back after nearly three years and think about the purpose. I always wanted to share our journey on the project to renovate our period home with family and friends. I also wanted to share the experience with people who may be embarking on something similar as I have found others stories incredibly helpful for us. However, the title of the blog is From life at the desk to living the dream which is much more than this project. I have blogged about the garden, travel and village life and I am still working from a desk, although not full-time. So there are other stories to tell and I’m hoping developing my blog site will make it easier for you to follow and navigate. All feedback welcome!

A year ago our priorities were some major infrastructure work on the garden and restoring the end wall of the old house, the last wall in need of renovation. One year on, in what feels like an oversized version of Groundhog Day, we have the same two items on the top of our to do list. The difference this time – work has actually started, hurrah!

First out of the block is the work on the garden. We are putting in a retaining wall at the rear where a steep bank has been deteriorating over the years with dead elms covered in ivy, a lilac sadly toppled by high winds over a year ago and some overgrown hedging not to mention the mass of weeds. At the same time we want to sort out the parking area which has become a bit of a mud bath after the building work and heavy delivery lorries of the last couple of years.

Last year wasn’t wasted though as there was a lot of prep we could do ourselves. We needed planning permission, even for a retaining wall and a garden shed, as we’re Grade II listed and in a conservation area. We submitted our pre-application advice request in April. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and it’s affect on our local planning department, we didn’t get a response until the end of June. It was positive so I then went ahead and submitted our full application getting approval in October. We met up with the guys who built our extension to discuss our plans and finally they were able to make a start at the end of January.

Alongside sorting the planning permission we were able to do some ground clearance. We started by bringing down a number of leylandii along the bank that we didn’t want to keep. We had already secured the approval of the Council’s tree officer, a much quicker process than planning. M was brilliant with his chain saw and his technique certainly improved after watching some YouTube videos. With some of the trees up to 10m tall it wasn’t a task for the faint hearted.

To support the bank we’ve decided to go for gabions – metal mesh baskets filled with stone – as we feel this will be less obtrusive and more natural than piles of concrete. Luckily the iron stone we’ve chosen for the facing is very similar in colour to the surrounding earth bank so it really will merge into the background, particularly once we have softened the edges with planting and climbers. At the moment it does look massive and feels as though we might have an over-engineered solution to the problem. After all this is what they use on the sides of motorways!

It’s likely to be a few weeks before they’ve finished the wall and restored the parking area. It’s been strange getting used to having builders around all the time and, however nice they are, it is still intrusive. Still, we have to get used to it as our specialist renovation builders are booked to come and start on 7 April restoring the remaining wall and rebuilding the internal staircase. Before that I have to clear the two rooms they will be working in and get the black paint stripped from the beams – still a lot to do inside and out.

In between heavy rain, snow and frost we are getting on with our other garden tasks which are less scary than cutting down trees. Our previous vegetable patch is now under the new extension so last spring I took over one of the flower beds to plant our veg for the year. The carrots were amazing, the potatoes and dwarf beans good, the onions nice but small and the beetroot and leeks pathetically non-existent. Good practice for this year as we’re making more of a concerted effort at getting our ‘grow your own’ sorted.

We’re also planting some fruit and nut trees in a small field beyond our back garden that we were lucky to buy off a neighbour a few years ago. It’s a fantastic feeling creating an orchard from scratch researching unusual and special varieties. It’ll be a year or two before we can start enjoying the results although the blossom should look good in just a couple of months. M has created a large compost heap, necessary for all the grass cuttings and weeds as it builds up very quickly and it’s not so easy now to get to the tip with COVID restrictions in place.

Another reason for focusing on the garden last year was the biennial village open gardens. When I started this blog in 2018 it was one of the first things I wrote about as thankfully that took place before the building work started wrecking our garden for more than a year. A deadline is a great motivator and we do tend to have two year spurts to time with making things look their best for this event.

Unfortunately, we had to cancel it last year due to the pandemic. As I’m the Gardeners’ Club secretary and I had bit more time stuck at home I decided I would set up a Facebook page and organise a virtual open gardens. Those who know me will be surprised as I’m not one for social media but the pandemic has shown how useful it can be when you can’t get out and about and meet people in more traditional ways. So I organised photos and videos for eight gardens and posted them at the end of June when we were meant to be opening. Not as good as the real thing but certainly better than nothing.

The next open gardens is planned for June 2022 when our garden should have recovered from this year’s building work and we should all be able to get out and about again.

Wow, the world has certainly changed since my last update 11 months ago on work to renovate and restore our old cottage. Little did we know then how the world was going to be turned upside down in 2020, so it’s not surprising that there’s not been much progress on the house.

Although we had planned to focus on the garden this year we still had work lined up for inside, most of which we’ve had to re-schedule for next year. Even little things like plastering the bedroom weren’t possible as supplies of plaster ran out and our builders, still working, had difficulty getting materials and juggling a number of jobs.

At the start of the year it was strange and lovely having the house to ourselves after nearly two years of almost continuous building work. Although it did mean that all the jobs for me could now come to the top of the to do list.

First was finishing painting the dining room. We’ve gone for brilliant white which can be quite harsh on the eye but we plan to create an art gallery effect with our pictures so it will provide an ideal background. The challenge will be deciding which pictures go where and which ones we ditch, something we still haven’t got round to sorting despite two lockdowns!

Next was the sitting room. I could only tackle the walls and not the ceiling at the smithy end of the cottage as it is too high for our ladder. Even then I struggled with reaching the top of the gable end wall as I don’t like heights and occasionally suffer from vertigo. I was so determined to get it done, though, that I put my fears to one side and did it anyway. It’s great now it’s done although I still need to get someone in to do the ceiling.

With the walls painted we could start dressing the room. The window on the smithy end wall is off centre so we decided to have the curtain pole made by our local blacksmith to span virtually the whole width of the wall and we hardly notice the greater width of curtain on the left than the right when drawn back. The black cotton velvet curtains that I bought in Greenwich market years ago came from an old manor house and look just perfect adding to the feeling of a baronial hall.

We’ve almost forgotten what this room was like before we started the renovations. It was very much a room of two halves with one part – the smithy end which is in what was the blacksmith’s workshop – 50cm higher than the other part in the old cottage. The two spaces had been knocked through in the 1960s and no one could work out why they didn’t level the floor then.

In my last blog in December I mentioned we were hoping to have a real fire in the sitting room fireplace which was opened up as part of the renovations. Good news, our insurance company approved it at no extra cost and early this year we agreed what needed to be done with our HETAS registered installer. Then COVID-19 happened. Finally, a couple of weekends ago with the scaffolding up and after a couple of false starts, the guys were able to get the chimney lined and a metal hood installed to minimise the risk of fire to the thatch.

Finally, on the Saturday evening, we were able to have the open fire we’ve been dreaming of for years. It’s a nice way of completing the renovations for this year.

One of the major pieces of building work for this year had been to get the last wall of the old cottage re-built in the spring. Our specialist restoration builders were unable to fit it in when they were doing the other walls last year as they ran out of time to get all the lime rendering done before it turned cold. Lime and frost do not make happy bedfellows. They were working throughout lockdown but we couldn’t guarantee that they would have isolated access to the site as the wall in question is between our bathroom and the room with the stairs leading up to where we work.

So we have had a year of temporary covers on the outside with gaps letting the fresh air in – fine in summer, not so much fun now as we head into winter. It has also delayed us sorting out replacement heating. We took out the old gas boiler and central heating as part of restoring the timber frame and wattle and daub planning to replace them with electric infrared panels, but not until all the walls are finished. So it’s temporary electric heaters and thick woolly jumpers for another winter.

We met with our restoration builder last week and went through the list of remaining work which is now booked in for next April. It sounds a long way off but there are a number of things we’ll need to do before they turn up on site including clearing the affected rooms and getting the old wooden beams stripped, a very messy job. It is nice to get back into the groove of renovating and hopefully, if all goes well, we may actually finish the project next year.

So the 15th December has been and gone complete with the full Christmas lunch and gifts and a few birthdays thrown in for my family. Did we get everything sorted in time? Enough to have an enjoyable day although in the morning we were still busy sorting and clearing boxes returned from storage a few days earlier!

After a couple of weeks of no builders they suddenly burst into action in the second half of November and there were some days when nearly everyone from the company was on site. The carpenter particularly felt like he had taken up permanent residence as he carefully sanded the edges of all the swollen floorboards and re-sealed the floor, completed the stairs to our bedroom and dining room, installed the new bedroom door and sorted the step into the kitchen in the new extension.

The kitchen step was a particular problem as the edge of the concrete floor ended in a lip that was too high to provide for equal steps at the right height, a Building Regulations’ requirement. We agreed that the only answer was to remove the concrete and leave a gap between it and the wooden step which we now need to work out how we’re going to fill. Completing this meant that we could finally access our kitchen from within the house and we no longer have to cross the lawn to get to it, worth the extra effort.

The last few days at the end of November were particularly frenetic as the hessian covering the outside lime plaster was finally removed and the cracks patched up, daubing the damaged panels on the internal gable end in the sitting room that had been overlooked earlier in the process, cleaning the tiled floor and finishing off the fireplace. At the same time they were clearing the site of all the remaining equipment and materials that had built up over the months.

Suddenly they were gone and it felt quite weird. It was nice not having to share our house with other people but it did leave a bit of a vacuum and a very long list of things we had to do including painting the dining room and sitting room, getting our furniture and household items back from storage and getting our other builders back to fit the extension skirting, held up because part of the space had been blocked off by the work in the dining and sitting rooms. We managed to get most of it done before the family do although the sitting room remains unpainted.

Unexpectedly on the Friday before my family lunch I also had to get the plumber back to sort out a blocked toilet in the bathroom. Thankfully it was fairly easy to fix as he found the drain had filled up with rubble from the restoration work to the outside walls.

A nice task still on the list is working out what to do with the sitting room fireplace now it has been opened up and restored. It was one of the first things they started working on in July and was one of the last to be finished. We really want an open fire although more for atmosphere than warmth as most of the heat will go up the chimney. We couldn’t have an open fire in the hall because the opening was so big it would have needed a permanent air vent the size of our window for it to be compliant with regulations. The sitting room fireplace is more narrow and, with a metal plate, we can reduce the height of the opening by half which is acceptable to both our insurance company and our HETAS registered installer. We’re really looking forward to getting that done in the new year.

Another task for the new year is curtains for the sitting room. I managed to find a real bargain in our local Barnardos shop, a couple of pairs of good quality, lined plain red curtains for £7 each. Our local blacksmith is making the curtain poles, very appropriate for our home which was a smithy for centuries. Unfortunately, he’s been so busy for Christmas they’re unlikely to be ready until the end of January. We have a temporary solution for the front window looking out onto the village green but the other two, along with the glazed door, are uncovered and it does mean the room is a bit chilly despite the best efforts of the infrared heating panel.

So in the last week we’ve switched from building mode to entertaining. First was the family lunch then drinks and nibbles for friends in the village at the end of last week. It’s been nice starting to use the house as intended and we’re finding our thoughts about the space change the more we use it. We’ve had great fun moving around sofas, lamps and tables to get the best out of our new space.

It’s amazing to think that we started this project 22 months ago in February 2018 with the restoration of the chimney and hall. There is more to come with the restoration of the external gable end wall probably in May next year, painting inside and out and getting the garden back into shape. With open gardens due in June we will still have our work cut out!

One of the things we were really looking forward to with renovating the old house was going back, as far as possible, to the original structure and understanding its development over the centuries. Right from the day we moved in we’ve been planning the removal of recent additions, particularly the kitchen, and wondering what we’d find.

With the new kitchen usable we were finally able to go for it. We started by getting rid of the white goods and donated them to Scope who were able to come and collect, a win win for both of us. Then we tackled the run of units along the back wall with the sink and all the pipes and plumbing including the connection to the water supply for the extension, so we had to be careful not to disrupt that.

As the builders were tackling the front wall and the fall-out, literally, from removing the old boiler we finished off by removing the old worktop, units, gas hob, oven housing and finally shelving taking us back to the original four walls.

One of the unexpected discoveries was a brick arch in the back wall of the kitchen that could have been an old bread oven as it is too low to be a doorway. We have one off the hall fireplace and chimney and there may have been a second one if the house was originally two cottages. It did have two front doors so it’s possible. More research needed.

More concerning was the damage to the wall behind where the gas hob had been on the gable end wall, part of which backs onto the bathroom. When M pulled off the plasterboard years of old plaster, dust, dirt and all sorts poured out onto the kitchen floor. Both exciting and nerve-racking to watch. It confirmed what we suspected, and the builders had found when they started tackling the first floor level of the gable, this wall is a mess. Something had to be done as there were more gapping holes to the outside and so we agreed a further and final extension to the works to renovate the ground floor only of the gable end leaving upstairs until next year.

To help keep costs down we have started working out what we can do instead of paying the builders. A relatively easy job is removing the modern paint finishes from the wattle and daub walls. This means we only need to pay to have them plastered and I’m finding, with care, I can save more of the original daub. I’m using Kling Strip which is a water based non-invasive paint stripper which you paste on, cover in a film to stop it drying out and remove about 24 hours later. Having tried a range of different products over the years this has definitely proved to be the best at removing the unwanted paint and leaving the surface beneath undamaged. I just have a lot of panels and doors to strip!

One job I was happy not to be doing was cleaning up the tiles uncovered when they took up the concrete floor in the cottage part of the sitting room. We were delighted to find them although we think they’re probably not as old as the brick tiles in the hall. They have also seen more wear and tear possibly due to the fact that this room was the beer house at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. There were chunks missing where a concrete base had been installed for a spiral staircase that we took out some years ago, no tiles in the fireplace and a number of cracked and broken tiles that needed replacing. The specialist brickie and I discussed each repair in detail and he did a great job of only replacing what was absolutely necessary. Between him and the carpenter they managed to make a neat join between the old cottage sitting room floor and the brand new wooden oak floor in what had been the smithy finally removing the 50cm height difference between the two.

Probably the most exciting reveal was in the smithy part of the sitting room which was originally a lean to on the side of the cottage. The original gable end wall above ground floor level was still intact. When they removed the modern plaster and faux beams they found roofing felt. When they peeled this back we found the original timber frame and daub that had never been painted or plastered and it’s amazing. We managed to convince the builders that, apart from filling in along the bottom where the panels had been damaged knocking through to make the smithy part of the sitting room, we wanted to leave it exactly as they found it. It’s stunning and makes us feel like we’re in a medieval hall. It’s finding features like this which makes all the disruption and expense worthwhile.

A more depressing reveal was the state of the new oak flooring in the smithy part of the sitting room and in the dining room. When they took up the floor covers to start fitting the stairs and seal the wood the builders found that all the planks had swollen and turned up at the edges making it feel like you were walking across a sea of waves. As it was probably the result of all the water in the lime render and plaster they brought in a de-humidifier which they wanted us to keep going 24/7 and then left us to it while the two rooms dried out. We felt deserted as a couple of weeks passed with no builder action.

So the project stalled again and we faced, who knows for how long, no progress on finishing the work. This was another low point as Christmas started to loom into view with a long booked family lunch in the diary for the 15 December and no dining or sitting room in which to host them. With it turning increasingly colder we were still having to walk across the garden to get to and from the new kitchen and sleeping in the spare bedroom with no heating. We really just wanted to get it all done so I’ve been chasing the builders to get a date for them to come back and finally finish off.

 

On a family holiday when my dad was driving us to the next town we were visiting I remember my younger brother saying repeatedly ‘are we nearly there yet’. I feel we’re on a similar endless journey never quite reaching our destination. The finish is always just a few weeks away.

The low point was coming back last week late at night from a few days away with the house dark, cold, damp and gritty from all the plaster work. We went to bed pretty fed up with it and just wanting it all to be over. I’m sure the builders do too as it’s more difficult working with natural materials in the cold and wet.

Rolling back a couple of months, with work underway in the sitting room some of the team started on the major job of removing the cementitious render from the outside of the building. This was the only way we’d be able to really see the state of the timber frame and wattle and daub underneath and restore the house to its original breathable state.

They quickly found that the cement coating was thick and had been applied to a mesh frame making it more difficult to take off. It took weeks of drilling and hammering to prise it all off and the whole house shook. We were warned to take pictures off the walls which was good advice as chunks of plaster did fall off on the inside as they slowly worked their round the front then back of the old house. The noise of the drilling and the literal shaking of the house to its foundations drove M to move his office to the summer house for the duration. A bit disruptive as it has no electricity and we needed to run a cable from the house to power the computer, light and heating.

It was a joy to see the original structure of the house and, in most places, it was in remarkably good condition. The builders told us stories of other jobs where they would need to prop up the house as they went along as it was only the cement render holding the whole thing up!

However, there were some problem areas, one we expected and two we didn’t. One of the main reasons for building the new extension was to house the kitchen enabling us to move modern appliances out of the old building. We knew the gas boiler in the old kitchen had been pumping out heat and condensation for over 30 years and had rotted some of the fabric. All of the timber frame and the panels around it had to be renewed and rebuilt. This left us exposed to the village for a number of weeks as it was a slow job. They had to board up the openings each night to keep us safe.

One of the other problem areas was around the upstairs toilet overflow and, again, that had to be restored although it was a smaller and much easier job. More serious was the gable end wall above the bathroom, when they started removing the cement render it looked like the whole wall would need to be rebuilt. As the room we’re currently sleeping in is only the other side of that wall we agreed with the builder to seal it back up and delay work on that until next year. It was unlikely they would have time to do that and the rest of old house before the weather turned anyway.

One of the challenges with a thatched roof is there is no guttering. The best way to deal with the water coming off the roof is a French drain. This is a small trench filled with aggregate that allows surface water to drain away from the building. One had been dug about 30 years ago but had since clogged up and been paved over in some places. The builder suggested we replace the old French drain front and back with pipes at the bottom of the trench to take the water to a soakway. It was a significant additional expense taking us to the limit of our budget, we agreed given all the investment in restoring the frame it would be a bit like spoiling the ship for a ha’porth of tar.

As they worked on repairing the frame they were then able to fix wood wool board to the outside, a sustainable product that improves thermal efficiency and against which the lime render would be applied.

They applied two coats of render with about ten days between each coat to allow it to dry out. It is a tricky process and the house is currently covered in hessian to protect it from the weather. The last coat went on at the end of October, a month later than planned but, although it’s been wet, it hasn’t been too cold so it should be alright. Time will tell.

Meanwhile we have continued to make progress in the extension with the installation of shelves in the pantry giving us valuable storage. Even more exciting, we now have a cupboard sealing off the boiler and hot water tank which meant we could finally have our cloakroom, very useful as the bathroom in the other part of the house is still only accessible across the garden.

The charm of walking across the garden to get to and from different parts of the house has definitely worn off as it has become wetter and darker. Installing a window, finishing the floors in the sitting and dining rooms and building the stairs still need to be done before we can access all parts of the house from the inside. It certainly doesn’t feel like we’re nearly there yet although, as with the family holiday many years ago, we will finally arrive at our destination and it will be wonderful.

 

This next phase of the project was always going to be different. Restoring an existing and very old structure rather than building something new is not easy or linear. With the new extension there was a logical sequence of foundations, walls, roof, doors and windows etc. With the old building it’s a case of peeling back the layers and working it out as we go along.

The first step in restoring the old house is carefully taking off more recent additions, some of which have been damaging the timber frame and wattle and daub structure. The house was designed to breath and dry naturally. Renovations over the last fifty years or so have followed a more modern approach to try and keep damp out. The result in a house like ours is that the damp gets trapped and starts rotting the structure. So we weren’t really sure when the builders started exactly what we would find. A bit nerve-racking.

We are using builders who specialise in restoring old buildings like ours and are used to working in this way. We used them to repair one corner of the cottage in 2014 and to rebuild the chimney last year so they have an understanding of our house. They are a much bigger operation than our previous builders, Ken and Joe, with a number of projects on the go and are used to getting on with things in their own way. As a result I’ve had to be much more proactive in talking to them and finding out what they’re up to and when to make sure we get the renovation we want.

The guys (and they are all men) started inside with digging out the old smithy floor a priority to reduce it to the level of the sitting room floor in the old cottage. It didn’t take long to remove the carpet and wooden floor boards to find a solid slab of concrete underneath. Out came the power drills to break that up only to find another concrete slab underneath that one. More concerning was that this second slab was the only support for the front wall with no foundations underneath! So the first unexpected addition to the works was a visit by a structural engineer and plans for underpinning. He couldn’t understand why it hadn’t already subsided, a good thing that we discovered it when we did and could carry out remedial action.

Once the render had set and the wall had been secured work continued breaking up and removing the second concrete slab and finally they reached the earth underneath. As this area had been used as the working smithy for hundreds of years we were hopeful of finding some artefacts. We did find a couple of old, badly rusted tools and some bits of wood but nothing very exciting. Finally they managed to dig down deep enough to prepare the ground for limecrete and lime render as a breathable base for our new floor.

Lowering the floor meant we also quickly lost the stairs to our bedroom and new ensuite. We’ve had to move into the spare room for the duration of the works and back to the bathroom, disappointing having only recently finished and started using our lovely ensuite.

At the same time as digging up the smithy floor the guys also started removing the modern plaster from the internal walls revealing the wattle and daub and more recent renovations underneath in the cottage part of the sitting room. A previous owner had repaired some of the damaged panels with breeze blocks which will have to come out and be replaced with new wattle and daub to make it breathable. More surprising was the lack of any panels filling in the timber frame in the space under the front window. No wonder it’s been an expensive place to keep warm!

In the smithy part of the sitting room the beams turned out to be modern wood painted black and fixed to breeze block walls so they have all come out. The breeze block will be plastered with lime render giving it the same finish as the rest of the sitting room, just without the faux beams.

While digging out the smithy floor the builders also started to remove the cement floor in the cottage part of the sitting room and the modern brick fireplace hopefully to reveal something older. This was soon put on hold to focus on other parts of the project and the original fire place was only revealed a couple of weeks ago with work on the floor ongoing.

One of the challenges during this phase is living and working in the house at the same time as the building work. The sitting room and dining room are completely blocked off as they are a building site and our only access from where we sleep and work in the old house to the new kitchen in the extension is across the garden.

The broadband is also routed through the sitting room to the dining room and protecting that has been a priority. In the end the old telephone wire did snap and I had to organise an emergency call out to repair it so we could maintain our connections with the outside world. Losing that was probably the worst thing that could have happened.

With good progress in the old sitting room our builder moved some of his team to start on the outside of the house. The initial quote was to restore the external wall to the sitting room only but he suggested, and we agreed, that it made sense to tackle the whole of the outside in one go. Suddenly the project and the cost had gone up a few gears along with the disruption. Hopefully it will all be worth it!

 

Now we’re finally ready to start restoring the cottage, how did we get here? The story begins in 2007 when we bought The Old Smithy. It was a completely emotional purchase as we had no plans to buy a listed property, we just fell in love with it. We knew it would not be an easy place to live with and maintain but that certainly didn’t put us off.

Initially we focused on the outside – getting rid of the car park in front and turning it into a cottage garden and removing 22 over grown leylandii along the boundary with next door at the back. We also felt it was important to live with the space and let our ideas evolve as to how we wanted to develop and renovate our home. We have not given ourselves any deadlines which reduces the pressure.

We joined the Listed Property Owners Club, they have an informative bi-monthly magazine, an annual exhibition which is great for sourcing suppliers and talking to people about managing an old property and a very useful help line. Another source of good advice is the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, they publish a number of useful books and technical advice notes, run courses and also have a very good advice line. We attended one of their excellent one day courses earlier this year on ‘Understanding Your Old House’. I wish we’d done it much earlier!

One thing we did do early on was to get our local authority conservation officer round to advise us on how to approach our project. Each local authority works slightly differently and it’s good to know how yours wants you to approach things before you start. This was helpful as he suggested we put in an application for everything, the new developments alongside the renovations, as they would look more favourably on the extension if they knew it was part of restoring the old house. He also said replacing like for like would not need permission enabling us to get on and update the bathroom, an urgent need as the ceiling was so low M had to kneel in the bath to have a shower!

We sourced an architect in 2014 and took more than a year to develop the plans before submitting them for full planning permission and listed building consent in 2016. We did not have a happy experience with our architect and realise now that we should have done more research and spoken to previous clients to be sure they would be right for us.

Once we had permission to go ahead we still needed to draw up detailed plans to meet building regulations and satisfy a number of conditions. This all takes time so we weren’t ready to start the main build until July 2018.

The modern extension came first so we could move the kitchen out of the old house before the renovations began. That done by August our specialist restoration builders have been able to move in.

We have always seen ourselves as guardians of this old building and want to retain as much of the original fabric as possible and only restore and replace where absolutely necessary. Our surveyor dated the property as mid 17th century, we believe it is much older. There is reference to it in the 1505 will of Hugh Russell as ‘a cottage situated by the common way with the forge’ which was left to his son Thomas. Although it’s unlikely to be exactly the same cottage as ours it shows it was a working smithy from at least the 1400s and some of the materials used in our house may well date from then as they would rebuild and recycle on site.

In the late 1800s, alongside being the village smithy, it operated as a beer house, the Plough and Harrow, only closing in 1912. We believe it continued as a blacksmiths for a little while longer before closing for good and becoming a domestic dwelling. It was certainly that by 1927 when it was assessed for its rateable value as a former public house and smithy at £5 and 10 shillings a year. It’s a lot more than that now!

The tiled roof extension to the left of the cottage was the smithy and, once the blacksmith moved out, it was used as a general out building and garage. In the 1960s the end wall of the cottage was taken out at ground floor level to extend the sitting room into the former smithy making it an integral part of the cottage.

We have decided to renovate the old house in stages partly because of cost and also because of the disruption to us and the building. The focus is on joining our new extension, now including the kitchen, to the dining room (in the 2004 extension built by the previous owners) and renovating the sitting room.

For some reason we and the builders can’t fathom when they extended the living space into the smithy they laid the floor at its existing level, 50cm higher than the cottage floor. With two steps immediately beneath a supporting beam for the wall above to link the two spaces it has been a regular spot for banging our heads. It was one of our early decisions that we needed to lower the floor so that we had one level in that room.

Earlier this year we booked the restoration builders to start on the old house in mid-July as the external work really needs to be done before the hard frosts set in. We had expected the extension to be long finished by then but delays to the roof, floor and kitchen meant the two phases were going to overlap for a few weeks, an interesting challenge juggling a variety of trades on site.

So in the second week of July (yes, I am a bit behind on my blog updates), while managing the completion of our kitchen and the installation of the decking, we also cleared the sitting and dining rooms which we had been using as swing space for the previous year. With no where else to put things the only solution was a storage unit. Getting rid of stuff comes later when we have the space to sort out what we want to keep and use in our newly restored home.

With the restoration builders due to start on the Monday one curve ball was a request late on the preceding Friday that they come and set up on the Saturday morning. It turned out the owner and hands on manager was going on holiday the next week and wanted to agree with his team what needed to be done while he was away. So with the site set up and us facing a party weekend with M’s family there was still some last minute clearing we had to do on the Sunday evening to be ready for the Monday morning start. We faced a late night to get everything done in time!