Andy was left in charge of the house, so I was lucky to return to find it still standing. Just!
Andy had the 'sewer dweller' Ben come around along with his brother Sam and they started pulling down the ceiling plaster
We needed to do this for a few reasons:
1) Check the rafters are still solid, not rotten or wood wormed
2) Check the felt was still in good nick
3) Check no critters or bugs had set up home in there
4) We need to add insulation and re-plaster anyway.
Some of the rafters have the tell tale holes of the woodworm but seem in good nick. We're going to have to get someone to come and spray the lot as a precaution. That's the risk with older houses. Untreated wood = woodworm's dream.
They did find an old wasps nest that had long been abandoned and nothing else. No bats which is good!
The conical part will definitely need to be re-plastered so it's a smooth finish.
The other bit would actually look quite nice with the rafters showing. So now we are torn again.
The most annoying part so far for me is trying to decide what to do in terms of the finished look. I think I have an idea, then I see something I like or Andy suggested something and it throws it all up in the air again.
The water tank needs to be moved so its up in the roof and we will have the hot water tank in the kitchen as it will be connected to our wood burning heating system. We have someone coming out this week to assess the suitability and where the flue should go.
In fact, we have 2 tree surgeons coming for quotes to cut back the chestnut trees away from the roof, the architect and the flue man all coming this week.
Andy also wants to buy a caravan as we need to be out of our rented place by the end of this month and we can't move into the house yet! There's so much going on and so much to think about and so much to spend on that you just don't think about at the initial planing the stage.
It is daunting to say the least.
EDIT: I completely forgot to mention the kitchen we have bought! :-)
When Andy came back from his holiday, he said he had an idea around a kitchen. We were never keen on getting a brand new kitchen because of the cost and had looked on eBay for people getting rid of kitchens.
Andy found a listing for a HUGE kitchen, much bigger than we needed. He said that was perfect because then we could pick the parts we liked and fit it exactly to our kitchen size and still have plenty left over. The kitchen is lovely! I really like the units.
We won the auction and Andy went to pick it up on bank holiday Monday just gone in his racing car truck. He returned many hours later advising that he only managed to fit half the kitchen into his truck!
Now we were tasked with somewhere to store it. We were going to keep it in the truck but given the truck now needed to be empty to go and get the rest, we needed storage! We spent that night looking for places to rent. It was looking liking it was going to be a storage container in Greenham until we came across the Sovereign website which had garages to rent for a tenner a week just down the road in Great Shefford. What luck! I hadTuesday off so went down to Sovereign and managed to get the keys there and then. That evening, Andy and I unloaded and let me tell you, it was one hell of a workout. The next morning, I was up at 2 to get to Stansted and I was aching!
Andy went back this weekend and Ben helped him unload round 2.
P.s I also just want to let people know that I am updating this blog all from an iPhone which if anyone has one, you know how annoying and stealthy auto correct can be. I've always been one who doesn't properly re-read things I have written and it probably shows. But hey, this isn't an English test, it's a blog! The pictures are the most exciting part ;-)
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