I finally have another update on the From Stables To House renovation. If you missed the previous update then you can catch up here. I haven't done an update for a few weeks and there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, a lot of the work has been a bit more behind the scenes (like sorting out the wiring, plumbing and reconnecting our mains water supply). Secondly, hubby and I have been finding living in a caravan a bit tough lately. We have been living in our metal tin for five months now! Five very long months! The weather has turned colder and we've had a lot more rain recently, which means we barely get any sleep on rainy nights because the raindrops make so much noise when they hit the caravan roof. Even if the rain stops, we then get water dripping from the trees above falling onto the caravan. We are also experiencing some very severe winds at the moment, and being by the coast means we are getting the worst of the crazy weather. I've spent nights wondering if the trees at the back of the house are going to come down on top of the caravan!
Aside from that, we miss being able to take baths and having a nice bathroom... actually forget bathroom, we just missing having a nice home. A home where we have a fully functioning kitchen with a decent sized refrigerator, and our personal belongings around us. Another thing that's been making me a bit unhappy is that our diet isn't as clean and healthy as it usually is. We find ourselves snacking a lot more (on the not so healthy stuff), and opting for the convenience and ease of cooking pasta or eating bread/wraps, given the kitchen limitations in the caravan. I am so carb-ed out right now that I cannot wait until we can start using our new kitchen - I'll be gorging on oven roasted vegetables, smoothies and salads :o).
We now have painted window frames
Finally, we've just had a bit of a challenging time with some of the tradesmen. We've had people accept jobs and then not turn up or turn up a week later than agreed... a whole week late! This obviously has a knock on effect on the works schedule. We've also been a bit frustrated with some workmen just being very careless when onsite. We've had several packs of tiles broken, wires have been drilled through, walls have been damage... all accidentally of course, but nonetheless it still costs us money to then put right other people's mistakes. I guess people aren't that diligent when it's not their money or home that's at stake.We are currently a month behind where we should be and that delay is
purely down to people not turning up for work on time and rectifying mistakes made by others.
On a more positive note, we've had our boiler installed and being able to run the underfloor
heating is a real joy as a lot of the work we are doing now is inside
the house. Things are progressing as you'll see in the video above, and this is keeping hubby and I motivated to push on.
Due to the wet weather, we have been prioritising getting the gutters and drainpipes up. Restrictions from the conservation officer mean that we have had to replace all of the plastic gutters and drainpipes with cast iron ones. As these are quite expensive new, hubby has been collecting second hand ones for over a year now from ebay and various online sites. We've had to buy some new pieces, but overall, hubby's initiative of searching for these months before we actually needed them has helped to keep the cost down significantly :o). In the photo above you can see hubby cleaning up a second hand drainpipe that was painted bright green. Once the paint was removed, we painted it in a rust coloured primer for additional protection from the sea air, before painting it in our chosen colour which is lichen by Farrow and Ball. Lichen is a beautiful sage green that we've used not only
on the gutters and
drainpipes, but also on the window frames and external door frames. The
colour
looks slightly washed out on the gutters and drainpipes due to the
rusty coloured primer underneath, but on the window and door frames it
is a little bit darker and a bit more green. Hubby and I both love the
colour and feel that it compliments the natural stone of the building
really well with it being quite an earthy and muted green.
More recently hubby and I have been busy painting the upstairs. The transformational effect of painting the walls and ceilings is quite amazing. All of a sudden we feel that the upstairs isn't too far of from being finished. Hubby has also been working on getting the family bathroom fitted and tiled. As soon as a bedroom and bathroom are ready, we can move out of the caravan and into the house, whilst we complete the rest of the work, and that will be a momentous occasion indeed :o).
We have stairs!!! I recently came back onsite after over a week at my parents to find that our staircase had been installed. This is very exciting indeed! I have not been upstairs for such a long time that I'd actually forgotten what it looked like. As well as stairs, we also had a very exciting delivery. Our cast iron radiators arrived. We took a bit of a gamble on these as we ordered them online without seeing them in person first, but the gamble paid off. These are absolutely stunning - I love them:o). The intention had always been to go for matte black cast iron radiators... until we saw these. We loved how these had a modern twist and we also like the different colours and how they change depending upon the lighting.
Cast Iron Radiator
A closer look (please excuse the dust)
In the above vlog, I take you upstairs and show you how we have split the upper floor. Historically, the upstairs was split into two rooms - one very large open room with a dividing wall and door that led to the smaller room with cupboards and a kitchenette. Each room had it's own staircase.
The old larger room with it's own staircase
Door way from large room into smaller room
Old small room had cupboards & a kitchenette
Old small room had it's own staircase too
The upstairs space is very rectangular and when it came to rejigging the layout we had to work around the existing windows. We were not allowed to change the position of the existing windows nor could we install any new window openings. So we decided that the best way to maximise the space would be to remove both staircases at either end of the rectangular space, and install one that was slightly more to the centre. This way when you go upstairs you could have rooms coming off to either side of the landing as well as in front - it makes sense when you look at the photos below of the new layout :o).
Reworking the space allowed us to create a master bedroom with an ensuite wet room, a family bathroom and two further bedrooms. We were allowed to install skylights into some of the rooms with no/very small windows as they do not change the overall silhouette of the building, thus adhering to the conservation restrictions. The whole of the upper floor is built into the roof space. This means
that every room has sloping ceilings, making the rooms feel quite
cottage like.
The new layout
The new layout
Originally, we intended to have painted floorboards in the bedrooms and landing, however, most of the floorboards turned out to be very rotten. Not surprising given that the building is over 130 years old. In the end, we managed to salvage about 25% of the floorboards. As our floorboards are so old, they're a different size and thickness to what's currently available on the market. After ringing around a few reclamation yards we got lucky and found some that matched our existing ones. The reclaimed floorboards are from an old hospital, and aside from being dirty, they are in immaculate condition. There are no holes or nails in them whatsoever. In fact, hubby cleaned and sanded a small part of one and the wood looked so good that we have decided to sand and oil them, instead of painting them. Don't you just love it when things work out differently but better?!
I hope you enjoyed this little update on our renovation project.
