Making progress slowly.

Stage 1…

I thought I would give you a little update on how we are getting on with the house. I often update Instagram with short clips but for those of you that aren’t on Instagram and have asked about the next update then this is for all of you.

We have done a fair bit to the house but because we are working full time it only gets done in the evening and at weekends, so the evenings are limited due to noisy work and of course being new we certainly don’t want to upset the neighbours, although the walls are so thick they probably don’t hear much anyway.

After deciding that we are going to be moving into the large room downstairs, giving us the use of what is currently the kitchen and a shower room downstairs it will allow us to get stuck in a little more than we have been. We can also get the dirty work done upstairs without dragging it through the downstairs. Having learnt when doing a house refurb you always start with the upstairs.

This is what we have done so far. As you can see from the images the Master bedroom had a not very practical en suite that had halfheartedly been added, it was unusable and on the opposite side there was a built in cupboard. These were the first things to be knocked out.

After knocking down the en suite we found a boarded up fire surround really lovely one that juts needs the paint stripping off but we have decided not to keep this is the bedroom all will be revealed and you will see why.

The next thin we looked at was the possibility of saving the floor. Some of the planks are original beautifully wide but where they have ripped some up to add pipes etc for that en suite unfortunately they just aren’t worth saving as too many of them are broken. So we will replace again with a wood floor but something that continues through across the whole of the upstairs.

Stage 2…..

It was obvious to us that the master bedroom just didn’t hit the spot and wasn’t enough of a wow factor for us. The only wall that the bed could go on is on an angle (they didn’t have spirit levels back in 1860) and the other wall has the fire surround and just really isn’t big enough.

To top it the bedroom beside which is the back of the property has a stunning view of South Brent Tor, so after my daughter saying wow you should have that view in your bedroom it dawned on us that we should take the wall down and have the master bedroom going from the front to the back with dual aspect views. So with a huff and a puff we blew that wall down.

So as you can see the room so much brighter the room is and having checked with the estate agent we can happily reduce the house from a four bed to a three bed. It makes the room so much more usable. We have now got a great size wall to put the bed against which is why we aren’t keeping the fire surround, and have decided to make the wall a feature in a different way and that is to expose the original stone wall.

Stage 3….

Looking as dashing as always , Spencer’s all gowned up and ready to rock and me having had just bagged up eight bin liners of itchy scratchy fibre glass which was one of the nastiest job I’ve done so far.

The attic is plenty big enough to steal some space but keeping enough for storage. As you can see from the image the beams are lovely.

So after some really filthy work we managed together to get the ceiling down, after a lovely Mother’s day breakfast enough fuel anyway to keep us going fro a while.

Walt was looking shocked what he thought was going to be his new home was know like a bomb had hit it.

So the fire surround which is going is clearly now not in the centre, now that all the walls have gone and the plaster has been removed. A perfect wall for our bed. Looking up towards the top of the chimney breast we will build it up with more natural stone. The houses were made from River Stones you can see as they are nicely rounded from where the water has bashed them though out the years.

So after a busy weekend we are ready for another one, hopefully not as dirty this time.

Till next the time

Love Claire

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