Building gets under way

Yay! We're building! Don't get too excited though - it's only a shed... We decided we needed a basic, simple, buy-it-online kind of shed to keep the mower and garden tools in. Just a little 8' x 10' wooden shed. We found one, good reviews, nice wide doors for the mower and ordered it. Which sounds simple but each time we thought about it and put it in our 'basket' the delivery charge came out different - varying from £9.90 to £45.60. Eventually I gave up and rang them, which resulted in a bit more of a discount and free delivery. Result! The shed was delivered around a month ago since when it has rained or we've been busy, so it has sat in the field under a tarpaulin or two.

A week or so ago we got round to building it, but first we needed a base. We have 5 acres of land here yet the delivery men had managed to put the shed EXACTLY where we wanted to build it, so we moved everything a few yards further away. When we ordered the shed we had also, in a rash moment of 'it'll make life easier' bought a Pro Shed Base Kit which is basically a series of plastic grids which clip together and you then fill them with gravel. You still need to level the ground though, so we got busy with a shovel (that was Guy) and Helpful Pointers (me). We clipped the plastic thing together, put it down and filled it with gravel (two trips to Travis Perkins in Monmouth, lovely people).

We then pulled the tarpaulin off the heap of wooden bits and spread them out on the ground to make sure we knew which bit was which. We did. We found the base bits and laid them on the Pro Shed Base Kit only to find the shed was going to be bigger than the base. Which was somewhat surprising, given that we had bought an 8' x 10' base. Hmmm. One of the shed ends was going to be dangling in fresh air. Hmmm. It was at about this point that we discovered we had no fixings at all. Not a screw or a nail in sight. Guy asked me where I'd put them and as I couldn't remember putting them anywhere (which didn't mean that I hadn't, just that I couldn't remember) we searched everywhere. This is a small house, but we still searched everywhere. Twice. Nope, no fixings. I rang the company who suggested we went and bought everything then sent them the bill, or they could post some new fixings. In a week or so. Given the base problem, we opted for them posting the fixings.

And then we piled everything back up again.

The only way to fix the base was to unclip some of the sections and pull it apart, leaving a gap in the middle where it wouldn't be under a crucial base strut. It sort of worked and we uttered what was to become our mantra 'it's only a shed'.

In a week or so the fixings arrived and, at last, we got started last Sunday. With the help of a lump hammer and a bit of teamwork, the walls went up pretty quickly and we got the roof on. We had 3 lumps of roofing felt to cover the roof, 2 black and one grey. 'It's only a shed'. We decided to put the grey one where we wouldn't see it, and we carried on. Black bit on the left edge, grey bit on the right edge, last bit along the ridge and ... it doesn't fit. The roofing felt is a good 8" (that's 20cm to you young people) short and there will be a bit of roof with no felt on. Hmmm. We consider phoning Shedstore up (let's name and shame) but with the 'we'll post you a bit in a week' attitude we decide to go to B&Q instead. It is now 4pm on Sunday and B&Q just closed.

So we piled the remaining bits back up again.

After an early morning dash to B&Q we have enough felt to finish (£33!!!) and the roof gets done, then the door and the windows which we have helpfully already painted to save cutting in around the acrylic panels.

We have a shed!

There are no door fixings (we are saving ourselves for the excellent instructions on how to fix the lock:  'Fix the lock") and no windows yet. And we'll paint it.

But apart from that we have a shed!

It's a bit batty

One of the planning requirements of Monmouthshire is that we have to have a bat survey before we can submit our application. This can only be completed between May and September, so our timing is spot on - if we had been ready to go to planning in October we would have had to wait till the following May. If bats are found or there is the possibility of bats being found, we have to tell the planning people how we're going to protect the bats and look after them. This will inevitably delay things, so we're hoping for no bats.

Our bat experts came on Monday afternoon, set up some kit and peered into the loft where they found... bat droppings. Pooh. Literally - a small number of bat droppings under the ridge tiles. And some older droppings under the insulation.

There also had to be a bat count, so we all sat outside at dusk waiting for bats. It was FREEZING. Luckily enough it was above 10 degrees (apparently it has to be for the bats to fly) and we waited. And waited... Then at last some activity - horseshoe bats and pipistrelles, picked up by the bat sonar  and seen fleetingly in the gloom. What we were looking for was evidence of bats coming out from under the ridge tiles. Nope - didn't get that.

So guess what that means? Yep, another survey in a month's time, just in case the bat droppings in the roof were from summer bats, who won't have arrived yet. We can't yet submit planning, we can't get any costings and we've been advised not to start taking the paint off the outside walls in case the planners get wind of it and think we've started work. So we wait...

Although, there is actually something we could be doing - cutting the grass paddocks. It's a lot of grass so we thought we should get...

A TRACTOR!!  It's brilliant! We've been well advised by our friend Vincent as to what to buy, and we've got a Yanmar tractor, a flail mower, a harrow and a tipper trailer for carting logs around. We've already started moving a huge heap of logs which happen to be exactly where we intend to put a garden shed, and we'll start on the mowing when it stops raining.

As you can see, Guy seems happy with it!

Another stone in the wall

Last weekend Guy and I went on a dry stone walling course - it was at Kate Humble's educational farm, and we were thoroughly spoilt with lovely food and lots of cups of tea. And then we rebuilt their wall...

First you strip it out and lay the foundations:

Then you start building - there's a former for the shape, and string lines to keep the stones level:

And finally the top bit. Then it's time to stand back and admire:

Please do feel free to make admiring noises at this stage. We did!

We've since got back home and looked at our fallen down walls - there are a LOT of them. Still, at least we know what to do with them now...

We're still waiting for our bat survey too, sadly Bat Man got ill, so they didn't come.  Maybe this week.

And Guy was filmed for the telly - we had something we thought would be interesting, we had been in touch, we were invited to turn up as VIPs on the day, and so we did! We were given tea and biscuits, Guy had to go to 'Makeup' and he was filmed with the lovely Clive Farahar.

We had had a valuation by email before so we knew what it was roughly worth. I was standing a little distance away and couldn't really hear but I thought Guy's reaction (given that he already sort of knew) was totally over the top - terrible overacting.  It seems I misheard...

You'll have to watch in September!  It will be one of the two Tewkesbury Abbey programmes.

This week is all set to be exciting - the tractor arrives on Wednesday.

Yes, that does say tractor.

Of Mice and Magnolias

We've been Finding Things.

Firstly we've discovered we've got a magnolia tree in the front garden - it's absolutely beautiful, fairly old and IT FLOWERS! I've never had one that actually has flowers before...

And then there are the mice. They're very cute. We spotted three outside the front window, along a piece of concrete where there are umpteen holes. So presumably there are umpteen mice...

If they're not living in the holes by the concrete they might be living in the very big hole under the house. Oh yes. When Vincent and Sarah visited Vincent noticed that the dining room has a sprung floor. The sitting room has tiles. Hmmm. Then when I was hoovering, Guy was in the lean-to workroom outside the house and realised he could hear the hoover REALLY clearly. Too clearly. There's a vent in what is the wall of the house, he shone a torch in and - BIG HOLE UNDER HOUSE. We have no idea what it is, why it's there, or whether there are any bodies in it. Eek.

So our plan of 'get the Aga in as soon as possible' has gone out of the window - we need to know what's under the floor, we may need to get it sorted out, and then we can do the floors. Sigh. We're getting very good at baked potatoes and beans in the microwave...

The fencing is finished, which is just as well as Mopsi has discovered the delights of chasing rabbits and would chase them halfway across Monmouthshire if there wasn't now a fence in the way. She still tends to look totally the wrong way while the bunnies jump up and down behind her.

See - fence.

We haven't yet taken a picture of the fence by the horse field - it has 3 rails and we look like a stud farm, which was kind of the idea. We love it!

This coming weekend we are on a course to learn how to build dry stone walls. Well, it is my birthday...

It's getting busy...

It's nearly a month since I posted anything - I really need to get into a routine here...

So, we're half living at the new cottage, we've finally got heating working, this week the land is being fenced and we've been, um, clearing.

Spot the two differences:

'Sunshine' doesn't count...

Next job is to make a new gate... That one has now been patched and screwed so many times it is literally about to fall apart...

We've had a man out to look at the orange paint. The conclusion is that it's cement mixed with paint, slapped on the outside and it's holding damp into the walls. It has to go... That will mean grit-blasting, scaffolding, a couple of weeks' work and a lot of mess. And then we leave the walls to breathe for a while...

We've had a man out to look at doing the building work. He seemed to think it was all perfectly reasonable, perfectly do-able and suggested repairing the lean-to end and putting the new oak end on first, then moving into the new oak end (sort of) whilst the middle bit was renovated. Timescale? A year. A YEAR. We'd rather not go into rented, so this sounds like a sensible option.

We've had a quote for a shed and we're awaiting drawings to go to planning with. Instead of the tumbledown metal shed we'll have a sensible wooden shed with a non-leaky roof. And space for a small tractor.

And the fabulous drawings for the house from Welsh Oak have gone to planning. Well, pre-planning. We'll get a heads-up as to whether it is likely to be accepted, and away we go. We need an ecology survey, so we're speaking to an ecological surveyor...

We've sold Hazelwood to a lovely couple, we're all just waiting patiently for the legal eagles to do their stuff, although nothing is happening very quickly. Sigh. Why does it take so long??

Did we mention planning?

Planning, eh? We put in a pre-planning application some time ago along the lines of 'we want to replace the existing cottage with an oak-framed 3 bedroomed cottage style house'.

The planner phoned up and said no. No discussion, no talking it through, just no. Ah.

So we're not having a new cottage. Which is fine, really it is, we like old cottages. Just as well, really.

We've had a visit from our lovely architect, Emyr, we've seen plans, we've done a few tweaks inside and we're practically ready to submit our Second Planning Idea. We've even got ourselves a planning consultant, which apparently helps...

And we're getting organised. We've arranged a phone. Well, we've arranged to arrange a phone. It was diarised for set-up last Wednesday. So Guy went over on Tuesday night to stay, be there early and wait. It snowed. The heating ran out of oil (it was ordered two weeks ago and not delivered yet) and it was, apparently, COLD. He waited in. And waited. And waited. They didn't come. I phoned Utility Warehouse (let's name and shame) and they said cheerily 'it's ok the engineer didn't need access to the house he was able to do it remotely'. I asked if they wanted to explain that to my very cold husband who had sat waiting for 5 hours with snow and no heating. Apparently they didn't. I rang his mobile and explained. He went very quiet. To his credit, he didn't actually weep...

That was last Wednesday. It's now this Wednesday and we still have no phone. Apparently there's a fault. Yes, the fault is it doesn't work. We wait.

Before the oil was delivered we put up a house sign - just a temporary one so that deliveries can find us. And then we went to the Pub Evening in the village hall and found that nearly everyone in the village thinks we named it At Last A Cottage. We spent a while explaining we didn't...

The oil got delivered (the driver admired our sign - yay!) and the heating got mended (thank you Don the Plumber) so the cottage is warm and toasty again. And still small. And still orange.

5 months? Really?

It has taken us FIVE months to complete the purchase of our orange cottage. FIVE months. Both sets of solicitors took forever and seemed unable to communicate except through the medium of telepathy, but neither of them were any good at it.

But, at very long last, it's ours. It's called Atlasta Cottage. Yes, I had it rhyming with Atlanta too. Oh no - it's better than that. It's At Last A Cottage. Yes, it is. Could have been worse - could have been Dunroamin...

We visited yesterday to see what we'd bought - as we'd actually only been inside it twice. There are some interesting tiles in the kitchen, the rooms are bigger than we remember and it will be gorgeous eventually (our architect is visiting on Thursday...)

The gate at the back of the house had smashed in the gales, so we needed to mend it. On a temporary measure as we probably want to change it, but we're not quite sure what to yet.

So we bodged it.

By the way - that's the back.  The front looked much more stylish.  Not.

We hope the neighbours don't think that's our usual standard of workmanship... Talking of neighbours, we've met both close neighbours (that's 'close' as in 'within 100 yards') and they're lovely - hooray!

We also found our way into the shed. Shed? Metal construction in woodland...

It's dry (ish) it's large (ish) and it's covered in metal sheets. Except for the bits which are asbestos. Might need a bit of work?

We also investigated the wood panelling in the sitting room. We thought the panelling had been put across two alcoves which would, if we removed it, make the sitting room bigger. Well, yes, but only a six inch alcove. That's 15cm for you Young People. We moved in the essentials - wine, mugs and a coffee maker.

We need to hire a van...