Red & BBs retirement home......

[British Red]

Well Spamel asked for a photo or two of our retirement cotatge being "knocked about by a sledgehammer".

This is the place as it originally was

and this is it more recently

Not to a lot of peoples taste - Grade II listed and built in the 1700s. It needs a LOT of work mind you........it really has been let go and bodged together! But we have been getting on with it. To be truthful if it had been pristine and in a "pricey" area we would still be dreaming. But in remote rural Lincolnshire and needing work, we could about scrape together the money given the fall in house prices

So we "took the plunge" and are getting on with it!

Just a lick of paint left really :lol

Quite a frightening feeling this - it even involves moving the wall ties that hold the building up :shock:

Mechanised help required clearing some of the land......

But a nice paddock underneath

An intersting cupboard in the living room......

Housing an anthracite boiler (that leaked). Techically I suppose that is indeed central heating!

However when ripped out..the original inglenook is revealed

Happy to show more if people are interested?

Red

 

[Mesquite]

Happy to show more if people are interested?

Yes please Hugh. I for one, love that sort of thing

Looks like you've a major project on your hands and it'll be interesting to see how it progresses

 

[smoggy]

As you're obviously undertaking an extensive rebuild, in some areas at least........are you considering including any green technologies?

Solar panels/wind gen/wwod stove/etc.........

Smoggy.

 

[BorderReiver]

Yes please Red.

Magic looking place, well worth the effort.

 

[British Red]

Wood stoves for sure. Solar passive heating is a non starter on a listed building although we may use some PV panels to move to off grid electricity (probably with a wind turbine) as funds and time permit. We will also be moving off coal to propane based background heat...not completely green but better than existing coal or oil.

Red

 

[Firebringer]

'Grand Designs' springs to mind, but hopefully not so much work for you. Exterior brick work and roof looks pretty solid from pictures.

Place looks lovely Red, take it you've got a bit of land associated with it?

 

[korvin karbon]

Happy to show more if people are interested?

Red

Does Red like shiny sharp things?? Hell yes

 

[Mirius]

Very interested indeed, please show us more! Thats a really nice looking cottage there. I'm really keen to see how you bring this up to a livable condition and just what sort of things you have in mind.

 

[launditch1]

What a lovely looking house.Id love to get stuck into a build like that...Ive worked on an old house of a similar age and that was also bodged together once the plaster came off.Like the old pic of some of the old inhabitants!So,Yes!more pictures.

Also,your pic of the cleared paddock..is that a large stone i can see?Glacial erratic?Any chance of a pic if it is?

 

[John Fenna]

Show us more!
Mind you - your inglenook is still tiny compared to mine!

 

[British Red]

What a lovely looking house.Id love to get stuck into a build like that...Ive worked on an old house of a similar age and that was also bodged together once the plaster came off.Like the old pic of some of the old inhabitants!So,Yes!more pictures.

Also,your pic of the cleared paddock..is that a large stone i can see?Glacial erratic?Any chance of a pic if it is?

Curiously not. Its a three tonne boulder that was put there as a memorial marker for a realtive who died.But its beautiful and part of the history of the place ...so it stays!

 

[pwb]

What a lovely place Red .

See your going for the open plan look , any plans for the paddock ?

It'll be great to see the progress.

Pete.

 

[sandbender]

I love the brickwork, lovely place.

 

[belzeebob23]

Yes please on the more pics
Looks like you had a lot of stress relief with a sledge hammer so far before all the stress of putting it back together
bob

 

[korvin karbon]

That is going to be one monster garden. Have you thought about a pond?

 

[g4ghb]

Looks great Hugh! - please don't stop in your photo diary!

 

[British Red]

That is going to be one monster garden. Have you thought about a pond?

Yep - there's another area for the pond

The paddock is going to become orchard, fruit cage, veg patch etc.

We have two brick barns and an old "wash house" as well so plenty of room for tools

Red

 

[British Red]

Well, since there's an interest - the bathroom in progress!




The original bathroom had an interesting use of tongue and groove (there is a tongue and groove theme here), pointless upright beams and red gloss with glitterball mirror


The quarry tiles were original though - and about an inch thick. They stay!

The taps and cistern both leaked and dripped!

Removing the tongue and groove revealed that the bath was cracked away as well as chipped - oh and the worlds biggest cobweb was underneath

So we stripped it all - bath, radiator the lot. We would have to have removed it anyway to get at the plaster of the original wall (running behind the bath) for the damp proofing. It ended up looking like this

Then of course re-plaster, pva the old paint at the base and cut in the new wiring.......

A skim on the top to even things out. New "ball and claw" type bath goes in with a more "period" feel radiator. Thats where we are up to right now

Red

 

[g4ghb]

Ooooo - I bet Fiona loves that and can't wait to beautify it mate!

Did you do the plastering yourself? - something I haven't really managed to master yet

 

[British Red]

No Graham. To be honest my level is that of "labourer" at best . I'm okay chopping back overgrown trees and the like but this place needed skill wayyy beyond me a lot of the time.

There's a bunch of local tradesmen helping us with all the bits requiring something remotely resembling "skill" . We've been very keen though to use only small local firms and independents to keep the money in the loacal economy which is great as there isn't a lot of work on for them and we benefit from some great advice!

A good example is the guy fitting our new (calor) gas boiler. He took us around his house to show what it looked like and then nipped down to the council to sort out listed building consent for the flue! Nice blokes all of them (so far) - none of the normal tradesman horror stories

H