Where to start

F and I have been dreaming of our big project for 12 years. When we got together one of the things that united us was a shared dream to build or restore our own home. Both of us grew up in families where self-build, sustainability, DIY and vegetable gardening were common themes. My parents bought a small plot of land in northern Scotland back in the seventies, and first restored a tiny “But and ben” stone house with a heather-thatched roof when I was little; then, over about six years, built a more modern two-storey house in the garden. They did the whole thing on a £25,000 self-build mortgage, which seems extraordinary now. For reference, we will spend more than twice that amount purely on having our roof re-slated. They achieved this impressive feat by project-managing the whole thing themselves, including doing a lot of the labour. The whole project, lengthy and stressful though it was, taught me early on how much can be achieved on a small budget if you are organised, careful and maintain good relations with local craftspeople. Meanwhile, F’s Dad and step-mother restored a beautiful old barn near Cardiff, and he grew up watching his father restore multiple old properties in different countries. As well as encouraging him to become a carpenter at a young age, it also gave him a sense of the possible. Whereas my folks were frugal and cautious, F’s dad was more adventurous and experimental. This has been useful for us as a couple, because my inclination is to worry; his is to dare. Together we meet somewhere in the middle. I would never have had the confidence to take on this place on my own!

So now we are here: finally with a project of our own after years of constraining our ambitions inside poky flats and terraced houses. This week I have been discovering that one of the effects of getting what one wants so desperately, is a strange period of mental turmoil. Roughly translated, my inner monologue recently has been “Oh shit, now we have to do this” and “Where the f*** do we even start?”

Meanwhile, of course, we have started. F, whose full-time job this project is, has done some very important things, most of which fall into the categories of weather-proofing and security. As the picture below shows, the roof is in a sorry state. The old Delabole slate has been battered by the weather for many decades. A few years ago one side was painted with bitumen, which helped the roof on that side stay dry for a few more years. On the other side, the relentless rain has found many any inlet, which has done a lot of damage to the interior. The first thing F and our architect did was put in a planning request to replace the entire roof. We are able to get permission for this relatively quickly and the roofing firm we contracted are due to start work in a few weeks. This should hopefully give us a brand new, rain-proof roof in time for Christmas, leaving us free to work on planning the rest of the house.

The house as a whole is damp, and one of the other things F has done is to buy a dehumidifier, which we move around the house. In a single night it can suck several litres of moisture out of the air. We hope that we eventually won’t need this device, once the house is a little more air tight and less porous to the outside damp.

Then of course we have had to make the place secure, which involves obvious things like changing locks, but many other small tasks like repairing window frames, sorting out lights, getting insurance and training the dogs to bark at the right people (this has not been going too well). There are two entrances to our place, and one is next to a public right of way, so we regularly get lost tourists, delivery drivers and sometimes even cyclists coming down our front path. Neither of us really wants to put up one of those hostile “PRIVATE – KEEP OUT” signs but perhaps at some point we’ll add a gate. Local kids have been known to sneak into the grounds of the “creepy house” for larks, apparently. For this reason I’ve been tolerating the immense patches of nettles everywhere, but once those subside I will look at planting some blackthorn bushes in the gaps of the perimeter. Hopefully the noisy dogs, and the news that the place is lived in again, should keep out any nighttime marauders.

And what have I been doing? Well one thing is to try and go a bit easy on myself. I still work a busy job, and I’ve been trying not to overburden myself with house and garden work as well. However, I didn’t come down here to sit and watch F do all the work, so I’ve been taking on small tasks and trying to get a little bit done each week. My tendency is to flit from task to task; stripping off some ivy on one wall; trimming branches in another part of the garden; cleaning moss off some steps by the house, and so on. This is all well and good but it means nothing feels truly done, so I’m trying to refocus in order to get a couple of small areas feeling more organised. This weekend my goal is to finally clear the courtyard of the small annexe by the house. The annexe is an interesting part of the Court. It is even more tumble-down than the rest, probably because it has been uninhabitated for a longer time than the main house. According to a local source, the last inhabitant was a retired naval officer known as “Skipper” who lived in the annexe for free in exchange for doing gardening for Miss Everard, who owned the pottery in the 1960s. Skipper must have been tough. The annexe is effectively a single upstairs room, reached by an outside stone staircase. There is a store-room underneath filled with old doors and planks of wood. Signs of Skipper remain upstairs, but it appears he had quite rudimentary heating, and no plumbing at all. The contents of his room suggest an interest in art and cocktails, but I haven’t been able to get in there properly as the floor is too dangerous to walk on.

Meanwhile the courtyard outside has been steadily filling with piles of old slate and other bits of rubbish, sycamore saplings and brambles. It has taken me hours of work to peel back some of these layers, and I still have a lot to do. Yesterday I achieved the task of unearthing a very old pile of kiln bricks that had been completely covered with earth and ivy. I’ve cleaned these up a bit and stacked them inside one of the outhouses. Our hope is that one day we can repurpose them by building a new kiln for the old pottery. It’s a small win, but I’ll take it. Next task: cut back those old brambles!