With the electrician and plumbers rescheduled to finish things off at the end of the month we'd just have to crack on with other things. There was plenty more stud work to wrangle with, a few last joists to seat and some slightly Asbestos-y panels to relieve the dining room of. For starters, Beth got … Continue reading

An exciting week as we're taking delivery of the new boiler. Out goes the old system setup - small boiler and immersion hot water tank, fed by a glorified bucket in the attic. In comes a monster of a combi boiler, all 30kW of it, fed by the full pressure of the mains water network. … Continue reading

Mid September and we finally had our first proper holiday since Christmas. We're putting the lack of break down to being 'too busy' to really do much about it. Nonetheless Beth managed to single-handedly map, organise and book a road trip from Spain back through France. Because some people enjoy doing this kind of work, … Continue reading

There's a surprisingly rich source of local information about The Old School House. Whilst in the throes of purchase Beth stumbled upon a well documented local history of the building . For those not so fussed about Frank Brokenbrow's scholarship to Colston's Hospital, Bristol in 1875, here's the boiled down version North Wraxall School was … Continue reading

Shakira, Shakira. Not quite underneath anyone's clothes, lest the house be personified excessively. Within the house's fabric nestled a variety of surprises, some pleasant, most not. Here are a few notables ones from the explorations. The Hall find: an old milk bottle cap in cardboard, complete with central piercing hole for the straw. It reads: … Continue reading

To reappropriate the end of the utility as a shower room required a light remodelling. The existing end wall was a complete hodge-podge of timbers and plasters, different thicknesses and very few straight edges. Not ideal for fitting a shower in, much less tiling to. What's more, the wall curved in a little towards the … Continue reading

With the second half of the timber order finally in there's some lost time to make up. To begin with, as an aside for anyone with a technical interest in these things, we're going for a belt and braces approach with the ground level woodwork. It's lovely C24 regularised kiln dried pressure treated stuff and … Continue reading

The big plan (for the things currently being juggled around) was to rip out the floors and wall in the utility so that new ones could be put in place in time for the electrician to visit. This because wires would need to be routed underneath the floors and through the wall. What went wrong … Continue reading

The dining room is a near identical construction to the Hall. The floor boards in here though are a little sounder and don't suffer from being made out of annoying steel banded strips of wood. The more conventional tongue and groove system is much more forgiving to pry up. There was even one board which … Continue reading

Not quite what Jacques said but given the opportunity to wield some power tools and large hammers with few or no consequences, who wouldn't want to pop down to Wiltshire for some fun? The task was simple: dismantle the floor. To achieve this (and as we weren't precious about saving the wood anymore), we bought … Continue reading