We’re finally Doing It

Ten years, 2,000 tonnes of earth, 487 rocks and stones (approx), a 900mm trench, and a dream becoming reality — all this has happened over the past 2.5 weeks and it’s been a lot.

We moved into The Dingle in April 2016 with a vision. Since then, we’ve taken off the entire front of the house, replaced a rotten sole plate with new oak, reinstated an upper window, replaced soggy brick and concrete with cork and lime panels, converted a rubbley attic to a bedroom, installed an oak staircase, replaced leaky old windows with oak-framed double-glazing, and put a bathroom into a room that has never before contained a bathroom.

All the while, saving up to knock down the mouldy lean-tos at the back of the house and build a new kitchen extension.

And finally, after twice as many years as we thought it would take, we’re doing it.

Creating space to breathe

First we had to push back the bank and enlarge the space the house stands in so we wouldn’t be creating a dank cave — so that’s what we did. Over the course of a week our builder, Graham, and his son dug and scraped and shaped and moved and shifted more soil and stone than I’ve ever seen moving all at once and layered it up in the woods, raising the dingle a little and filling an existing shallow pit.

We’re very lucky to have so much space because I’ve learned that digging big holes isn’t expensive; it’s disposing of all the material afterwards that costs a fortune. Our couple of acres of woodland have saved us about £20,000 in removal and disposal costs, and we enriched our woodland floor in the process.

I felt quite a lot of feelings when we first started moving everything because although I do think we’re doing the right thing, we’re making a huge mark on the landscape. We’ve changed the face of our land, and we’ve altered the ground level in the woodland and covered over a lot of undergrowth. The undergrowth will be fine; it’ll grow back and you wouldn’t know we’ve changed anything by next year.

But I know.

We’re not owners, we’re caretakers

It’s a lot of responsibility, taking on a 350-year-old building and the land it stands on, and we want to do our best by it. I don’t see us as owners; I see us as custodians. It’s been here for a very long time and it’ll be here long after we’re gone.

I felt saddest watching the dry stone wall of the banks come down. It was mossy and ferny and full of purple lobelia and foxgloves and wild strawberries and mice and bees. The wildlife skedaddled and it’ll be back, but my memories linger like ghosts. My Noodle cat used to sit up there in the sunshine on his warm stone and purr at me when I walked past. The sheeps stood up there and begged for grapes at the back door. The chickens wandered through at eye height and shrieked at us. I’d watch big bumblebees look for the perfect crevice, then crawl in to do whatever bumblebees do in holes.

We’re reusing all the stone to build new retaining walls and terraces on the banks, and I’ll seed it with lobelia and foxgloves and ferns and moss and within a couple of years it’ll look green and lush and be a haven for wildlife. It’ll be different. But that’s okay. I want the walls to be full of newts and bees and beetles and frogs and toads and mice and wasps and I can build that in from the start.

Reuse, recycle

The old kitchen was damp and mouldy and made of concrete and it was Not Good In Any Way. The Inside-Outside Room was quirky and silly and I loved it but it was literally crumbling. The room with the stairs was built from solid stone and I hated seeing that come down too but we’re saving the stone and using it to face the new walls.

And when the kitchen and utility room and toilet are up and we’re putting it all together, I’ll repoint the original stone walls and leave them bare because I do not want to hide the old with the new. I want them to live together as the story of this home written in its fabric.

We’ve got so much to do and we’re doing almost all of it ourselves.

Here’s The Plan

Our budget allows us (just about) to pay Graham to build the shell of the building… and that’s it. Once the shell is up and watertight, we’re on our own. (Although Gra lives over the road and. he’s already said he’s happy to answer any questions and advise us because he’s brilliant. Cannot recommend him highly enough.)

We won’t even have windows or doors (except two Velux windows that are going in right away when they build the roof).

The big bifold doors onto the patio will be aluminium, not oak (because we want them to work) and will cost around £3,000 and we’ll put those in sharpish.

But the oak windows we want to match the front of the house and the bathroom? We need fourteen of them and conservative estimates put the cost at £30,000. We can’t afford that.

So I’m going to make them myself.

I’m starting a carpentry and joinery course on September 9 and I’m really excited about it. This will be brilliant because Joe and I had already decided to make all the interior oak doors. We made our bathroom door and did a beautiful job of it. Plus we’ll have a kitchen to build, with cupboards and shelves and all of that. And a huge workspace to do it all. So this is going to be my part-time job over the next few months.

That, plus the first fix of electrics and plumbing. I’ve wired up a bedroom — mains ring and lighting ring — before with Joe and really enjoyed it. And we’ve plumbed in the bathroom, which was a Learning Experience.

Oh, and I’m going to learn to plaster. I’ve got my eye on a lime plastering and pointing course at Ty-Mawr, and I’m trying to find a gypsum plastering course. We won’t get much change out of £10,000 for all the plastering, I suspect — so investing around £1,000 in learning to do it myself seems like a bargain.

After 14 years of sitting behind a desk running my own business, I’m beyond excited about learning these new skills and doing something different for a while. And who knows what I might decide to do after we’ve finished The Dingle… I already know I love working with wood. So watch this space.

But all that is a few weeks away.

Right now, our foundations are in and the timber frame for the first floor is going up. We’ve moved our kitchen into the Rayburn Room temporarily (it will be the library eventually) and we’re accessing the first floor of our cottage via a ladder and a door to nowhere, which is still fun after a week — even in the rain. (I’m not sure Joe agrees with this.)

More to come but before I go into build details, we need to talk about architects. That’s a longer essay and it might save you a fortune and a lot of heartache. Tune in next week…