Monthly Archives: March 2013

Unfinished Fence

We’ve finally constructed a fence to define the new boundary that lies in the car park.  We have the dimensions of the fence agreed in the contract with the current owner of the car park but the fence needed to go up before the remainder of the car park is sold (I note the car park is under offer on 2nd April).

fence-building

The fence doesn’t go all the way to the pavement yet.  The driveway will ultimately go where the smoking shelter is at the moment, but it needs to be approved by Planning and the Highway Agency which will take a few months.  Also we ran out of fence boards and Crowthornes is shut for Easter.

unfinished-fence

This is roughly how it might end up.  I am hoping to add a garage just behind the fence. The garage might be better in natural wood.

view-from-north3

The fence at the rear overlooking Wellsfield also needs to be replaced.  That will hopefully happen in May.

Initial Ideas for Plans

I don’t like the flat roof so I’m going to apply to add a pitched roof to make it prettier. I’ve put together an artist impression based roughly on the architect’s ideas. Only roughly – he reckons the conservation officer will prefer roof lights to windows. I’m tempted to propose some windows as I think roof lights at the front would look ugly.

I’ve painted in windows for the void and a new bathroom. Downstairs I’ve no idea what to do with the area that is currently the gents, but it looks nicer with a window or two.  Might look even better with some bigger windows.  I need to chat with the conservation officer to see if the gents toilet look is really worth preserving.

roof-side-choices-2a

This is how it looks at the moment:

roof-side-choices-1

Building a new gable would leave a lot of 1960s style brick on the end view.  It might be nicer to finish the gable with weatherboard or render

artist-impresion-new-roof-side3b

Rot in the Snug

Kae is in France this week, and in the absence of anyone sensible around I decided to do some decorating. Though one thing leads to another…..

snug-stripped

The problem was rot.  Initially the term dry rot was bandied around but it seems it was good old-fashioned wet rot. Under the carpet in the Snug there was some lovely 1920s parquet flooring. Unfortunately the ground level outside is about 12 inches above the floor level inside and the far end of the room has been damp for years. The parquet floor and the later wood panelling had crumbled away and needed to be brushed up.

dry-rot

The rot appeared to be confined to the area around the end wall and fireplace. I had intended to remove all of the parquet but moving further into the room the parquet floor appears to be in reasonable condition (apart from maybe the bay window area). I’m in two minds whether to restore the floor or recycle it on eBay.

Before I keep it I’ll need to find a solution for the damp problem. For now the rotten bits are on my skip pile and I’ll rest the carpet back on the good bits. The missing bits will leave the structure exposed to try to dry it out.

I ended up restoring the parquet.

Architect

I’ve taken on the architect that I liked. We’ll be working together on plans over the next month or two and will hopefully organise something that planning, the village (and me) will like a lot. I guess we’ll be able to submit an application in April. More on ideas as they progress.

The flat roof part you see after turning the corner from the hill looks really ugly and wants sorting. It’s a fiddly shape to do anything with. The architect drew a sketch of a pitched roof at first floor level matching the slope of the existing roof, then another pitched roof connecting it to the barn. I’ll post pictures when I have them. Looks like it was supposed to be there.

Inside the changes will hinge around sorting out the stairs. They don’t go up high enough to meet the corridor, and the 2 extra steps from the landing make it risky to go to the bathroom in the dark. Though building regs will require 2m height for stairs if we fiddle with them, and there isn’t quite the room. Architect can figure that one out.

stairs-top

stairs2