Final stretch
Final furnishing arrangements in full swing... log fires being made up ready, chandeliers being hung, pews emerging from piles of boxes, beds being made up.... and of course, the new sign!
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I just got off the train from Keswick after three days of non-stop Number-Twenty-ing. Sunday night was a milestone - the first night someone has slept in the house since our last guests left on 4th Jan. I slept on the cushions of the new sofa we've just bought, on the newly-carpeted floor of the second floor family room. Colin had spent all day putting up bedframes but hadn't got as far as retrieving the mattresses from storage! Jackie had cleaned up one of the showers. Only a few lightbulbs were in so I was in the dark til morning ... and what a sight! Nice clean walls, carpets everywhere, and gorgeous bedrames from the Original Bedstead Company.
One my early successes was to get the wireless internet up and running. The broadband speed is quicker than my home one!
On Monday, five of us had a lengthy meeting around the garden table where we went through my 66-item 'to do' list and figured out who was doing what. There were so many workmen in the house we were tripping over each other, and the 4 coffee cups someone had thoughtfully left were in high demand and available on a rotational basis only!
By Monday evening, mattresses were down and Jennifer braved a night in the house too. With five bedrooms to choose from we each had plenty of space but as the doors were in the middle of being planed down post carpet-laying, privacy was still a bit limited!
On Tuesday we spent a lot of time divvying up furniture between the rooms. Budget hasn't allowed a complete re-furnish but we're trying to mix the best of the old with some nice new pieces. In time we'll upgrade all of it.
Today (Wednesday) we had a trial run with both log fires burning and invited the agency team around for a preview visit. They still needed to apply a bit of imagination to see beyond the boxes we're unpacking, but they were giving us a good thumbs up. It's going to be an easy house for them to sell to would-be holiday makers, I think.
My top favourites at the moment are:
- the 98 degree constant-supply tap in the kitchen ... no more waiting for the kettle to boil before getting a cup of tea!
- the pews in the dining room ... it's going to be great having extended family meals around there
- the top family room ... it's spacious but full of character with the eaves coming down and lots of interesting angles.
We're counting down the hours now until our first guests arrive on Saturday. I am jealous of them! They are going to have a great week, I reckon. I'm sure there will be a few teething problems but the house is a totally different place to its predecessor, so hopefully expectations will be exceeded.
Watch this space for pictures of the completed product....
Carpets going down and we're entering the last lap. The hallway has some tiles that we assume are as old as the house. I thought they were black and red but in fact after a bit of heaving brillo-pad-ing the black ones turn out to be yellow! Jennifer has persuaded everyone they should be cleaned up and kept as a period feature of the house.
We decided to tile the kitchen dining area in the end and doesn't it look lovely? Can't wait to have our first dinner there...
Next week's blog should be pretty much of the finished product so watch this space....
Photos courtesy of Maria Burton www.lake-district-light.com
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Doors, walls and bannisters have been painted and the kitchen is in...
The updated entrance hall
Basin is fitted
Busy finishing off the painting
Everywhere is getting a new lick of paint
Gleaming white bannisters
The shower is in
The dining room
The kitchen has been installed
Photos courtesy of Maria Burton www.lake-district-light.com
Subtle changes have taken place with white walls and heating installed, but there is a big difference to the feel of the place. Doors are in the process of being painted and the shower structure is being built.
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The painters are in and the water will be on tomorrow, if not today...
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A hive of activity as walls are plastered, pipework welded and coving filled. Take a look at this week's activities.
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.... signs of putting things back together now with plastering beginning and the new kitchen-diner starting to take shape. The builders have been working hard together to reassemble the house with new walls and wiring in readiness for the decorating phase. Penny's on the train again on Valentine's day to check in with the team and start planning the re-furnishing programme with Jackie.
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I find the journey up to Keswick gets more relaxing the longer I’ve been en route. Usually heading up there means rushing my three little heathens, I mean boys, out of the house and off to Penny’s before school starts. Once that mission is achieved, shovelling them into the car, decanting them out onto the pavement with a BYE at the doorstep, I’m off in a puff of smoke rushing to the train.
By the time I’m on the pendolino at Euston, tension lifts. This is because I’m armed with coffee and I’ve made it before the train leaves. I always have nightmares, no matter how early I set off, that I’m going to miss the train from Euston… I never do…but still, it’s like Groundhog Day…
By the time we’ve passed Wigan (rightly or wrongly always associated with the FA) I start to think, Blimey, I’m far from home. Arriving in Penrith makes me feel I should be in Cornwall. Etymologically speaking, you know, I should be. Given that down Cornwall way places prefixed with Pen are the head, top, or end of something, maybe it is rightly named as the end of my train journey, anyway, I digress. But…you do pass Penruddock on the way to Keswick…did Arthur make it up here? Or was it only Monthy Python? What about that stone circle?
Tangents aside, I went up to Keswick this particular time to attack a pile of metal. Armed with two pipeslices, a hammer, a chisel, a hacksaw, and a large stash of patience, I set to cutting a multitude of brass fittings off the mountain of copper pipe that was wrestled from the fabric of Bonshaw as the central heating system is renewed. Any stray copper hiding under floorboards that I could unearth joined its cousins in the pile and was sliced and diced to become clean copper. Why you may ask? Because it’s worth twice as much as mixed copper and brass… and a seemingly worthless dirty old pile of copper is actually a bit like gold dust when budgets are tight.
So, the morning after an early night, Graeme, his son Christopher who was rather inspiring both in terms of his willingness to help, and his budding skills (apparently he can manage a mini digger and he’s only 8 I believe… amazing), and I loaded up my hired VW transporter. Newly clean copper, a bunch of radiators, a boiler, and a cylinder were delivered to some very surprised scrap metal men in Workington. I don't think many women pull up there unloading vans of metal… but I’m not complaining, I bet men don’t get assistance unloading… and they certainly don’t get called ‘lass.’
I left feeling quite jubilant with my 600 pounds. I can’t confess it burned a hole in my pocket… even though I was in downtown Workington, I could see no place to spend it. Maybe this is a revelation… I should move to Workington and deliver myself from temptation. My horoscope did mention something about changing my lifestyle come to think of it. I was sure that this was referring to my new year’s resolutions but maybe this assumption was premature. A friend of mine always says Jenny, don’t be hasty…
Photos of the restoration during the first week of February.
One of the objectives of the renovation work is to improve Number Twenty's carbon footprint ... To achieve that we're incorporating a number of new features in the house:
- new modern radiators - the old ones were very inefficient and literally only radiated, rather than also convecting heat, as the new ones will;
- a combi boiler - only the water we need to heat will be heated;
- insulation in the roof spaces - the loft and sloping rooves were previously very thin on insulation ... we are changing all that now and putting in lots of good insultation throughout the house;
- properly lagged piping - we found ancient newspapers wrapped around some of the old pipes! That's all gone out with the pipes and new pipes and proper lagging are coming in to replace them;
- double glazed windows - we'd have loved to have double glazed the whole house but our budget doesn't allow so we'll have to revisit this again later; however the three windows that we have prioritised for replacement now are going in with double glazing, and the new glazed velux in the kitchen is of course double glazed too;
- hot water in the kitchen - we are installing an efficient instant hot water tap system that will reduce our kettle-boiling wattage consumption dramatically;
- energy saving light fittings - all the new light fittings will be brought up to modern energy saving standards and we'll be replacing old bulbs with energy saving ones everywhere possible.
Back to the bare walls and floorboards
For the new shower room
New opaque Velux for the kitchen
Starting to put the walls and ceilings back together
The living rooms - down to the old tile floors
A lot of debris - the scrap yard love us!
Photos courtesy of Maria Burton www.lake-district-light.com
Work started as soon as our New Year’s guests left at the beginning of January. Since then builders have been buzzing and walls have been coming down ... and going up again! Work is moving quickly and we are on a schedule to complete at the end of March. Here are some pictures from the first few weeks:
Stuart has built out the old ensuite shower rooms in the front bedrooms so we'll have larger shower cubicles.
Greame has been busy ripping out the old walls and utility area.
This view is new: the hole in the wall between what used to be the dining room, and the living room.
Putting in the right supports above the wall opening.
Paper's off, carpets are up, wires are coming out ... even that radiator is going to be replaced.
Spencer's team have stripped back wallpaper right through the house.
Photos courtesy of Maria Burton www.lake-district-light.com
Bonshaw has been a popular, good value holiday house in Keswick since 2003. Over time all holiday properties take a lot of wear and tear, especially large ones. It doesn't make sense to pick at little bits of a house on this scale so, thanks to a loan from the bank, we decided to take the plunge and do a major refurbishment that should place the new 'Number Twenty' on a good footing to deliver a higher quality holiday for guests in the years to come.
We love having a large kitchen-diner as the hub of our home. We could only do that in Bonshaw by knocking down walls and a utility area previously separating the kitchen from an under-utilised rear living room. The result will be a long kitchen-diner area. The kitchen is right at the back of the house with a range cooker and modern units, sitting at the end of a long dining area with seating for twelve and a doorway out onto the patio.
