Taking Ownership

New farmhouse sign: a team effort!

There is no doubt we are taking ownership of our farm.  With a bit of a team effort we have cleared the ground at the top of our drive, removed the tatty old sign and transferred it to our ICU unit....aka the Man Cave, where it will undergo intensive treatment for a week or so.  The new sign, a temporary measure, was great fun to make and we all think is far better than the old one.  It may well become a permanent feature.  Recycling at its best...an old roof tile and some white paint from the craft box.


The builders have started.  Our first project was the removal of a conservatory on the front of the farmhouse. From our first viewing of the property we always felt it didn't fit; a south facing conservatory - hot box in summer, ice box in winter...anyhow, its a farmhouse, not a 'country house' that may warrant a front conservatory in which to have tea and cake.  Justifications aside it has now gone.  Revealing in its wake some damp we already knew about and a few holes to patch.  Nothing too alarming thankfully. 

Removal of south facing conservatory

The second project, is the removal of the internal back staircase.  When the farmhouse was built, circa 1875, the Victorians would have had servants. And plenty of them.  One certainly wouldn't want to pass them on the stairs of a morning therefore one simply builds a back staircase down which they can scurry to clean the embers and stoke up the kitchen fires.  It was the second item we always felt didn't fit in the property for our family requirements.  We don't have servants, but do wish to utilise the space in the kitchen under the footprint of the stairs - so out they come.  As the plasterboard came down we saw the original wooden boards and lovely old door.  We may have to design some cupboards upstairs just to re-use the old boards and original door. The third item we wish to change will have to wait until the big revamp happens.  The front porch, only 30 odd years ago, was a traditional farmhouse open porch (peaked cap shape).  Now it is an over grand flat roofed porch with a balcony.  Each to their own at the end of the day, but ownership of this porch is not for us...we will restore it to its former less grand but more original state in the fullness of time.



Original boards on the back staircase

In the meantime, I have been singing, humming, shouting at times, and mostly la-la-la'ing to the tune of a great song from a famous rock musical that was out around the time of my birth...ahem, a few decades ago.  We have started on the trees and hedges.  No the hedgeman hasn't arrived with his equipment yet, but a local lad has.  He is helping me around the farm doing the big jobs I can't.  Oh, did I mention, he has his own chainsaw, knows the wood from the trees, can drive a tractor and is very strong!  So, get your groove on and sing with me, from the musical 'HAIR'.....Let the Sunshine In, let the sunshine in....the sunshine in.  And repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat. 

Our Victorian lady is slowly rising from the ground and has her first view over the east facing fields for many, many years.  This is where the sun rises so each morning I am treated to an autumnal feast of mellow golden light and blankets of mist across the fields.  Oh, and now my washing dries much quicker now that its not hanging under the shadow of the overgrown holly tree!

Overgrown hedge crowded with holly & hawthorn.





Cut down.