Three weeks to photos – eek!

I rang the Scottish Cottages rep today to find out how full her diary was, as I knew she was away visiting family overseas for Christmas.  We’ve settled on 7th December for her to come up, which is three weeks tomorrow!  After a flurry of phone calls, text messages and standing at the foot of Pete’s scaffolding shouting up to him, I have Dougie coming next week, Pete coming in the next five days IF the wind speed is low enough for him to get on the roof and drop the flue liner, Roisin at Riverside is checking they can do the furniture delivery on 30th November (1st December is the first day of their Christmas shopping event, so everyone will be tied up with that) and I’m waiting to hear back from David.  However, if the doors aren’t on for the photographs it’s not a problem, so all I really need him to do is a little bit of work on the stairs before the carpet fitters come and the rest can wait until after he gets back from holiday.

In terms of actual work down the road today, I got the white top coat on the landing cabinets, door frames and tongue and groove and then took advantage of the lack of rain and slapped a second coat of green on the gates, which means the slate Mick got me for Christmas with the name and house number can be fitted at the weekend.

I also might have been a tiny bit naughty and driven out west to scout out a small cottage that’s for sale.  I might have been even naughtier and asked the Scottish Cottages rep to have a look at the for sale listing and give me an idea of what it would make as a holiday let.  It’s in a much better condition than Ethel’s was, the home report is nearly all 1s with only one 3, but that’s for damp, which doesn’t worry me in the slightest, because it specifically states that high damp meter readings were obtained in X, Y and Z locations.  My view is that an old stone cottage which hasn’t been lived in for a number of years and has electric heating which hasn’t been left on is going to produce high damp meter readings simply because it hasn’t been warm enough inside to evaporate the moisture in the air, so it’s condensed onto the walls.  It’s got a large garden, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs (unusual in a traditional croft house that hasn’t been altered much) and two living rooms and a tiny kitchen downstairs, so that would get turned into a utility, one of the living rooms would become the kitchen, pop in some central heating, redecorate, furnish and welcome guests 🙂  Okay, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, since I haven’t seen inside it yet, but I like the location, I like the home report, it’s got character and it’s not a mammoth project.  My concerns are (a) they’re overvaluing the croft land with it and (b) it’s been up for sale on and off since 2013 but no-one’s bought it.  The home report is clean enough, there isn’t anything in the surrounding area that would put you off, no planning applications in (in fact the local plan from 2010 specifically states that road in the village is not under consideration for new housing due to the standard of the road and visiblity concerns with its junction to the main road) and the current owner lived there for over 50 years – I’m wondering if it’s simply the price putting people off, as the asking price is nearly a third more than the home report values it at, but does include the croft land, which the home report doesn’t take into account.  Watch this space, anyway!

Stripped

Mick decided to take the day off on Friday, got the bit between his teeth and completely stripped the living room.

156 armadale - living room - 4 156 armadale - living room - 5

Sadly no enormous fireplace on this end.  We did have a brief discussion about the merits of swapping the kitchen and living room over, but decided that the extra hassle and expense of replumbing probably wasn’t going to be worth it.  It just means we rotate the kitchen layout 90 degrees and drop the idea of having a big dresser against a wall for all the crockery and cutlery.  There is, however, a lovely old hearthstone in that fireplace 🙂

As the plasterboard came off, it was clear that there was a membrane underneath the concrete floor, which is why it’s dry.  Unfortunately it doesn’t go under the walls, so a little damp has got into the old lime plaster.  We’re going to pick it all off, let it dry out and take a look at the stone, then see if it needs tanking before we put the studwork back up for the insulation and new plasterboard.

Dougie the electrician rang on Saturday with his quote.  Bear in mind that this was the list we ended up with when he asked us what electrical things we wanted in each room:

Front room

Main BT socket
Satellite connection
3 x wall lights
2 x standard double sockets
2 x double sockets with USB chargers
CO2 alarm

Hall
Smoke alarm
1 x single socket
1 x ceiling pendant light

Bathroom
Electric shower to be changed out
Electric towel rail
3 x large (about dinner plate size?) recessed ceiling lights
Extractor fan

Kitchen
6 x recessed ceiling lights (standard spotlight size)
Cooker
Heating control system
Hob hood extractor
Small spots for lighting the food preparation surfaces
3 x standard double sockets
2 x double socket with USB chargers

Landing
2 x recessed ceiling lights
1 x single socket
Smoke alarm
Move meter from hall and bring in power here instead of through the front door
Low-level, fairly dim lights up the stairs, wired to a switch in each of the three bedrooms to light people up and down to the bathroom at night, without waking everyone up by switching on the main landing light

The two larger bedrooms
1 x central pendant light
3 x double sockets with USB chargers
Satellite dish connection
Ethernet connection
Smoke alarm

Smaller bedroom
1 x central pendant light
2 x double sockets with USB chargers
Satellite dish connection
Ethernet connection
Smoke alarm

What do you reckon his quote was?  Mick was thinking in the region of £6,500-£7,000.  I was hoping it would be about £5,000.  He’s quoted us £4,655.  I was so surprised that I completely forgot to ask what I needed to buy and what was covered in that list!  When he was talking about the stair lights, he said the ones he intended to use were in pack of six, so lights must be included, but I know that I’ll need to pay for the shower, the extractors, the towel rail and, obviously, the cooker.  What I’m not sure about are the cover plates for the light switches and sockets, so I’ll have to email him and check.

Since he says he’ll want to start upstairs and can begin in about three weeks’ time, we attacked the upstairs again this morning and made good progress in stripping out some of the last bits of panelling – now David the Joiner has confirmed that all the internal wood that isn’t a sarking board or rafter is non-structural and can be removed, we’re being a bit more adventurous with the pry bars!  Only one worrying moment, which was when I was breaking out some of the panelling below the window in bedroom one, put my bar against an enormous rock in the wall to brace it and the rock moved….!!  It’s completely loose, so it’s been pushed back into place and we’ll get Pete to have a look when he’s next here.  A little bit of wet stone under the window in bedroom two as well, but we’ve had an easterly with rain in it all weekend, and I think it’s just been forced in around the window.

I also got to grips with a power tool for the first time – I used Mick’s drill with a Phillips screwdriver head attached to remove the handrail up the stairs.  It took a couple of goes to get the idea that I had to keep it pushed into the screw even though I was using it to take the screws out, as that seemed a bit counter-intuitive, but 24 screws later I was quite comfortable with it.