Measuring up

Well, the building work is moving on at a rapid pace. We're now surrounded by a mini grey breeze block city in the space that was occupied by our old kitchen, boiler room and garage. We're beginning to get an idea of the space we'll have which will really increase our living area. Without the walls I thought it seemed small but oddly enough the space looks bigger with the walls up. My sister-in-law's boyfriend who works in the building industry says people always think this and worry that their extension isn't big enough - so it's not just me.


By the way, that brick arch you can see above our window is the outline of the original stone mullion windows that got taken out when the school was converted to a house in the 1970s. A lady in our village kindly dropped us off an old slide of the house as it was when it was a school. The windows were lovely but they would have been very high so we wouldn't have had the super views we have now out of every window in the house.


As we are project managing this renovation ourselves we seem to be obsessing about every detail. So at the end of the day when the builders have headed home we do a tour of the building site to check out what has been done that day. Although it is chaotic living in the house with all this work going on around us, especially with a two-year-old and a five-year-old, it does have its advantages. You can work closely with the builders and make quick decisions which always happens.

I have pored over the flat plan many times, but I can't always visualise the three-dimensional aspect of the plan until I see it in real life and that might look very different to what you imagined.


The windows have been designed to give you the feeling of the outside coming into the room so it feels very spacious and airy.

Meanwhile, on the outside of the breeze block there is a layer of cavity wall insulation and then the external stonework which looks a perfect match to the original sandstone and limestone of our house. The lime mortar is still quite wet and will lighten to match the original part of the house.





I think I am going to get one of those Bob the Builder belts to put a tape measure in. Measuring has become our obsession and I'm finding myself doing it several times a day at the moment. And it's all in millimetres so we're always talking in hundreds and thousands. At least my maths will be good at the end of this!

Insulation and keeping cosy

Hello again. I just realised that I forgot to post one important picture when I was showing you the photos of the house as it was when we moved in - the one of the kitchen, the room that is going to be transformed in this renovation project. Anyway, here it is in all its glorious melamine and teak-effect 70s glory!

We did actually rip these kitchen units out three years ago as all that brown was so gloomy and it was grimy too. We found a great company called Pineland, who charge very reasonable prices for solid wood dovetail jointed units. You send them a rough plan of your current kitchen with measurements and they then plan it for you so you actually get a made to measure kitchen for a fraction of the price. They deliver the units all made up. Fortunately, David, my husband, is quite handy and along with his dad installed the kitchen. Just as well as I was eight months pregnant at the time so not much help. We'll re-use the units from Pineland in the new kitchen as they are all free-standing.

So, onto insulation. Here is a picture of what lies under our new floor.

It may not look much and it may not be be beautiful but boy are we going to be warm this winter. I am a northerner by birth but lived for many years in London in a Victorian conversion so benefited from other people's heating systems. However, up here come winter and living in a detached stone house no matter how thick those stone walls are I have shivered. No double glazing, no roof insulation, none of this cavity wall insulation that seems to be the thing nowadays. Anyway, this thick layer of insulation has gone down under the concrete sub-floor and we will have cavity wall insulation, roof insulation, double glazed windows and dare I say it, an aga too.

I realise this may seem like a luxury but I really believe I will use it for many different uses. It should provide the kitchen space with an ambient heat as this is the room we will spend a lot of time in. So, hopefully, we won't need to buy as much smokeless fuel or wood for our stove which has kept us warm for the last couple of winters....... plus, I'll use it to dry my clothes (I have two little boys, who through love of water and muck and not fashion-sense go through several changes of clothes a day), I enjoy baking and David likes baking bread and is a good chef, we also love our cups of tea here so no need for an electric kettle, as yet we don't have new-born lambs to warm up in the aga's bottom oven but give us time......

Whilst we are on the subject of heating, do you remember that spectacular wall of stone that was the fireplace here? Well, here's a picture I have taken of what we replaced it with.

A multi-fuel stove from Vermont Castings. We used to burn smokeless fuel but have since gone over to logs as it's cheaper at the moment. I have to say burning wood is a lot cleaner too and you can use the ash on the garden which you can't do with the ash from the coke. I got the fireplace surround from Old Flames in Easingwold and it really seems to suit the space as this is quite a large room. Also as this was never a house it would have been odd to replace it with the usual Victorian cast iron fireplace. This was the room where the headmaster had his office whilst the children were crammed into the room next door which is now a dining room, hall and snug. That doesn't seem like a very even distribution of space, does it? As for us, we use this room a lot. It has windows on all the sides bar this one with the fireplace, including a big bay window and French windows, which don't half give you a great view out. So, even in winter you don't get that cabin-fever feeling as it brings in whatever light is available even on the gloomiest day. My only issue with the windows is the style of them - another 1970s touch. But I guess this is another project.

Ok, I think that's all for today. Friday night so glass of chilled white wine calling. See you later.