I’m a town girl. Like a bit of bird spotting but never really seen bats before apart from a couple of times when staying in the far north of Scotland but we have them here at Gwalia. On warm evenings just as dusk falls you are sure to see them. They are really quite mesmerising. … continue reading »
The living room and kitchen are one big open plan room since about March 2013 when builders came to knock through the old stone wall. The room was known as the play room to the Chandlers and was previously a really dark little room . Now that it’s all opened up however the light from… continue reading »
It’s not just all the building work we’re doing ourselves. The redesign has also involved a great deal of plumbing and re-wiring to fit in with the new layout but also to bring this part of the house up to current building standards. Harry is fortunately a bit of a dab hand at plumbing and… continue reading »
Alas we did not meet our deadline for finishing the kitchen by Christmas, although it had actually arrived and the Ikea flat packs were all piled up like Christmas presents waiting to be un-wrapped. After a couple of weeks off over Christmas we were back to it in the New Year and raring to… continue reading »
Among life’s many pleasures is the joy of music. We’ve always got the radio on or our tunes playing while we’re toiling away at Gwalia. Amy found amplifiers online and rigged up a 12V system to run speakers both in the bathroom and kitchen. The kitchen speakers are fairly standard but the bathroom ones are… continue reading »
It’s taken all summer to strip down, rebuild and make the extension watertight but come the end of October we were insulated and ready for some slightly less heavy work. The plaster boarding happened fairly quickly but it was not without its challenges. We were boarding onto the stonewall of the original house which was… continue reading »
Our new kitchen / diner will sit on top of what used to be the pantry, bathroom and a separate little loo for campers so we now need to incorporate a new and much smaller bathroom within the re-modelled space. This has proved a bit of a challenge because we want to maximise the… continue reading »
Along with house renovations and developing a new business, it’s hard to forget that we live on a working small-holding. There are some inevitable parts of farming which one doesn’t tend to think about whilst perusing the meat isles in Tesco’s. You purchase your nicely packaged bits of meat and the hardest part is coming… continue reading »
Natural light is the main feature of the new rooms we’re creating and so we really want to maximise the light spaces. We ordered some custom French doors which will open out onto the stream next to the greenhouse garden. These align with the 2 roof lights so as to flood the previously dark living… continue reading »
It’s a bit like getting your sea legs when you climb on to the roof every morning. Ok so it’s not quite 3 metres high but that can be a bit alarming when you’re used to having your feet firmly on the ground. With most of the rafters on, me back to full capacity and… continue reading »