We Bought a House!

So what's next?

There is so much to do I don’t even know where we are going to start! Huw has the beginnings of a plan to clear the land and fell some sick trees which have ash die back. Then we can assess what we do next.

Do we continue to renovate and build whilst living remotely and staying nearby in the evenings? Do we create some temporary accommodation on site so we don’t have to travel back and forth for a comfortable bed a nd shower every night? Does Huw build the compost toilet he’s desperate for?

And what do we tackle first? Do we start on the old cottage before it degrades any further? It doesn’t need planning permission but it will be slow and difficult and need specialist skills to repair the extensive damage. Or do we build the new extension first so that we have some good clean, dry space we could live in and then tackle the cottage? But we want to amend the planning permission to suit are tastes better, and that will take time but be much quicker once planning is approved.

Before we can do anything requiring provision of services we need the address to be officially registered so that utility companies can bill us (naturally!) So, first things first - I asked Royal Mail to search for our lost address. If it’s not there then we will have to apply through the local council, which carries a relatively small fee.

Before we can connect the electricity and water we need to do some work on our side to provide some infrastructure to connect the services up to - a stand pipe and stop tap for the water and some kind of fuse board for the electricity - as you can tell I’m not very technical - so I’m leaving that to Huw.

We will also need drainage. There is planning permission for a private water treatment plant, but we will also investigate a septic tank, which doesn’t need electricity to run it.

In the meantime we need to cover the cottage roof properly to protect it from further damage and remove the two trees that are leaning on, or perilously close to, the building.

And we shall be doing all this with every spare minute we can make it over there, which will mostly be weekends only… so it may take some time!