Living Next Door To .......Annexe

I hear you again, singing the tune in your head..

So alot has happened from boxing day 2019 to March 2020.

Agent Photo, but not the reality

Agent photo But Not the reality

We had a big life move, We have a new house I have a new job, We found a mushroom farm in our bathroom, and we almost have a newly renovated free from fungus and leaks bathroom, We have found our architect Isabel, who had been to the house and did reports and took measurement and so far happy to work with us and guide us, through our unique property, which affectionately became known as the puzzle house. This was our first step into this process, very exciting times.

The next big thing was Covid, 16th March 2020 we went into lockdown, I may be a day or two out but I remember it was approaching St Patricks day and I was looking forward to seeing my first parade.

It was scary, no one knew what was happening or how to be, really. We got made redundant and could do nothing more than to sit tight and to see what would happen.

We all started socialising and conducting team meetings and house meetings over the internet.

In the mean time we were making the most of being at home. We walked Bodhi to the beach every day, we joined the Jo wicks club even Bodhi joined in with the joe wicks planking sessions.

Planking with Bodhi

We wrote ideas for the house and we had closer inspection of all of the rooms, and clearing out the rubbish that was left, there was already a big pile of rubble just outside the annexe left for us to deal with. We went through the house we took everything out that we hadnt brought with us and added it to this pile and would order a skip when we were done.

We then took a closer look at the annexe.

The annexe had previously had someone living in it, we don`t know how long ago that was before we moved in, but it was set up as a little flat. When we had our survey done it did came back as this was a single skin flat roof construction, so basically a bit like a caravan and could potentially be useable as sleeping space in the warmer months.

However, (there will be alot of howevers in our story) We have a similar story to the bathroom, which was disappointing, not surprising, and really annoying. There was a leak in the roof just in the corner of the bedroom, Mushrooms love damp leaky places and decided to live there rent free.

We knew what to do this time so the suits and the masks came out and we started to clear and strip out the annexe.

Demolish

This was a bigger job than the bathroom as the plasterboard for the ceiling and the walls had rotted so to give it a clean slate we took everything down, the ceilings the walls, took the flooring up. we took the bath out we no longer had trust in the house in terms of that some things were solid enough to leave so we felt it was better to remove. We had also decided that as it was a single skin this would become Robs workshop, man cave, Shed , whatever we want to call it but it will be his space and he has big plans for it.

The knocking down of walls was satisfying and stress busting, but also hugely back breaking, both our arms were dead weights from wielding a heavy cro bar or mallet style hammer, ( i have no idea what these tools are called.

thoughts among chaos

We created so much rubble, to add to the growing pile outside ready for the skip.

The space is now clear and waiting for the build to finish to make a creative space.

Because of the leak and the damp we decided to check the electrics, which of course you hope are in some reasonable order.. this is how the story is panning out, no the electrics were not in reasonable or good order infact so unsafe, there was no

Shocking

protection or safety measures taken in the wiring, See picture on the left.( I will do a future post about the wiring ) this prompted Rob to disconnected the electricty in the cottage, to keep us as safe as possible. I am forever grateful that Rob is really knowledgeable and able to do work like this. I am Impressed ..... but don`t tell him.

We really are living next door to annexe.

' Work Hard .. Dream Big'