It’s coming along nicely!

For those of you interested in how the ‘cottage re-configurations’ are going I thought I would take a few minutes to share some photos.

If you are new to this blog here’s a quick précis of how we came to be reconfiguring (and renovating) our home:

Built around 1850 as a simple cottage with a well, a forge and a pigsty, this lovely home was inhabited by Needlemakers.
At some point the two brothers who resided here with their families fell out and split the cottage in half – in a rather odd way – so some of the building has been added on at some point.

Sadly the cellar was filled in sometime around 1960…more scarily the well was boarded and slabbed over! I say scarily because when we decided to add a conservatory (around 2008) the builder (our son) realised the ground was falling away. Using the JCB very carefully he discovered the well. Imagine if the wood had rotted and the slabs had been unsteady? Anyone could have fallen in the well and drowned; it’s about 30 feet deep.

Anyway to cut a long story short, over the last few month’s a bedroom has become the bathroom and the bathroom has become a bedroom…and guess what? Whilst doing this my son realised one of the walls felt ‘odd’; taking the plaster off the wall we discovered a small secret room off the old bedroom. Before you ask, no, it wasn’t evident from the footprint of the cottage because it is where our cottage and the other ‘half’ meet!!! We are keeping the door in the hope that we can somehow make a feature of it.

So, here we are, a year after moving in (we moved out of the cottage in 2008 – long story) and the work is well underway. The kitchen and dining room have become one, my old office is becoming a utility room, bathroom is now a bedroom, a bedroom now a bathroom (fab tiles are from Omega in Redditch), Tom’s office has moved and is a work/spare bedroom tranquil space (love the bed-settee from Made), the straight staircase turns at the top onto a nice open landing which was originally a narrow and dark corridor.

There is still a fair bit to do and I can’t even think which art and furniture to put where exactly – I am also decluttering as I go!
I look forward to sharing the end results with you.
Hugs
Leigh