Our new project House (and rock cave houses)

[CTO]

Evening all,

Some updates from todays endeavours, finally back at the house and making some meaningful progress again…

We made a bonfire to start disposing of some of the waste foliage and tree(s) that have come down.

Full disclosure: I tried lighting this three times in the last couple of weeks to no avail. My neighbour (Paul the Farmer) came round last week and laughed politely and then sent me a WhatsApp to say he had left me a gallon of red diesel….

So today we appeased the fire gods…
In the beginning;


And then fully underway;


The Landy absolutely earned its purchase today and ran like a dream. I have figured out all the knobs and levers and it served a variety of purposes during the day.

Picnic table;


Carrying stuff to the bottom rock houses for storage;


Use as a stepladder for another Paul to use while pulling off dead ivy;


Keeping one eye on our Ivy and using our recovery rope to try and pull it down… predictably the ivy snapped

Video clip of fail;[img]

/Thumbsnap doesn’t seem to support sound when uploading a video so apologies for the silence..

And a bit of general off roading round the garden…
Gripped/Sorted…
[url]

Then we decided to move onto the unidentified tree and cut that down. Paul number two undertook some rigorous checking of the height to check it wouldn’t wipe out the power to our lane on its way when falling. His verdict was “yeaaaahh, looks fine mate”



(That is his measuring face). Also, behold the smoke from fire giving everyone else in the valley a misty day

Then it was on to chopping bits off the tree.

Bit off the back;


And a bit off the side;


Paul (another Paul, this one is number 3) assisted valiantly as a direction enabler/human skittle;



And she is gone;


I was going to video the actual felling but would have felt a bit of a tool if it had gone wrong and someone got hurt whilst I haven’t helped and just stood there capturing their final moments..

Put the landy to more use as a tree cuttings receptacle;


And then we moved onto the main rock houses and clearing the previous owners items…
Finally looking emptier;


And


Had a look at the electrics to see if we could get power on, decided to wait for Craig the Sparky…

And

Found some statues in a wall

And tried to picture the view out from the occupants in the early part of the last century;

Think they may need a bit of a clean…

By this time it was nearly 5pm and Uber eats was calling my name. Paul (2) had left to watch the Bond Film and Paul (3) was looking every bit as done in as me..

Took some torch light pics of the caves;

And

And some final ones of the trusty beast… Goodcar #DC2

Peeking through the bushes;

And looking every bit at home in the garden;

And that’s the summary of todays efforts.
Finally home and smashed some food.

Our Architect is coming tomorrow avo to review and amend the house plans… They aren’t yet where we want them to be so I haven’t posted as kind of pointless until we are happy otherwise likely people will point out the same bits we have that need changing

Cheers all,

Edited by CTO on Saturday 23 October 22:58

[McGee_22]

Great thread - loving the caves and the Landy.

[CTO]

McGee_22 said:

Great thread - loving the caves and the Landy.

Thanks

[Mikebentley]

What a thread. Great work OP. Hire it are a good bunch. Say hello to the manager Gavin next time you are in…..he’s my little brother.

[CTO]

Mikebentley said:

What a thread. Great work OP. Hire it are a good bunch. Say hello to the manager Gavin next time you are in…..he’s my little brother.

Thanks Mike, they definitely are. Easily the most helpful bunch I have dealt with.

Say hi to Gavin from me. He likely won’t have a clue but if you mention the clueless bloke with the Rock Houses he might have a decent guess

[OzzyR1]

What a great thread and interesting property, will follow this one with interest.

Good luck OP and must add another thumbs up for the Defender, would love an old series but just can't justify it even with extreme man maths

[woodypup59]

Fantastic thread and great work.

Suggest you join some Landy forums and check which suppliers are decent. Some "specialists" at quite good taking your money but not delivering for months - if at all.

[CTO]

I’ve joined Landyzone (I think it’s that one) which has been very helpful.

Also, you can download the maintenance and servicing booklet online which sets out how to do all the jobs from removing the engine to setting the timing, which is nice.

The service on Friday didn’t happen due to the garage having trucks stuck on their ramps.. it’s booked in again this Friday though for a check up

[Austin_Metro]

At one point I thought the Land Rover was going to be an indulgence… but now I can see it’s absolutely essential. Looking forward to more. Great thread OP.

How’s the eye?

[Meeten-5dulx]

Awesome thread.
I’m following as I don’t have the skills or kahunas to take on such a monumental task.

[CTO]

Austin_Metro said:

At one point I thought the Land Rover was going to be an indulgence… but now I can see it’s absolutely essential. Looking forward to more. Great thread OP.

How’s the eye?

It was a bit of an indulgence tbh, but I’ve always wanted one and the OH learn to drive in pretty much exactly the same car so it just timed well with the house and the application of some man maths

It really is a great little thing though and we will be it’s long term owners far after the house is done. It’s just the perfect fun car for the area we live…

The eye is fully healed and thanks to you and others for asking. I did get a bit worried when things were still blurry on day five but a full recovery just took a bit longer.

Genuinely makes me shiver tho when I think it could have quite easily been a permanent loss… it really only takes a moment of laxness, a good lesson learnt early enough hopefully for me.

Cheers,

[TimmyMallett]

I think your landy might be burning a bit of oil there

[rustyuk]

I see one of 3 outcomes to this thread;

There is a serous accident
The house is burnt down
OP gets a big fine for breaking anyone of various listed building or planning laws.

Please carry on

PS I love that Landrover!

[normalbloke]

OzzyR1 said:

What a great thread and interesting property, will follow this one with interest.

Good luck OP and must add another thumbs up for the Defender, would love an old series but just can't justify it even with extreme man maths

It’s not a Defender, thankfully, it’s far better than that.

[CTO]

TimmyMallett said:

I think your landy might be burning a bit of oil there

No more than usual

[CTO]

rustyuk said:

I see one of 3 outcomes to this thread;

There is a serous accident
The house is burnt down
OP gets a big fine for breaking anyone of various listed building or planning laws.

Please carry on

PS I love that Landrover!

All three of those are likely, possibly simultaneously….

[NDA]

hidetheelephants said:

CTO said:

They look fairly small in those pics but with added fat bloke for scale;

The rock face can't overly stable; that must be the best part of half a tonne of rock that's relatively newly fallen off. If you're going to use it for whatever purpose securing the rock face immediately above seems like a good idea, rock bolts perhaps.

I was thinking the same - it doesn't look, er, rock solid.

Great thread. A real adventure.

[CTO]

Evening all,

Not been much by the way of updates as we are at the stage of finalising plans and putting the application in.

We have changed the house name though which was surprisingly straight forward (at least the local council part was), now we need to update land registry and mortgage company etc…

Plans have come back from the architect and I have included them below. Feedback is welcome of course

So, here goes:

Existing structure and floor plans first
Frontage and left external aspect

Rear and right external aspect

Existing internal floor plan


And as proposed;
Front and left external aspect

Rear and right external aspect


And proposed floor plan;


Occupancy levels would I guess be helpful for reference. It will be me and the OH and our dog, Pixie.

Some elements of the plan are bound to change as we go and there will inevitably be amendments. The above should give us what we need to begin the building application process though.

Aaaaaaaand in other news, the landy went for its check over and full service on Friday

Verdict is that it needs new tyres, prop shafts have excess play and there is misting on rear shocks. A couple of minor holes here and there but she is structurally sound and won’t fold in the middle next time it rains…

Bearing in mind that our inspection at purchase included a pretend knowledgable look at the bits we though we were supposed to look at and a Clampits style spin up the road at 40mph I think we did well/were extremely lucky

To celebrate and give her a treat, the refurbished wheel is now back in the rear tub and a family member very kindly fabbed us up a bracket to hold the wheel in place. There is an existing bracket but with excess lateral movement which I wasn’t happy with….
Pics are below
A wheel;

A bracket;


A wheel secured in a landrover, with a bracket;




I also trimmed the excess bolt length before it inevitably took a chunk out of my shin.

Feeling warm inside for the truck, I also fitted a new quarter window in the cab, bought new wiper blades, new H and L knobs, new rear mud flaps and a speedo cable…

Not sure whether it will be house or car that is going to be the bigger financial undertaking

Cheers all,

[Fast Bug]

Thats going to be a hell of a build! We're about half way through our house project, no extension, just a nigh on full refurb and I'm knackered

I wish you the best of luck, and look forward to updates

[outnumbered]

Looks like a nice upgrade.

If you're interested in comments, I think there's something about the mixture of windows and materials on the rear elevation that looks odd, it's not very cohesive.