Our new project House (and rock cave houses)
Discussion
. Just one sting seems incredibly lucky. I also set fire to a wasp nest in my youth and it didn't end well for me or my mates, nor one of our neighbours who was walking his dog in the vicinity.
Thanks all,
Current weather has put a hold on playing in the garden for a bit. I was half tempted to have a 1.5t mini excavator delivered tomorrow under the guise of “clearing some brambles”. Mainly I just fancied rampaging round the garden digging stuff up but figured I would probably just churn the ground up and shelved the idea.
Killing the wasps with fire went ok ish. The left hand side of the bush went up but the wasps seemed largely unscathed in their hovel on the right hand side. I have pledged to the o/h that I will go back tomorrow and finish the job properly though. I view it as a small win for every person who is scared of wasps (me) and who has tried to enjoy a quiet and relaxing pub in a
summer beer garden and been blighted by the vicious little yellow tw@ts.
I am expecting plans back for the extension soon from the architect and will post them. I’ve seen some really constructive feedback on other threads when people have done similar. Feel free to also point out obvious oversights/cock ups/stupidities as required
Re the alterations to the caves, we aren’t planning to alter the fabric of them (and likely wouldn’t be allowed to anyhow).
The main ones will be made habitable again for a place to sit and chill out, the small one at the top of the cliff will only have additions to the ground/frontage.
I am fortunate to be on reasonable terms (at present) with the local conservation officer. I engaged with them when having the exterior of our current house refreshed which is also a grade II listed building. Hopefully that relationship building will be a bonus in future.
Power is now being restored to the property and I am meeting a plumber at 9 in the morning to fix a few of the previous owners bodges and then switch the water on and run it all through.
I also plan to discover/uncover our LPG tank which is buried to the left of the house and two/three? more caves. If I get the opportunity I will try to cut a path to the top cave and get some pics. It is featured in the bloody YouTubers videos but I haven’t yet had sight of it..
Cheers all.
Current weather has put a hold on playing in the garden for a bit. I was half tempted to have a 1.5t mini excavator delivered tomorrow under the guise of “clearing some brambles”. Mainly I just fancied rampaging round the garden digging stuff up but figured I would probably just churn the ground up and shelved the idea.
Killing the wasps with fire went ok ish. The left hand side of the bush went up but the wasps seemed largely unscathed in their hovel on the right hand side. I have pledged to the o/h that I will go back tomorrow and finish the job properly though. I view it as a small win for every person who is scared of wasps (me) and who has tried to enjoy a quiet and relaxing pub in a
summer beer garden and been blighted by the vicious little yellow tw@ts.
I am expecting plans back for the extension soon from the architect and will post them. I’ve seen some really constructive feedback on other threads when people have done similar. Feel free to also point out obvious oversights/cock ups/stupidities as required
Re the alterations to the caves, we aren’t planning to alter the fabric of them (and likely wouldn’t be allowed to anyhow).
The main ones will be made habitable again for a place to sit and chill out, the small one at the top of the cliff will only have additions to the ground/frontage.
I am fortunate to be on reasonable terms (at present) with the local conservation officer. I engaged with them when having the exterior of our current house refreshed which is also a grade II listed building. Hopefully that relationship building will be a bonus in future.
Power is now being restored to the property and I am meeting a plumber at 9 in the morning to fix a few of the previous owners bodges and then switch the water on and run it all through.
I also plan to discover/uncover our LPG tank which is buried to the left of the house and two/three? more caves. If I get the opportunity I will try to cut a path to the top cave and get some pics. It is featured in the bloody YouTubers videos but I haven’t yet had sight of it..
Cheers all.
CTO said:
Looking pleased with myself for retaining all extremities after chopping down a tree
Safety first
Made friends with the woman who runs the butty van on the road from our current house to the project house….
Priorities:
View from top of garden rock house down towards the back corner of the house:
Cheers all,
You look the spitting image in that pic of Ratarossa (you tuber Ferrari) Safety first
Made friends with the woman who runs the butty van on the road from our current house to the project house….
Priorities:
View from top of garden rock house down towards the back corner of the house:
Cheers all,
A bit of further house based detail/trivia…
In some of the pics you will notice that the windows all have bars on them.
The reason for that is that the original owner had the house as his place in the country when not in London, he also had a number of record discs for recognition of sales at the house from his work with one of the locals to this area
The house was broken into and the discs stolen, and then broken into again once they were replaced. At that point the owner had the window bars installed and they have remained in place ever since.
Added poptastic trivia is that the previous owner was also one of the two people (the other being John Paul Jones) who found John (Bonzo) Bonham when he sadly passed away in 1980……
Edited to add linky: https://www.soundhistoria.com/benji-lefevre/
In some of the pics you will notice that the windows all have bars on them.
The reason for that is that the original owner had the house as his place in the country when not in London, he also had a number of record discs for recognition of sales at the house from his work with one of the locals to this area
The house was broken into and the discs stolen, and then broken into again once they were replaced. At that point the owner had the window bars installed and they have remained in place ever since.
Added poptastic trivia is that the previous owner was also one of the two people (the other being John Paul Jones) who found John (Bonzo) Bonham when he sadly passed away in 1980……
Edited to add linky: https://www.soundhistoria.com/benji-lefevre/
Edited by CTO on Wednesday 29th September 22:44
CTO said:
Killing the wasps with fire went ok ish. The left hand side of the bush went up but the wasps seemed largely unscathed in their hovel on the right hand side. I have pledged to the o/h that I will go back tomorrow and finish the job properly though. I view it as a small win for every person who is scared of wasps (me) and who has tried to enjoy a quiet and relaxing pub in a
summer beer garden and been blighted by the vicious little yellow tw@ts.
Please ensure you have someone film this and upload the footage summer beer garden and been blighted by the vicious little yellow tw@ts.
.No videos of wasp burning, sadly. I had a bit to do at the house today and figured antagonising them was a bad bad thing…
So, update, for those of you hard of sleeping and still following
Today:
Early morning sunny pic of garden
Today I thought it was probably a good idea to try and find the LPG tank, see what state it’s in and clear the area around it…
LPG tank is in here, somewhere:
Found a “pond” and nearly fell in, with brushcutter attached:
Found LPG tank:
Cleared some stuff and unearthed the two smaller caves. These will eventually be part of a side drive for storing lawn mower and garden stuff…
Had a plumber round to undo the previous owners bodges…. and we now have running water
Unearthed this in the garden, made me laugh
Tested the power and found these beauties:
Did a bit more bush topiary and tidied the end of the garden where the greenhouse was.
From this;
To this;
The rest of the day was getting inside the rock houses finally and cutting a path to the cliff based rock house…
TBC: gonna go and and have some dinner…..
PS: let me know if the level of detail is too much/tedious. Happy to keep it more succinct if preferable….
Cheers
So, update, for those of you hard of sleeping and still following
Today:
Early morning sunny pic of garden
Today I thought it was probably a good idea to try and find the LPG tank, see what state it’s in and clear the area around it…
LPG tank is in here, somewhere:
Found a “pond” and nearly fell in, with brushcutter attached:
Found LPG tank:
Cleared some stuff and unearthed the two smaller caves. These will eventually be part of a side drive for storing lawn mower and garden stuff…
Had a plumber round to undo the previous owners bodges…. and we now have running water
Unearthed this in the garden, made me laugh
Tested the power and found these beauties:
Did a bit more bush topiary and tidied the end of the garden where the greenhouse was.
From this;
To this;
The rest of the day was getting inside the rock houses finally and cutting a path to the cliff based rock house…
TBC: gonna go and and have some dinner…..
PS: let me know if the level of detail is too much/tedious. Happy to keep it more succinct if preferable….
Cheers
Thanks all,
Let’s keep going then:
I finally managed to get inside the two main rock houses that are in the garden;
Still full of the previous elderly owners belongings…. In the process of being emptied by them and due to complete doing so tomorrow. These pics should give you an idea of the scale inside though…
Then I did a bit more farting about and clearing the bottom part of the garden;
Then decided to focus on the rock cliff cave, clearing the sandstone steps at the base of the slope and the brush leading to the cave itself:
Sandstone steps;
Side profile;
Standing at the top of the steps with the beginning of a path I am cutting:
More path cutting:
And a bit more;
View from the halfway point:
Starting to see the cave emerge from the undergrowth:
Finally….
They look fairly small in those pics but with added fat bloke for scale;
View from the front outwards. Bit obscured currently by trees which won’t be there much longer because chainsaw
Pics of view around trees
Internal sections of the cave and ? bedroom for a small person
Think this was where the cooking/fire was, chimney is cut out above
Found some ancient artefacts/junk left from the previous owners….. why on earth you would cart this all the way up here is beyond me……….
Having said that, maybe he was a PHer…
Found a whole box of these (weird) things
And this seemed to make me thoughtful
And then, finally, found these in the house today. Planning to use them to do a bit of digging re the caves and the previous occupants…
Mad that someone once lived in the bottom caves and the one in the cliff ;
Anyhooo…. That’s it for todays rambling about the place. Pleased to have finally cut a path to the top cave, not looking forward to emptying it of all the stuff
Cheers all
Let’s keep going then:
I finally managed to get inside the two main rock houses that are in the garden;
Still full of the previous elderly owners belongings…. In the process of being emptied by them and due to complete doing so tomorrow. These pics should give you an idea of the scale inside though…
Then I did a bit more farting about and clearing the bottom part of the garden;
Then decided to focus on the rock cliff cave, clearing the sandstone steps at the base of the slope and the brush leading to the cave itself:
Sandstone steps;
Side profile;
Standing at the top of the steps with the beginning of a path I am cutting:
More path cutting:
And a bit more;
View from the halfway point:
Starting to see the cave emerge from the undergrowth:
Finally….
They look fairly small in those pics but with added fat bloke for scale;
View from the front outwards. Bit obscured currently by trees which won’t be there much longer because chainsaw
Pics of view around trees
Internal sections of the cave and ? bedroom for a small person
Think this was where the cooking/fire was, chimney is cut out above
Found some ancient artefacts/junk left from the previous owners….. why on earth you would cart this all the way up here is beyond me……….
Having said that, maybe he was a PHer…
Found a whole box of these (weird) things
And this seemed to make me thoughtful
And then, finally, found these in the house today. Planning to use them to do a bit of digging re the caves and the previous occupants…
Mad that someone once lived in the bottom caves and the one in the cliff ;
Anyhooo…. That’s it for todays rambling about the place. Pleased to have finally cut a path to the top cave, not looking forward to emptying it of all the stuff
Cheers all
Edited by CTO on Wednesday 29th September 21:36
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