Upstairs I have been working my way round the exterior walls, fixing battens, lining the walls with insulation and then a layer of plasterboard.

Sue has been tidying up the front garden. A good place to catch the late afternoon sun and the opportunity to chat to neighbours. It gives a sign to those passing that things are going to change to this house that has stood unloved for so long. Meanwhile, in the back I have been digging a test hole to see how deep the foundations for the extension should go - Building Control are coming tomorrow to look at it.

Inside upstairs: finished putting plasterboard on the ceiling, a new loft hatch/ladder fitted and have started battening the walls and fitting insulation ready for more plasterboard.

Outside: Chas and crew almost finished clearing the back

The good news is we had our letter today saying we have been granted our Planning Permission!!!!

Chas and Dave are working at our house! No honestly - that's what they are called - I've seen Chas's business card and Dave has his name tattooed on the back of his neck! They have come to do a site clearance - dig up some concrete, take down the lean-to summerhouse and the brick shed, level the site and take out the laurel  hedge that will be in front of the house extension, (bit of a gamble as we are still waiting for the planning permission - it's in the post!)

Downstairs
Once I had borrowed some accrow props to support the floor above from our friend Ian I was able to continue taking out the wall and chimney breast that divided the living room and the kitchen. The kitchen will move to the extension so the room at the front will be our office/study and does not have to be so big. We are going to build a new wall which will make the lounge bigger and the office smaller

Upstairs
One of the first things to go was the stud wall that partitioned the back bedroom into two. Then realising that the rest of the internal walls were fixed on top of the floorboards, and seeing that we want to replace the floorboards with oak flooring, gradually all the interior stud walls had to come out too. Alongside this I took out the chimney stack, starting on the roof and taking it away as dropped through the 1st floor. So eventually upstairs there is now just the shell of the house.

The house actually looks bigger on the outside than it is on the inside - it's a small 3 bed detached house set back slightly from the road. It looks like it is on a diagonal because the road curves away in front of it. It's set in a small triangular plot. The garden faces South so although we intend building an extension that will take up much of the garden we will still have a sunny area to sit in through the morning and into early afternoon

So why have we bought this? Well apart from the fact that we love living on the High Street it gives us an opportunity to create something very modern. Basically to take it back to a shell, give it high levels of insulation, build an extension and move the kitchen into it, with big sliding folding doors giving a view of the garden, etc etc. The snag is the house is in a conservation area and although there is nothing about the house one would want to conserve the planners don't want the house to stand out so we keep having to make changes. We find out  early in June if we have been granted planning permission.

Below are some visualisations that give a flavour of what we are trying to create:

All the houses Sue and I have lived in since we left homes have been built in the 19th century but it's time for a change so look what we bought! It's just 100 yards down the road from our apartment so eventually we will be moving from 'Georgian' to 'Mid-Century Modern'

Although we have owned it since March, we rented it back to the owner for 2 months to give him a chance to clear all his stuff (he is a chemistry lecturer and the house was stuffed full of mountains of books, papers, and...well all sorts of stuff! In fact he didn't quite succeed in clearing it all by the deadline so I got involved too - multiple loads to the tip, charity shops etc.

A few photographs below of the house as we got it on 1st May:

It's changed since then as you will see from the next post