the fact that you will be living on a building site for as long as it takes.” Once the farmhouse was completed Sally and John took their time to work out what they wanted to achieve with the rest of the site – particularly an 18th century pig shed which had loads of natural character. Before they could do anything, however, they had to get planning permission to change the use of the building from agricultural to domestic. “There were a lot of restrictions all based around the fact that we had to keep the character of the original building intact,” says Sally. “We also wanted to do most of the work ourselves. We had a fairly tight budget and we knew we
could save a small fortune by minimising the amount of trades people we used.”
They began by knocking out the ceiling to open up the pitched roof, using a mini digger and wheelbarrows to get rid of 120 tons of earth and rubble. The stone walls were all sandblasted by a contractor using specialist machinery to get them clean, both inside and out, and then Sally spent weeks climbing up and down ladders, wire brushing the walls and oiling them to prevent any dust from shedding into the rooms. By the time everything was cleared inside they were left with three stone walls defining the internal space, which they wanted to turn into a three bedroom home. The long
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