Another month gone!
Another month gone!
Our nearest neighbour has recommended we speak with Donald Campbell, a local builder who he appears to know well but one who I hadn’t found in my local searches. After a few more emails and text messages pass between us I manage to arrange a meeting with Donald to discuss our plans, to ask for suggestions and hopefully find an affordable way forward.
As it turns out, they’ve done us a massive favour, as it becomes clear very early on that we’re on the same wavelength. Donald has been restoring or repairing buildings like ours all over the local area for most of his professional life and is really keen to reclaim and re-use whatever materials we can. He also has an extensive network of reclamation yards, farmers and private collectors throughout the area should we need to source like-for-like replacements. He’s not convinced our plans make the best use of the space we have or make the most of the original features (..some of which he then points out to me) and helpfully explains their original use.
Slightly more worryingly, he thinks the roof is past repair and the timber structure needs to be replaced, which sounds very expensive, even stood with my feet firmly on the ground!
The discussion is really helpful though and after we’re both satisfied we’ve covered everything, he agrees to provide us with a quote and a rough idea of a timeframe. As I’ve explained I want to be involved in as much of the build as possible, he agrees to try and accommodate this in his quote and heads off.
It’s an exciting meeting and as I look over the building again, markings on the old oak beams suddenly start to make more sense. Given its location and humble origins the roof structure is likely made up of salvaged oak beams broken up from trading ships in Lancaster. I make a mental note to try and photograph these once I’m up in the eaves and try to retain as much of the character of the building as possible.
Besides this, things haven’t really moved on with the savings this month so I’ve been trying my best to get my head back into the Uni stuff with my latest assignment covering ‘Advanced’ Web Development. Got to say, the guidance from the lecturer has been pretty vague really so I’ve spent more time trying to figure out how far to take this one and not a lot on the hall this month. This is probably going to come back to bite me in the bum when we really want to get stuck into the build but like most things, only time will tell.
