Something that did not go uncommented upon by the B&Q staff as we went through the tills with three toilets...

Now let me tell you a a little bit more about what we pretentiously call "Phase 3" of The Old Bakery's renovations. I'll start at the beginning and break the last 3 months work down into manageable blogs over the next few weeks (well as small as I can make my blogs, which generally ramble up to essay status before I realise it).

                                                  THE PLAN..... (Phase 3)

The objective of this final stage of our renovations was to upgrade another bedroom to a B&B standard instantly doubling our capacity to take in guests. I say instantly but that would be misleading as the project over run a little bit. That is we shut the B&B down in October for 5 weeks and we have still not completed all the works as of today the 14th of December! However we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and we have been running the B&B operation again since early November having accommodated guests for some 21 nights since then.

Whilst the new room has had one couple stay in it there were still some outstanding issues that they were made aware of prior to booking the room. However it has still not been properly commissioned yet and we are expecting the first guest next Tuesday the 18th December and we have a carpenter building a built in wardrobe the day prior!

This plan shows the 1st floor portion of the main house and the bedroom that was to be worked upon is marked with an X. So the big plan was fairly straightforward we would remove the small study and push the landing door to the bedroom level with the stairs adding a small portion of wall there too. 

We would then remove the built in wardrobe in the corner of the room and by adding a wall and door make this a small en-suite shower room. Are you keeping up with me?  The small sink in the corner of the room would be removed making room for a new built in wardrobe.  Meanwhile we needed to raise the landing at the top of the stairs (more of this later) and then create a brand new room on the landing in the centre top of the plan by moving the wall left of that landing back into the bedroom top left of the main body of the house. This was to give us a decent bathroom of our own as the existing facilities were very poor.

The drainage for the en-suite would have to drop into the downstairs cloakroom necessitating the floor of the cloakroom to be dug up to allow the pipes to join the waste pipes that exited the building. Whilst the waste for the new bathroom would have to have the patio dug up to accommodate them.

So the end result was to look like this....  And yes that is a lot of toilets, something that did not go uncommented upon by the B&Q staff as we went through the tills with three toilets and sinks. "Got a problem 'ave you?" they quipped, "No", I thought ", But if I have I'll be well ahead of the game". However I declined to comment on the grounds that nothing I said would appease their curiosity. 

This plan was contrived by Alison and myself and then the project was managed by me which was fine during October when we had no guests but it became a lot harder as the guests started to arrive in November and December. The next few pictures show the rooms prior to the work commencing. 

Starting with the bedroom marked with the X you can see a wall behind the bed-head and a glimpse of a door on the landing. That is the Study and they are the walls that were to be taken down. The bedroom was then to be extended up to the wall at the back where the framed picture of a lighthouse can be seen hanging. Then that piece of landing was to be claimed as part of the new bedroom and a new door fitted at the far end. 

This next photo shows the view at the other end of the room where you can see the large built in wardrobe. The plan here was to tear out the cupboard doors and partitioning, build a small wall from the right side of the mirror into the room which would then turn to the right, have a door put into it and enable an en-suite shower, toilet and sink to be positioned within it.

The bed was to be placed where the radiator sits and it is that which represents a lot of the work that had to be accomplished to achieve our desired result. The plan required seven radiators to be removed, installed or re-positioned. Also many lights, power sockets and extractor fans to be re-configured. The plumber and electricians were indeed going to be crucial to the success of this renovation and most of the delays centred around the plumbers workload. Although because of other commitments our builder was unable to knock down the walls of the study which was mainly left for me to do.

The room had not been touched by us in the 2 years that we had lived here and was in a poor state of decoration as these window catches demonstrate. A few days back I tried to remove this window furniture and one of the top vent window's hinges snapped off. I've still to fix that.

 This photo shows the other side of that bedroom wall that had to be demolished. It is inside the Study which was where the past owner Vicar used to write his sermons and the shelves housed his books.

Here his folders sit in shelves above the door full of past sermons and some are records of the retreats that he held here for other Vicars and also 'healing' retreats too. These were recorded as being held here as recent as the mid nineties. But all of this had to be dismantled which was a shame as the joinery was true craftsmanship.

Here are a couple of examples of the beautiful joinery from his old desk. I have no need for these drawers now but I cannot bring myself to destroy such dedication to the art, so they just sit in my garage at the moment in limbo.   Well that is enough for today, tomorrow I will talk of the plans for the landing and the management and control of my poo pipes. I bet you just can't wait!!

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