Saturday 12th October 2019

I feel like I've reached a turning point in the 'new home' process in that rooms are beginning to take shape, and belongings are being stashed in specific places rather than just having countless boxes and bin bags everywhere. It's incredibly time consuming when you have to search through several suitcases or re-stack a dozen boxes just to complete a simple task like finding a pair of knickers to put on in the morning. Actually, after the kitchen stuff, clothing was the next to be unpacked, and I now have two double wardrobes, one single, a chest of drawers and a small unit full of creased and crumpled items. How did I fit it all into much less furniture before?

After the initial clearing out of obvious junk left from the previous owner, it felt for a while like I was in a bit of a dust filled chaotic limbo, but now there is more order than mess, and I have a usable kitchen and bedroom area. There's kind of a living room too, but it's pretty cold in there (apart from in the middle of a sunny day) and so I haven't used it much so far. I'm wondering if it's worth pushing on with getting new windows put in there, or just to duct tape plastic sheets over the old ones to block out the draughts and then think about it again in spring. Despite the amount still to do, it's quite amazing when you think about the difference in the rooms after just a month or so's work. Take the aforementioned living room, for example, which used to be a village shop. This is what it looked like when I bought it:

With the help of some amazing friends we pretty much emptied the place in the space of one day, and then Stan, the roofer (more about him later), smashed a massive hole in the dividing wall between the shop and the kitchen to create a doorway.

Another friend did tons of sweeping and mopping to get rid of the worst of the dust, ready for yet another bunch of friends who spent several hours carrying the last of my furniture and belongings in. What would I have done without such an army of helpers?

My task was to then go all around the edge of the room blocking up the numerous rat holes (I had vague visions of sitting on the settee in there, mid-winter, and little heads popping up to enquire after the delicious aroma).

So this is it now:

Like I said, there are quite significant gaps around the door and windows, and I think even if I put a wood burner in there it will still be pretty chilly in the depths of winter, so I'm in the process of deciding about new windows.

The kitchen is very cosy, and I'm completely in love with the pantry. When I first saw it, it was chock full of old jars of food, and dozens of plastic bottles full of water. It was also still being regularly used by rats and mice! So, after clearing everything out and sweeping up heaps of dust and droppings, I went round sealing up every conceivable gap where rodents could squeeze in. More friends helped with this, and then we started using old tongue and groove boards to cover the dusty old beams in order to make a cleaner area for food storage.

One month on and touch wood there have been no more intrusions. Any packet food has all been stored in lockable plastic boxes, and all that's left to do is finish boarding out the ceiling, and to get some proper sockets put in so that the freezers can go in there out of the way.

The kitchen itself was also completely emptied. Before:

After:

I didn't want the stove in front of the window, so dragged it over to the other side of the sink, and managed to fix some new flue pipes up. The stove has been great on the chillier evenings, and of course it's lovely to have a stash of constant hot water on the go, as well being able to cook on the stove. One thing I'm not sure of is the lever above the oven door which can be pushed in and out. I'm guessing it opens some kind of vent over the oven to increase/decrease temperature, but I've yet to figure out which way round. Do you pull it out for hotter, or push it in? Answers on a postcard please!

At the moment most of my plates etc are stashed on a shelving unit, though upstairs there's a great big old-fashioned kitchen dresser which I plan to bring down and use. That will have to wait for a bit though as next year I'm going to take the old ceiling down in the kitchen (another lovely rat-dropping infested job) and put up new tongue and groove which will be painted white.

Apart from filling all the gap around the door to the living room, I plan to leave it open as it lets in a nice lot of light, and will just have a curtain to pull across. I managed to concrete over the floor in the doorway, but filling the gaps around the sides will be a lot trickier I suspect.

Upstairs is still kind of a tip, and my next major job will be dismantling yet more of the old metal bedsteads up there. I've done two so far, dismantled and dragged into the garden, and they weigh an absolute ton. There are five more to go! Actually, I'm thinking of leaving one up there to be a kind of settee come spare bed in the room which will be my craft room.

I've turned one of the small rooms into a little bedroom, and have put the TV in there too. So, more of a bedsit I guess. With mismatched furniture, streaks on the walls from when the roof leaked, and an old throw clipped up at the window for a curtain, it has a kind of student digs/slum landlord thing going on.

Apart from bubble-wrapping over a missing window pane on the stairs, that's pretty much been the extent of my efforts inside the property so far.

In the barns I've focused on bagging up every scrap of fire wood which is now all stashed in one of the sheds. There are lots of lovely old farming implements, barrels, wine jars etc, which I've moved to the biggest barn, as this one won't be renovated until next year, and they should be safe from accidental beams being dropped on them. That's if it survives winter. I noticed that rain was dripping in through a gap in the roof and right onto a beam on a wall. When I climbed up I saw that the beam was already pretty rotten. I've shoved a bit of wood up there to divert the rain away from the wall, but it might be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

The first barn to be re-roofed was the one closest to the house, and that's where all the stuff from the garage and shed in Gostilitsa has been put. I was amazed at just how much 'stuff' there was, and am so glad I didn't buy one of the smaller properties I'd looked at. Honestly, I've no idea where I would have stored everything! It's no where close to organised yet, but at least I can access all of the boxes and things (even if I can't remember what's in them).

The second barn will hopefully be re-roofed towards the end of the month, and when that's done I'll make a cosy windproof section in there for the dogs to sleep. I've noticed some huge old windows in the old bar room, and am wondering if there's some way I can use them to enclose the front of this barn as it gets the sun first thing in the morning and it could be a good way of making a bright, warm space. It might even be a more sheltered spot for my bathing arrangements. At the moment I've got a kind of tepee rigged up, but on windy days there's quite a draught comes whistling round the back.

After Stan finished re-roofing the house, I was left with a huge heap of stone slabs, old beams and off cuts of the new roof tiles. The OCD in me hates to see things all mixed up like that, so the past few sunny days have seen me spending a few hours dragging the beams into a tidier pile. Some of them can be used for raised beds, others for improving the barrier on top of the border stone walls to stop the dogs getting out (Bella, despite only having full use of three legs has been an absolute demon at scaling five foot high stone walls and sneaking off when unattended) and others can be chopped up for firewood. I also have mad plans for some big wooden tepees out in the wild field, to make nice bird watching shelters.

I'm going to stack the stone slabs a bit more tidily (if I can shift the things) as that might make it easier to sell them. The smaller bits of slab will go to make borders round my flower beds when I make them, and eventually all the scrubby little scraps will either be hardcore for when I have a septic system put in, or I'll just hire a skip and get rid of it all in one go.

Finally, I've started strimming some paths up along the wild field, mainly to define the boundary of my land, but also to make little sitting areas where I can spend time quietly watching the birdlife. I've taken the dogs out for a couple of walks up onto the ridge behind the house, and ultimately I'd like to make a little clear track from my field , up through the scrubland and onto the ridge where there seem to be lots of nice ready made trails. That way we don't need to walk right through the village to get to the tracks, a walk which sets off a cacophony of barking from the numerous dogs in the gardens en route.

Now that I list everything that's been achieved so far it actually feels like good progress has been made in the past six weeks or so which is excellent, and means that everything should be set for a reasonably comfortable winter.  'Should'... ask me again in the middle of January!