Two years ago we moved into an ex-council house. Not your average ex-council
house; ours is a 400-year-old Grade II listed farmhouse, set in six acres
and surrounded by a miniature war-zone of semi-derelict farm buildings near
Saffron Walden in Essex.
It had once been a classic hall house: a long, medieval structure comprising
parlour, central hall and service rooms. But it was owned for decades by the
county council and tenanted by a local farmer, so the slapdash wiring, PVC
windows and bashed-about timbers spoke of a decidedly practical attitude to
interior design.
The entrance was through a sloping lean-to on the east side of the house that
was added in the 1970s. A boiler house, added in wartime and used as an
outside privy, took the likely place of the original front door. The
property, which cost us £780,000, also came with a sitting tenant in one of
the barns: an agricultural contractor whose scattered pieces of machinery
stood like dinosaurs among the nettles.
But we loved the setting. And as there are few more insecure professions than
novelist, it offered the chance not just for our three children - Saskia,
10, Harry, 7, and Lockie, 3 - to attend the excellent local school, but
potential for bed-and-breakfast, horse livery and even raising pigs (our
children spend an inordinate amount of time locking each other in the
piggery).
We spent a year seeing how the space in the house worked, and assessing which
buildings were beyond repair. In this time we fenced six acres, waterproofed
the stables, and spent hours attacking the ragwort that had been left to run
riot in the fields. When my editor called to say that my latest book had
been shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award, I was thigh deep
in weeds with a 5-litre pack of pesticide on my back.
We also had an eye-wateringly expensive meeting with our listed buildings
officer at Uttlesford District Council - a charge of £300 for a site visit
to a listed building for “pre-application advice”. Finally, however, we
began to work out how to restore our home to a traditional Essex hall house,
one from which we could offer guest rooms.
“Aren't you daunted?” a friend commented, looking at the house, the derelict
sheds, and knowing our budget of roughly £50,000. It honestly had not
occurred to me to be; I just take it one building at a time. More
importantly, I now know how much you can do yourself, not to mention how
much you can save yourself - in our case, an estimated £30,000.
I still remember ten years ago being ripped off by a cowboy builder in London,
and the powerlessness and anger we felt, especially when looking at our
depleted bank account. Since then, we have tried to do as much as we can
ourselves. I drew up plans with my mother, an illustrator; (scale drawings
are simple if you use a 1:100 ratio). Not using an architect, and submitting
our own plans saved us some £5,000 - even if I had to spend the best part of
three days in the council offices to get the forms right. We kept to what
the listed buildings officer had suggested, and permission - for a new
living room and guest suite, and a timber-framed front lobby to replace the
boiler house - was granted.
And so, on finishing my seventh book, I celebrated not with a glass of
champagne, but by demolishing the outhouse to make room for the new front
door. The new building will be in keeping with the traditional Essex hall
houses of the area: timber-framed, with rendered walls and clay peg-tile
roof. The boiler house, facing our lane, will be replaced by an oak-framed
porch and front door. The PVC windows will be replaced by traditional wood
frames.
We will install a log burner (we take a lot of dead wood from our land), and
by spending winters in the new, better-insulated part of the house, and
using the Aga (for cooking, heating, and as a drying rack), hope to keep
fuel costs down. (John, the farmer who lived here for 30 years, says the
house was never as warm as when the walls were
insulated with dung). Living on top of a hill, we hope to fit a wind turbine,
but the capital outlay looks prohibitive: we had quotes ranging from £28,000
to £60,000.
I don't think female authors are supposed to be practical; before I became
one, I pictured a cross between Virginia Woolf and Barbara Cartland - a bit
wafty, hands unsullied by anything rougher than a Mont Blanc pen. I am
5ft2in and no builder, but I have never been afraid to get stuck in. I
gutted my first flat myself, stripping and sanding the floorboards (spending
months retrieving sawdust from unlikely places).
Several years ago I re-laid the floor joists in our living room rather than
wait the months it was going to take me to get a builder (by far the worst
bit was dealing with the patronising men at our local timber yard). In my
last house, overseeing a huge extension project not only saved me a fortune,
but provided valuable knowledge of how a house works, and what to do when it
goes wrong. And I developed a fascination with the building process. In
fact, the strange, dependent relationship between builder and house-owner
has now inspired my latest novel.
Our agricultural tenant, who has a piece of machinery for everything, will dig
out our foundations. The structural work will be done by a local builder. My
husband, Charles Arthur, a technology editor, has discovered his own inner
Iron John (he wields an angle grinder with the best of them) and will take
the roof off the 60ft-long Dutch barn, whose rusted, corrugated sheets
threatened to decapitate any eventual guests.
And while the men are getting on with the skilled stuff, I will be out,
breaking up the concrete floor of the piggery with my sledgehammer, thinking
of that cowboy builder. Ten years on, and armed with the right set of tools,
he wouldn't have stood a chance.
Night Music by Jojo Moyes is published next Thursday by Hodder at £11.99
Watch out for the ghosts!
Howard, Manchester,
I have renovated two houses here in Texas, and am about to begin construction on a 30x40 ft., 2 story home on 28 acres in rural north Texas. Did I mention the house is to be built from the rock that is on the land? I have already poured the footers (by myself) and gathered the rock. I'm a woman, BTW
Patti Hall, New Caney, USA
We are about the start this process and I only hope the wife can wield a sledgehammer as well!!
Ken, Gloucester,
Interesting to observe the blue-collar amateur enthusiasm of the middle-class, particularly women. My project was an Oxfordshire pile (1993-03), you know you are making progress when, "Can I do this (plaster a room)? is no longer the issue. Rather, "When am I going to find the time to do this?"
Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan
Don't use such a heavy sledgehammer, love. You'll rupture yourself.
Andrew Milner, Karuizawa, Japan