A new design for the front room!

Open plan front room, with a view back up to higher entrance hallway, which utilises the high floor to ceiling height space   The main feature of this space will be a built in wrap around seating area under the window and shutter boxes.

Here is a photo of me standing in the front room and how it currently looks!

                                                                Back garden

Scary scenes in LPA!

Not having visited the site for a few weeks I was quite shocked with what I saw this weekend.  Although I had been warned by Ciaran that buildings get a lot worse looking before they get better, I was really quite shocked by the level of destruction that needs to happen in order for a house to be restored.  Everything needs to be stripped right back and made good to ensure that the structure is safe.  At this point it can then be built back up.  Not having lived in this house, I can depersonalise and distance myself from the works, but, I think if I had lived here and then moved out in order for building works to commence, I would be very upset seeing the house in the current state.

Luckily I have Ciaran with me at every visit and he talks me through everything - why things have to be done they way they are at this point, etc.  He also reminds me of what it will be like when it is finished.  Likening building to cooking he says "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"!!!!

                                           Internal walls are all removed.

                    This where the Hot Tub is going to be positioned!

 Master bedroom with the ceiling removed - roof will come off shortly.....

 Looking out from the back room to where the new extension will be built.

                                                            What's left of the hallway!

Timber Floor has been taken up

Removed and stored the existing timber floor of the front room and hallway.  Dug out the subsoil and poured the ground floor slab to the sub slab in the main house.  We also tanked the existing walls and made them water tight.


Internal walls have all been removed at this stage.


The existing stairs remains until we can figure out how to dismantle it and then we need to find a place to store it until we can put it back in to place.

Young Cassidy - LPA on the silver screen!!!!!

Today we found out something really interesting about our house.

It was used as a location in the 1965 film "Young Cassidy" starring Maggie Smith & Rod Taylor.

The above movie still was photographed in our actual front garden!

If you get an opportunity to see this film  look out for the scene with Maggie Smith talking out an upstairs window - that's our house!!!!  

The previous owner said that the film company tidied the garden and added the planting as well as dressing the window with a lace curtain.  I wonder did the film company also paint the door cream?

The reason this house was used as a location in the movie was that it still had working original sash windows.

Here's the Trailer of Young Cassidy

Here is interesting blog with further information about the filming of Young Cassidy in the local area.

 The above is a photo of the back wall with the projection removed.

Old projection at the back has been knocked!!!!

We started building work on the 6th of September.  By the end of the first day the structurally unsound projection to the rear of the house was knocked.

The above photos shows the ground floor raft foundation preparatory work and service pipes, moments prior to the concrete pour.

Et voila! We have the foundation for our new extension.

Initial design sketch of the interior layout