What have we done?

[keatsie]

Yes, worcestershire to be more accurate Malvern.

Its a fantastic house, we are looking to preserve the house pretty much as is but without the leaking roof... I havent had time to update the profile but certainly will, and we will be sticking around for sure, way too much supporting messages not to want to stay.

 

[discobarry]

What a lovely looking house! I'm glad you are taking it on as i would never dare.

 

[jackpoint]

Fantastic! A hobby for life :lol:

 

[keatsie]

What a lovely looking house! I'm glad you are taking it on as i would never dare.

Why wouldn't you, do you know something i dont :?

 

[discobarry]

It looks big, and overwhelming and out of the price bracket of a lowly baker.

 

[masochists-r-us]

What a beautiful house.
What I would say is that from your photos it doesn't look like a property that has been seriously neglected for many years so unless you have money to burn, I would proceed with caution. As someone else said previously, it has been standing for many years and hasn't collapsed yet. With the exception of ensuring work isn't urgently needed to ensure structural integrity or to prevent water ingress (assume you had a structural survey which should have highlighted this), the best advice we were given was to live in ours for a year before diving into anything.You'll most likely feel quite different after having got to the know the house over the course of a year.

 

[keatsie]

Thanks to everyone for thier valued comments.

We have listened carefully and agree that we are not going to do anything except essential maintenance for the next 6 months. We have had the roof repaired, several areas of lead had split directing water into the house. These having been damaged for quite sometime a couple of the walls are now drying. The guttering is all wood, this has obviously rotted through so this is next on the list along with patching cracks in the outer panels between the timbers.

Since buying the property we have called in a number of specialist for the timber and roof etc, none have run out screaming yet. We have a few areas of timer that although dont seem to bother the specialists, just look scary in the amount of bowing and do concern me. Its always difficult to gauge things like bowing walls and beams without having some point of reference, so i am finding it very easy to get worried unwarranted.

We spoke with the previous owners gardner, apparantly very little money has been spent on the house for the last 10 years. Although they had money it wasnt sunk into the house unless to fix a problem rather than preventing issues from occuring.

It is a very big house, it has some very odd design and layout with some very interesting features. But it does need work, but we hope slow and steady preservation rather than restoring we may get the house into a more stable order within the next 3 years.

Thanks to all