After a very long wait, our house finally got a new coat! I have a bit of mixed feelings about this, as I obviously know the house since I was a little child and whilst the change is good for the house - and for us - it still has a lot of emotions connected to it.
It was a bumpy ride, which didn't help. We had signed the quote in April 2024 and basically waited since then for a date for the work to be carried out. So this meant constant frustration, excitement, worry and high stress levels for pretty much 18 months. But in Novemer they finally started the work and told us it would be for Christmas 2025.
What needed to be done...
...or the real question was - and still is - what doesn't need to be done. Quite honestly our ambitions are bigger than our wallet and of course - as with old houses is usually the case - the list of things that require attention is much bigger and more time consuming that one can even imagine. Originally we had our mind fixed on "get holes closed, fix some stones and repair some damage". But this quickly changed after living here for a while and all the little issues that became bigger and bigger over time.
My aunt pointed out that on one side of the house stones - or rather rocks - keep dropping out of the wall and one day they might hit someone, though I was more worried of the wall collapsing and she was worried someone could get hit. That's how it all started and then we thought what's the point of having one side of the house done but not the others?
I also got - yes, I know, this is on me - annoyed about the house being some sort of a "dirty grey" colour. Many other houses have a somewhat yellow'ish tint, which meant I found our house rather depressing. Also the render used seems different in different areas of the house and in some places the render even just came off. In the back of the house the render has been completely ruined by the chimney where smoke comes out of a little flap meant for chimney sweeping, that then discolours the wall. So... cleaning alone (if even possible) wasn't feasible and we couldn't just colour one side of the house but not the rest.
It also needs stressing that there are holes everywhere. In the wall big enough for rodents to come inside and munch on my chicken food. Then, a few years ago, the roof was re-done neither the wall was fixed that the roof sits on, nor was the roof adjusted which means there are big gaps between wall and roof, perfect for a marten family to seek a new home. We couldn't do that, as the loft on its own has a height of 5m at the highest point, so add another 3m at least for the ground floor, house standing on a slop, so some parts of the house are dangerously high.
In some areas there were windows which basically just has a piece of wood in front of it, i.e. loft, in the kitchen they had a window before but decided to close it to fit a kitchen unit. So it basically was just covered with styrofoam. Outside the old workshop they fitted a roof gutter drain which went down into a concrete drain hole. Unfortunately that was so porous that the water drained into the stone wall which in turn leaked into the workshop. The masons came originally to fix part of that concrete pipe for another leak when we realised that there is a bigger issue there.
Getting a mason
Despite our rural location, we are quite lucky that there are plenty of masons around. So we got the closest ones in for a quote. As previously pointed out we wanted to do basic repairs only but then decided to do all the walls. Apart from getting a more consistant look and feel it also had the advantage that I would only have to request one single "permit" (DP) rather than doing all the paperwork each time I want to get a wall fixed.
When the masons came around we stressed quite early on that we had main objectives: fix the crumbling wall but also get rid of all the gaps between roof and wall and generally all holes in the wall where the rodents and insects come in (ants, mice, rats, martens). And of course, change the colour of the house.
Mostly the quotes for the work we wanted were very similar. There was one stand-out quote which surprised us though. The price for the work of this particular mason for one wall (the one that crumbled) was more than half than what the others wanted for the whole house. That was rather odd; particularly as he came recommended by others. I couldn't quite tell if it was just a very expensive mason or whether he just didn't want to do the work and upped the price a bit. I also found it rather strange that he didn't have the equipment to measure the walls for the quote properly. It was a sunny day and he didn't have a ladder to check the height of the roof, nor did he manage to use the laser measure. But he also didn't seem to bother much. He said he'd have to come again with the proper equipment but he actually never did and only after reminding him about the quote he just sent one, without actually coming again for a proper measurement.
With this particularly company out of the picture it basically was down to trust, word-of-mouth by the locals and of course - more importantly - the time constraint. It seems all masons have the issue that there are not enough workers around and the waiting list to get the work done is very long. By one we were told they could start the work earlier than the others, so in the end we decided to go with a slightly pricier mason. Time was rather important for us as we of course wanted to get it all done before winter hits and we'd be stuck once more in a very cold house. Though in the end we still waited one and a half years for them to do the work.
We also had to consider how the quote was prepared, we noticed a stark difference, like with the fella before that didn't have the tools to measure the wall. So we also paid attention to the little details. For example do they see and point out the holes in the wall and maybe offer a solution. Will there be exposed stone, does the wall really need to be done? What about the chimney flaps, etc.pp.
Before the work started
As we wanted to make sure that the guys just can get on with fixing the wall without too many distractions, not to mention potential damage, we decided to get rid of as many things as possible. For example removing any signage (house number plates, name plates and surveillance warnings), security cameras, lights, etc. Unfortunately we left the video doorbell, but obviously did not consider the house is being pressure/power washed and sanded. So the doorbell got scratched badly as also the flimsy plastic they used to cover it didn't protect it enough. They removed the satellite dishes for us, as I didn't feel comfortable getting that off the wall. One of them was in an awkward position.
The mason invited us over to show us different colours for the wall, as I obviously insisted not to use gray anymore. We wanted some sort of yellow, as we have many houses in the area and particularly in our village that have a little yellow tint. When he showed us the samples we quickly picked a yellow'ish sample and he told that this wasn't a good choice. He basically said to us that this will turn out like "yellow yellow". I didn't quite understand at the time, so I explained that I want a bit of colour, so he pointed out that on the wall this will look VERY yellow and may not look good at all. So in the end we decided to pick "sand" as a colour. The mason was quick and offered to show us a house that he's done in that colour which is nearby, so we could see a final result before we decided. That was particularly helpful, as you can of course see it properly rather than just on a sample.
A welcome surprise
During the quote, the mason pointed out that if there is any nice looking stone, he will try to expose and repoint as much as possible rather than covering it. Though we had little hope. We knew already that there were loads of hollow concrete blocks used to build certain parts of the house. As we had started renovating the old workshop we noticed all the different types of material used; including concrete, stone and partially any "rubbish" that could be found, i.e. clay roof tiles. We assumed it would be as chaotic on the outside. But it seems we were mistaken.
When they started chipping the concrete and render off the wall, they discovered some beautiful corner stones. Some of them seem rather huge and are in great quality. In the backyard the wall had a lot of small bits here and there, so the quality was not that great. It also became apparent that in some areas it made little sense to remove the existing render in order to avoid any damage or the other way around, it was in good shape that it only needed a bit of paint.
The result
Unfortunately in the end the mason decided to cover most of the house in render and leave all the corner stones visible. The bit that was not covered was a small part of the house facing the road. It had the most intact stones and just needed a bit of repointing. On this side the top floor was built with hollow concrete bricks so they could only re-point the bottom and re-rendered the top; however the craftmanship we witnessed simply blew us away as it just looks like it was always meant to be that way. The quality of the render is amazing and even though we only temporarily live in this part of the house, we already said that it's the nicest part now and we wished we could stay there.
The annoying bits
- Let's start with the annoying bits first: our house has a little balcony bit and of course when we asked for the work to be carried out, we did not consider having this bit re-done as well. Simply because we were of course concerned about the holes in the wall and bits falling off. So now the balcony looks out of place. Luckily we won't need a lot of work and we will hopefully be able to do this ourselves. It's also not at a big height, so a ladder should be enough to carry out the work. We only need to figure out how to put some sort of a fence or similar around that balcony as it is currently unsecured.
- Same applies to the garage. Originally we were thinking to get rid of the garage and either build a new one in a more convenient place or simply resize it; or replace it with a carport. Before the work started we already thought that a carport will not be enough considering the strong winds (particularly in combination with hail, or even just snow). So in future it looks like we have to get the masons in again to fix up the garage. Though this might be a bigger project, we need to check out the roof and the back of the garage is partially only covered with wood planks, no idea why.
- What we did not consider is also the leak of a chimney flap connected to the kitchen. When I tried to heat up the place by using the kitchen stove the smoke was coming out of that flap. With condensation happening right at the flap, the smoke basically became a liquid that stained our new wall. We'll have to renovate that chimney and line it with a metal tube which should hopefully make that flap redundant.
- Of couse there will be a mess before, during and after the work. What became clear halfway through: our parking, which was partially storage for the scaffolding but also working area for the masons, will be ruined. For example, they have been using a lot of our water to mix the render, which was put in the mixer. That in turn has been leaking and therefore render, concrete or whatever mixture, was basically seaping onto our lawn. In addition they cleaned the machines every day after work and obviously all that contaminated water just drained on our lawn as well. I also noticed that the first batch of render was mixed directly on the grass, whilst in the last week they put plastic sheeting underneath. So in the end they offered to bring some fresh high quality soil to put on the parking/lawn. Originally I thought that is a great idea and we can also use this to cover some remaining gravel from decades ago. However, the first rain happened and our parking area turned into a bog, getting the car stuck in a muddy hellhole. After some frustrating days the mason was so kind to provide some gravel to cover the worst bits. However now our parking looks awful.
What we really like(d)
The mason and his team were amazing. It felt like they actually cared about the work and the result rather than just slapping the material on and be done with it. Throughout the process they've been considered of the house and the current state, preferences were considered and discussed and when we didn't know what was better or if we are OK with anything, it was explained and options were offered.
We were of course also doing our own work in the meantime. In particular we knocked out a window in order to replace it with a door and this obviously had to be done at the same time. Before meant we had a huge hole in the wall as the door couldn't be installed before the work repair and after meant we would damage a lovely looking wall. So it had to be done at the same time. Hence we were trying to knock through a piece of wall that we assumed (as it was implied to us) was just some hollow concrete bricks but turned out to be a very strong stone wall. The mason's team explained to us with patience what we need to do in order to break the wall, even offered us to help. Sometimes they watched us and gave us hints or tips how to do it better and what needs to be considered; followed by the bare minimum what they need the wall to be to make it pretty and matching with the rest of the wall. And a couple of times they even helped us. So we learned a lot these days and this will definitely help us with any further work, i.e. the garage.
They dealt with all the difficult items that we couldn't remove. As mentioned before, there was one satellite dish which I didn't want to remove as it was hanging off the wall a bit awkwardly. Metal beams were sticking out of the wall, I am sure a long time ago they were of good use, but now they were just a rusty health hazard. Unfortunately they also cut something that looked like a hook for a rope a bit further up. Firstly I was slightly annoyed about it as we could have used that to get heavy items up the loft, but it looks better and I would have never gone up there anyway.
Overall we are very happy with the new coat. The mason pointed out it would be ready for Christmas and would be a lovely Christmas present. Though after such a long wait and the fact that we still have to pay for it, I am not sure I would consider it a Christmas present. Maybe that we didn't have to wait another 6 months or so, but that's about it.
