The beautiful walls we exposed were too badly damaged to repair and insulate so we had no option but to board and skim them, all apart from a section at the top of the stairs which we have managed to salvage (although it does still need pointing).
Therefore we have had to get creative when putting back and adding some features to give it back it's original charm and character.
Firstly, we decided to raise the ceiling in the front bedroom as this is the old part of the cottage, this in turn allowed us to expose the original beams. We then sandblasted them to get rid of the dark brown colouring which had occurred over time, sanded and sealed them to bring out the beautiful wood underneath.
We also replaced the beams downstairs as the originals weren't long enough once the wall had been taken down and rebuilt and so we decided to raise the ceiling downstairs as well.
The upstairs beams add a lot of character as they traverse the landing, bedroom and en-suite and alongside the original stone wall we salvaged, it's starting to regain it's charm.
We also exposed the wood above the windows and gave these the same treatment as the beams.
Because we couldn't retain the original walls we really wanted to have a feature that was as close to the original as possible, so we managed to source some split faced slate tiles from Marble Mosaics which you can see here http://bit.ly/2ujYWyI These have been an amazing success and we are really happy with the end result.
Next time I'll focus on the kitchen as I'm conscious it hasn't featured for a while and I think you'll see a big difference.
Have a great July!
