Building a new house

We have a wall. Well, a stub of a wall. It's just the bit of the wall which is needed to accommodate the electrical connection due in a week's time. It is good that the connection will go straight into the right place, rather than onto a post at the edge of the site. Eventually, this will just be thought of as our meter box, and it will have a whole house around it. It probably won't seem at all special then, but it does now.

Last Monday, 15 February, had been agreed as completion day for the sale of Coed y Mynydd Isaf and Gwenoldy cottage. Under UK law, this had been promised in the contracts of sale and purchase exchanged earlier, when the buyer had placed a 10% deposit with our solicitor. Usually completion takes place in the early afternoon, when our solicitor should have received the balance of funds. Towards the end of the afternoon we had a call saying that she had so far not received them. Her working hours ended with no change. If a buyer fails to complete, it's a case of keeping their deposit and taking legal action to either enforce completion with full payment, or seek damages. These damages could be extensive if rental and moving costs were added to the expense of re-marketing the property. It's a rare occurrence, but it does occasionally happen. We were sufficiently trusting of our buyer not to think it would come to this, and in the very late afternoon we had a message from her saying...

Our preparations for our move had involved sorting out all the contents of the outbuildings as well as of the house (fortunately the contents of the cottage were taken by our new buyer) and it was something of a surprise to see the 'stable' (workshop) empty. We had arranged to have our house possessions and furniture taken to our rental on Feb 8 & 9, ahead of completion, which was set for Feb 15. This isn't what solicitors recommend, but it does offer the chance, with a calculated risk, to have the opportunity to clean the 'old' house between the move and the handover, and we felt that this was the right thing to do. Our movers worked hard and efficiently and completed their work in a day and a half. By the evening of the 9th, we had a comfortable but not box-free lounge to sit in. The week was bitterly cold, and while we worked away putting the finished touches to CyMI each day, having a last fire in the field to burn our rubbish and taking a bursting trailer o...

Away from the site, we had excellent news on Monday, when contracts for the sale of Coed y Mynydd Isaf and Gwenoldy cottage were finally exchanged. After having got so close to a sale 18 months ago, before the pandemic, when our buyers failed at pretty much the last minute to produce funds, this exchange was a relief. We had had every indication this time that our buyer would see things through, having fallen for the property in the way we did 15 and a half years ago. Completion has been set for Monday week, 15 February, and we have (once again making an unorthodox choice) arranged to move on the 8th and 9th, ahead of completion, to give us a clear run at finally clearing and cleaning everything. This week has again brought rain and sleet, but Pat and his team have made good progress. The brick plinth and drains are now in place, and the area around the perimeter has been stoned ready for trestles and scaffolding. There’s even some red conduit on site ready for the electrical connectio...