Finding Enough

July was the first whole month we have spent at home in a long time, and it showed in the amount we managed to get done on the house. The bees returned from their holiday to the field beans, and it has been lovely watching them on their favourite blooms in the garden when I’ve taken a break from DIY.

That roofing material that was in June’s costs is now on the roof of our stone shed. It was a bit of a marathon removing the old lasagne layers of rusty tin and large rocks and leaky felt. I have no idea how many nails we pulled out manually, but it was a lot. We waited for a few dry days to allow the boards underneath to dry out uncovered before putting the new box section, coated metal roofing on. All good in principle, but it means the day to put the new roof on before the rain was due, was about 25 degrees and the roofing sheets were cut to size and about 6.5m long. They were not light and lifting them onto the roof in the sun was not fun. We managed it, but it was a long hot day. It does look good now its finished, and we entertained the cows in the field behind.

As well as fixing the leaking roof, we opened up ventilation under the overhang at the back, so the air should be a bit drier in there now. It will never be perfect, as 3 walls are partially underground, but at least rain won’t be getting in, and the damp air will be changed with a through breeze.

I made good progress removing plastic masonry paint and cement pointing from the outside of the house. It’s a very manual and laborious job, which makes it slow going, but it’s finally looking like we’re making a bit of progress. Once I have completed this section, we’ll take the scaffold tower down, so we can access the external vent in the chimney lower down. This was presumably added when the chimney was capped off, but was subsequently obscured by rubble filling the fireplace inside. Now we have opened that up, we can currently see daylight through it, and there is quite a draught. Fine in the summer for drying the room out, not so great when we get to winter. We plan to reinstate the chimney and fit a wood burner, so we need to close this vent off. We can use the same lime mix we have been using for pointing, and the stone rubble around the place will finally be useful for something.

On the wet days, I spent time inside removing delightful brown gloss paint from the granite fireplace. This is also proving to be a very slow process, so little and often is probably the best approach. Some flakes right off, some is well bonded into the textured surface of the stone. It’s not much fun on a warm day, as I have no idea whether the paint contains lead, so I’m playing it safe with a P3 filter respirator mask.

It has seemed like slow progress at the time, so it has been good to look back over what we have actually achieved in the month. We find it satisfying to be hands on and get things done ourselves, but I understand it would be more akin to torture than fun to many. A project house was always the plan and, as with most things in life, it hasn’t worked out exactly as we expected. We are adapting along the way. Learning new things keeps us interested and gives us a sense of achievement. As it’s our home we probably take more care than your average tradesperson who’s on the clock.

While we were busy with the house, the freedom fund quietly climbed to a new record high. I even had to increase the scale on the freedom fund page graph to make it fit. We still haven’t quite hit that next big milestone when it comes to net worth.

Freedom fund value – £1,402,561 (up 44k on last month)

Expenditure – £3,292.25 (or a 2.82% withdrawal rate) including renovation costs, or £2,277.93 (or a 1.95% withdrawal rate) without renovation costs

Earned income – £0

Being at home and getting things done, also meant spending on materials. In July the biggest spend was on a new bath (£756), which was considerably reduced in a sale, so we thought it was worth storing it for a while until we’re ready to fit it. I even managed to find a voucher code for an additional £50 off – it all helps! We wanted a small, but deep bath (soaking tub) and they don’t come cheap, so I had been keeping an eye out online for something to come up priced at less than 4 figures. I suspect this model is being discontinued, but it goes with the basin and toilet we took out (and plan to put back).

We spent about £150 in drips and drabs, finishing off last month’s plumbing work and around £250 on making the WiFi coverage reliable in all parts of the house. The latter is the downside of 60cm thick stone walls.

Groceries and household consumables were also up this month, not least because of taking delivery of a case of wine from Laithwaites for the first time in a while. We also booked accommodation for a trip with friends later in the year costing £453, but we will get half of that back in due course.

I still haven’t been paid for the consultancy work I did in April, despite chasing a month ago, so time for another nudge. That is the downside of working with large organisations. Its a good job I’m not relying on it.

So what about the non-financial goals I set my self this year?

Reduce plastic waste by making one change every month – July was a fail on this front. The small changes made so far this year have sustained, but I haven’t added anything this month. I do have a couple of ideas which should eliminate plastic from a couple of items we purchase regularly, but for various reasons I haven’t hit the go button yet.

Do something creative every month – Another miss in July, as I started a small project but haven’t finished it yet, so there’s not much to share. August will be different, as I have an interesting creative day out planned.

Record the birds and mammals spotted around the house each month – The new log book was duly updated. In July we saw 2 juvenile jays on the power lines just beyond the garden – that was a first for me. Whilst up on the shed roof, we had a rather different vantage point to spy a spotted flycatcher nest tucked away in a split in silver birch trunk. The chicks were very quiet and mostly kept their heads down. Mum and dad refused to approach while we were there, so we took regular longish breaks to let them get on with feeding. Regular long breaks were very welcome for the humans in the heat anyway.

I sadly found a dead pine marten kit in our wood store at the beginning of July. I informed the local pine marten group in case they investigated such things – there weren’t any obvious signs of attack or injury. The coordinator asked me to bag it and put it in the freezer, as she has a colleague in Wales doing a national study into pine marten genetic diversity in the UK, who might be interested in it. Sure enough, she wanted me to mail it to her! It definitely takes the prize for the weirdest thing I have ever posted. I had to stick a ‘class B biological substance’ warning sticker on the outside of the box, but thankfully the person at the post office was happy with ‘scientific samples’ as a description of the contents.

After a worrying gap of about a week with no sightings, we returned to seeing mum and the remaining 2 kits most evenings at the feeder, and they all appear to be doing well.

The most exciting wildlife encounter of July was undoubtedly an unexpected adder in the conservatory. I was walking through from the deck outside and there it was in the kitchen doorway! I think it was just as surprised as me, and quickly disappeared under the log rack. I shut the kitchen and living room doors and left it to find its own way back outside. We’re fairly sure its not still hiding in there somewhere………

July also brought the first potatoes, garlic and tomatoes in the garden and the first wild chantarelles in local woodland. The sweetcorn is a bit begin and took a battering in storm Floris, so we may not get a crop this year. The squashes I planted under them I am more hopeful for. Talking to friends who were so pleased to be able to ‘escape’ on their annual holiday, I was constantly reminded of how lucky I am to live in a place, and have a life, that I don’t feel the need to escape from.

PS, if you’ve ever wondered what a baby pine marten sounds like, this one’s for you: