The last of the ‘tooing and froing’ is now underway with the un-namable architect and within the next fortnight we hope that the plans for our Phase I of the development will be en-route to the Galician Xunta and into the hands of a sympathetic planning officer.<\/p>\n
It appears that the final application paperwork may have to make a journey by air\u00a0to England for our signatures, before it makes the shorter trip overland to Lugo, Santiago de Compostela, or wherever else it has to go to get the necessary approvals. While the idea of a trip to the house just to sign the forms holds great appeal, it does seem to be a bit of a waste of both holiday days and finances. At best a three day trip (to fit in with flights) would set us back in the region of 300\u20ac, plus food and drink. This equates to a fair few roof tiles, or a couple of nice chestnut beams. Where previously any of our domestic expenditure would have been equated to ‘meals out’ or cases of wine, we now consider the cost of everything in terms of building materials.<\/p>\n
Hunting through hundreds of photographs and short movies to find tit-bits to blog about, I stumbled across a video of the small house from the inside, at a time when we’d managed to distract Carlos’ donkey away from its confines. This may help you to visualise how the barn currently looks and what the plans<\/a> and elevations<\/a> I have blogged about recently will do to the place.<\/p>\n [mediaplayer src=’\/sadfish\/visitgalicia\/\/smallhouseinternal.wmv’ ]<\/p>\n The video starts looking up at what will be the entrance to the balcony (nine o’clock), currently breeze blocked up, and with the ends of some old balcony beams showing through. It then\u00a0pans around the walls of the upper floor in a clockwise direction. The large opening at one o’clock will have a window and door into the kitchen. Moving around to six o’clock and the doorway will become a window into the living room.<\/p>\n The video then starts to move anti-clockwise and where the bare stone wall can be seen we will be installing a staircase up to the kitchen. Then at twelve o’clock, against the far wall on the ground floor will be the bedroom. Continuing to pan left the small window will be enlarged and then there will be a small bathroom. Before finally getting to the doorway at six o’clock which will be the entrance into the new entrance hallway.<\/p>\n Looking at this is does seem pretty small, but the camera must foreshorten as it is more than a reasonable size once you get in there.<\/p>\n That said, it is a simple conversion\/renovation….according to our architect and builder. Lets hope they are right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last of the ‘tooing and froing’ is now underway with the un-namable architect and within the next fortnight we hope that the plans for our Phase I of the development will be en-route to the Galician Xunta and into … Continue reading