Well, my resolution to post more regularly started off well – until summertime chores and travel kicked in. Between endless gardening and a few trips to visit family in July and August, writing in the blog has taken a bit of a backseat. Sorry for that! 😅
That said, I told myself I was going to do the second installment on the Garden Cottage series this weekend – so here we go…!
As I explained in the first installment of the series, the renovation of the Garden Cottage wasn’t originally high on our to-do list. However, in February 2021, we received a gentle nudge from fate that reordered our priorities.
The gentle (😁) nudge in question:
So, what happened?
Having decided not to do any work on the cottage, Chris and I had locked the cottage up for winter in late 2020. When we did this, we turned off the water at the external stopcock – but what we didn’t know at the time was that the stopcock was faulty – and unfortunately, during a very chilly snap in February 2021, water froze in the loft pipes – leading to a burst pipe and the absolute deluge you see in the video above.
As we were not regularly outside near the cottage that winter due to extreme weather, we discovered the flood mostly by luck. We had been ripping carpet up in the master bedroom in the main house and had decided we were going to stash the carpet in the cottage until we could take it to the tip; as we approached the cottage with our arms full of carpet detritus, we could actually hear the water sounds from outside.
By the time we found it, it had probably been going on for a few days 😬🐟
Because of the location of the burst pipe, the ceilings in the kitchen and bathroom had collapsed – and there was at least an inch of standing water on the ground floor. Needless to say, the kitchen and bathroom were completely destroyed, and there was also water damage to the lounge and downstairs bedroom.
As you can see, it was a MESS. Howeeeever, while it did cause a lot of stress initially, it ended up being a huge blessing in disguise as it motivated us to get the cottage sorted out sooner rather than later – and I had enormous fun with my sledge hammer doing demo work! 🔨
Stay tuned for the finished results in the next post (yes, I’m stretching this into a three part-er!) – hopefully, you’ll agree with us that it has come out really beautifully 💙
Until then, have a great week, everyone!
Oh Brett! That is SUCH a mess! You must have been devastated. Well done for seeing it as a blessing in disguise. I love your positive attitude. I look forward to hearing how it turned out.