When forever is 56 days!

Yes, we have been here for 8 weeks, that’s 56 days and boy how to celebrate but with a power cut. Yep.

POWER DOWN. OFF. ZILCH. NADA.

Now, this is a challenge we run our business remotely and virtually. So no power = no contact, no WiFi means no zoom, no WiFi and as we live off-grid, we have no mobile signal all our mobile calls are over WiFi. THIS IS A PROBLEM.

 We have clients to help, aid and add value to daily. So, this is needing an emergency plan more than anything.

IMMEDIATE ACTION 1.

One of us to drive down the glen and get a signal to reduce the lack of contact with clients. True working from the car and old school remote working at its best! One of us stays home until we have a joint client call. If power is on will drive to and collect the other one. If no power, we will meet up down the glen and do the call remotely from two cars!

This plan will work through ¾ year we have ¼ of the year where we might not be able to leave the house due to the winter and weather. An EMERGENCY plan is required here.

IMMEDIATE ACTION 2.

Prepare fires and candles in preparation for a long cold night, we live in rural Perthshire night times are cold and very dark- we don’t have street lights here!!

IMMEDIATE ACTION 3.

Call on the nearest neighbours, our farmers are super helpful and also check if its house specific as in ours, or it’s a power cut for us all.

Emergency planning to prepare for future eventualities is

1.     Diesel generator- we have got one and unfortunately not connected up as of yet

2.     Solar Power generator creating and storing power for these eventualities, we may live remotely and in Scotland, yet we get plenty of solar and wind to enough to make our energy source

3.     Wind Power- consider a self-sufficient wind-generated power source as well

4.     Site Office, in a local town, so we can get to access clients, support and all our content.

Candidly as Hubster and I like to make sure and are risk-averse when it comes to client actions (hilarious when you think we live so off gird!) that we should and will plan to have all three back-ups. We say we do!

Now in the week 6-8 update gap, we have had three, yes three internal house floods, two bathrooms not useable (toilet in one is), hallway, walls, carpets, floors and through to sitting room damage—deep joy. Then our fourth flood was our last remaining bathroom the shower base and through the hallway, reception, kitchen and utility room. So currently we have no working shower facility- the bath we dare not use! We have a working kitchen sink and toilet sink- so that’s good????

If you build it yourself then its always a trial and error.

Restoring a house is a test, of many things patience, knowledge, trust and respect for the existing structure and the building of anything is always trial and error as we truly don’t know if its actually going to be what we wanted till its done.

Our next couple of weeks are a big focus on building and also some actual restoring.  We are fixing the sitting room, by ripping up the carpet, fixing the floor and leaving as raw as possible. The stunning wood underneath was our silver lining of the toils of water.

The house taketh and giveth in many ways!

 Excitingly the hubster is getting directly involved and chose the new sofas, which are arriving this week, we have gone for a very modern shape and super comfortable, to mix and match with the traditional furniture, this blends the hybrid style of modern farmhouse with conventional style. I reupholstered the Rattan French chairs and covered in linen to boost the modern farmhouse feel.

The utility room is built out this weekend too-  a big contrast to the main modern farmhouse look and style. This room is scandi clean and floor to ceiling storage and cupboards- ply look (may paint undecided as of yet), with cut round holes door handles instead of hardware. The downstairs bathroom will have its makeover eventually and follow the same scandi minimal styling, clean lines and plenty of storage built-in. With eclectic old pieces added and lots of art in BOTH rooms, I truly believe art should be in every place. The more functional the space the art is a necessity.

Library wall going up week 10- (this is 1/3 of the sitting room being converted into another room, fireplace and all. So we have another work, reading space – ultimately MY SPACE!)-

As this post is published we are half way through the week, and still loads being done. The bathrooms start to get ripped out tonight as the plumber and we design and start buying the fixtures and fittings- this is the inspiration for the bathrooms. We are going European continental style and having the toilet as a separate room completely, focussing on the main bathroom as spa’esque as we can possibly go without losing all of the farmhouse feel.

 If your interested here is the colour-wise the theme is consistent throughout the house, Farrow & Ball- Dimity and Joas White with Black Blue Contrast as base colours and the additional accents colours are Linen, Beige, White, Dark Pink, Dark Forest Green and Navy in accessorises, accent and critical pieces of furniture. I love mixing types of woods and metals so throughout and in each room, we have a clean minimal design with some considerable contrasts.