I may be a little short on experience when it comes to \u201cliving with a listed
\nBuilding\u201d as I have only lived in one for eighteen months. Fair enough, my
\nlifelong trade has been with old buildings, whether knocking them down (sorry,
\ndismantling them) or supplying reclaimed material for renovations to cottages
\nand castles. I have lived with, and been fascinated by other people\u2019s Listed
\nbuildings whenever I have been involved in a project.<\/p>\n
My order book this week contains a Blue Lias & cobble courtyard for a National
\nTrust Property, a perfect brick match for a Country mansion, and a run of Staffy
\nBlue Copings. I\u2019m semi-retired and dread the thought of losing the \u201csemi\u201d.<\/p>\n
I renovated my first house in 1973. I should say \u201cWe\u201d or suffer the wrath of my
\npoor Mrs who scraped the paint off a million stair-spindles. OK, not a million, but
\nat a spindle a week for the perfection required, and kids to look after, it might
\nwell have been. An end-of-terrace spacious Victorian typical first-buy. By the
\ntime we sold we understood every bit of her construction and managed to
\nrestore everything in sight. Anything out of sight was covered up. Woodworm
\neaten the loft? Board it! Acres of falling plaster held up with PVA, Polyfilla and
\nwoodchip. The window-frames more filler than fabric.<\/p>\n
And it was most definitely \u201cWe\u201d, aged 29, who grafted into the early hours of the
\nmorning, (hard labour after a day\u2019s work to pay for it), who tackled a derelict
\nsprawling early Georgian farmhouse. We. Who bought a caravan for \u00a325
\nthinking it would be for a month or two. Eighteen months later we made a profit
\non the caravan \u2013 a tenner, to be precise \u2013 and moved into a still-derelict house
\nbut with the benefit of electricity, water, and sewers. And experience.<\/p>\n
The kids were in their teens when we returned to a caravan, and roughed it
\nagain while converting a 17th Century barn. Three beds three baths later with a
\ngranny annexe & tennis court, we surely had had enough. Never mind the
\nmortgage, and 90\u2019s interest rates that now sound Dickensian\u2026<\/p>\n
Thirty years later, I write from a caravan, in the grounds of a Listed Building.<\/p>\n
Busby<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I may be a little short on experience when it comes to \u201cliving with a listed Building\u201d as I have only lived in one for eighteen months. Fair enough, my lifelong trade has been with old buildings, whether knocking them down (sorry, dismantling them) or supplying reclaimed material for renovations to cottages and castles. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":95,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-listed-building"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/listedmoneypit.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}