I've had many ideas for the little forest house, the one that I want to make into my home.
It's the least practical of the 3 ruins to choose, but hey, I've fallen in love. Not only with the house, but also its position on the land. Hidden away in the forest (less so since the fire) and surrounded by boulder-sheltered spaces where I'm excited to create mini forest gardens.
It's a tiny 5m x 5m which, due to the thick stone walls, gives an interior space of 4m x 4m. On the second storey it's only standing height right under the ridge of the roof. There's only one tiny window. No interior access between the two floors (the second storey has a door at the back of the house).
I'm no stranger to living in small spaces. I've lived in various campervans, caravans, and yurts and my current home is a tiny one. But somehow this one is challenging. I'm realising it's much easier to design a rectangular space than a square one, if space is limited. I'm not getting younger and I'm kinda over having a ladder up to a mezzanine, I want real stairs! I don't want to compromise on having a double sink, a full size bathtub, and a big comfy sofa.
My vision is to raise the height of the roof and put windows all along the sides under the eaves, and build a single storey extension onto the front of the house, in wood and glass. After all, what's the point of realising my lifelong dream of living in a woodland, if I can't see the woodland? I'm dreaming of under-eaves windows that are eyeline height whilst lying in bed, and wouldn't washing-up be so much more enjoyable gazing out into the trees? I want to be in the woodland.
With all this in mind, the land in front of the house has been levelled and a stone wall (all the stones came from the land - how incredible is that!) built to one side. At the moment this is a retaining wall, which will become a patio/courtyard wall, and then - hopefully - one of the walls of the extension.
I thought I had the interior layout sussed, but - as always happens when building or renovating - unforseen issues arise that change plans. My hyperactive brain and inability to make decisions doesn't help. I realise things I've overlooked, or remember that I´ve always fancied having a thermal mass wall for interior heating. But where's the flue pipe from the stove coming out? I've had enough leaky roofs for one lifetime - so this time it's going out the wall, but where, and how, and that means I lose heat that could be going upstairs.
Then there's the porch/boot room/laundry. That's a must-have on my wish list. What started as a super simple idea that also solved the problem of rainwater coming off the roof onto a boulder and being directed into the house (put a roof over the boulder and the space in front of it) turned into "oh wouldn't it be cool to take the roof out to all the boulders and incorporate that space too?". So the digger dug out the space, and then a huge underground boulder was discovered right where the access to the garden needed to be. That's stumped me, and I'm not sure what the solution is.
An esplanada (wood and glass seating area for a café) I´d seen on facebook marketplace came down significantly in price, which made it an even more tempting possible solution for a quick and cheap extension, much like what I already had in mind. It's the right size, but the doors aren't in the right places, and the way it's been built onto the café means some of the roof beams are shorter than the others. Will it instead be a more complicated and thus more expensive option? I'm going to see it tomorrow with a friend, maybe I'll post about it, it will almost undoubtedly turn into an adventure of curveballs and side-quests!
But back to the title of the post. With all this chopping, changing, and overthinking. With everything feeling difficult, complicated, or impossible, I'd lost sight of something I feel is important. To ask the house what it wants. So that's the plan for this weekend, when there are no stonemasons working there and I can sit quietly and maybe hear the answer to the question "What do you want to be, little house?"