The roof has collapsed more on the barn side of the house. The floor at the front of the barn had already partially collapsed and with the roof now collapsing above it, the situation isn’t going to improve. If we could make that part of the house safe it would give us a lot more room – so Ian has been drawing up plans.
We’re thinking about taking the roof down and not replacing it. Instead making what was the floor of the upstairs into a terrace. But we’d leave the roof infrastructure in place so if someone wanted to put the roof back on in the future they could do so.
Not sure what the council will say. As the roof is collapsing anyway – it’s only a matter of time before it comes down – so what we’re thinking is actually a better solution as if it’s taken down rather than left to collapse it will look nicer. BUT we will have changed the landscape, which they might not like. They obviously can’t make us repair or replace the roof, and it’s not going to collapse onto the road or public right of way or endanger others, so we’ll just have to see what they say.
One of the challenges Ian is facing is that the house is built on rock – so the ground floor isn’t flat. So he’s made a measuring stick which he uses with a spirit level and laser measure to work out the difference in levels. Then he will draw up the plans in a CAD program so we can quite literally see how the land lies 🙂
