One of my lockdown projects was cleaning up an old range we found in the house. This blog post has been in Drafts ever since.
When we bought the house about 16 years ago. We bought it from an old couple who had moved into a home (we never met them). They had bought the cottage in 1933 and lived there ever since. They were 102 and 98 yrs old.
When they bought the cottage they renovated it. Removing the thatch and adding an extra floor.
We knew it was an old cottage, however, we assumed (and the survey suggested this too) that all the old features had been “modernised” and removed.
Here’s how the cottage looked originally (around the 1890s).
Shortly after the “modernisation” in the 1960s (photo taken 1970).
Here’s how it looked when we purchased it 18 years or so ago.
..and here’s how it looks now. Photo just taken after I’d spent three months putting eight coats of limewash on the lime render.
But when we started renovating the cottage we found lots of old original features that had had just been covered up. Two lovely features that we discovered are an inglenook fireplace and our little coal burning range in the kitchen. Both were completely hidden before we purchased and it was only when we started ripping down fibreboard covered walls that we discovered both.
Just after I’d started ripping of the fibreboard around the tiled fireplace, and I discovered the oak bressumer and the inglenook fireplace.
After
The kitchen looked like this when we bought it:
(The water tank is where that little range is now)
When I removed the water tank and associated crap. I found an old range. Seemingly destroyed with all the doors missing.
But when I cleared all the rubble away I found all the missing bits.
A crappy brick wall was removed, cement render removed and repointed in lime and sand.
I put a wine rack on top of it, meaning to go back and clean it up. I’ve only just done so.
Incidentally the 85 year old son of the owners visited here 8 years ago. He grew up in this house and he has never seen that range.
There is still burnt coal in the range, but the chimney above is missing. It looks to have been torn down when they reroofed it many years ago.
