How we found this place and whatever made us think we could do it?

Bob and I have known each other for about 12 years (we used to work together), we've been 'together' for 9 years and been married for 5 years.  We used to chat at work about building houses in woods, living slightly apart from the rat race, etc and when (a year into our 'together' stage) work announced large-scale redundancies and asked for volunteers we both jumped at the chance.  It took us longer to decide between red or white wine with dinner than it did to decide whether to jump ship or not.  Our plan then began to take shape.

My two children (Laura and Ben) were then at secondary school and having dragged them through a particularly messy divorce I didn't want to disturb the stability they had at school.  So while they finished school, Bob took the opportunity to do a college course on cabinet making and then build up a small business making windsor chairs (the only furniture that would fit in the shed in the garden we called a workshop).  We had lots of weekends away exploring the different areas of the country trying to decide where we wanted to live. 

We lived in Northamptonshire where all the renovation projects had already been 'done' and where there are a lot of dormitory villages.  Our criteria for where to live were fairly simple:

• The sky must be black at night (not orangey brown with light pollution)
• Pub in walking distance
• Not a commuter area
• Table should fit in the kitchen

So, we eventually narrowed it down to Shropshire/Herefordshire.  Herefordshire was too expensive, but we loved South Shropshire and spent many weekends around Bishops Castle and Clun.  We then had the dilemma of 'how do you know which particular village is good to live in if you haven't actually lived in the area full-time?'.  So our cunning plan (and at the time quite do-able plan given the bouyant housing market) was to buy a small house to do up and sell which would give us the chance to get to know the area and learn a bit about renovating.  Then we'd be ready for the big one.

We found just such a property while Ben was sitting his A Levels and had our offer accepted . . . and that's when it started to go horribly wrong!  As we hammered in the For Sale sign on our house, the property market began to crash.  Wrong choice of estate agent meant we didn't even manage to get many viewings before it really got bad.  Negotiations on the one we were buying continued to drag on, but after 7 months of trying to sort out access rights, we finally had to pull the plug. Dropped the price on our house and held open days, etc without any luck.  Found another little house to do up, offer accepted, but again problems over legal technicalities meant that after another 6 months we gave up on that one and still no buyer for ours.  Time for a bit of a re-think.  Buying a house to do up and sell no longer seemed like a sensible thing to do - we could be stuck in it for years before the market picked up and, by now, house prices in South Shropshire had gone way beyond our reach!  So our search moved to North Shropshire which doesn't have the Ludlow-influenced house prices and we decided to look for a house we would actually want to live in.

Now during all that time we had, in our heads, renovated those two houses.  We'd worked out how we'd do it and overcome all the problems . . . in our heads.  So, when we found this cottage, with holes in the roof, no upstairs floor, crumbling walls and trees growing in it, we felt like experienced renovators and felt sure we could tackle it.  When I think back, I can't believe we actually went ahead - there's no way we'd have taken it on at the beginning of our search.   Being right next to a working quarry was a big downside and we dismissed it because of that, but then Bob looked into it and found the quarry had won awards for its work to reinstate the disused parts and that there were rare butterflies, orchids, etc.  You know people always say you just know when something's right and it has nothing to do with reason and logic - well that's just how it was (I always thought that was a load of old twaddle and you should do your research, etc).  So, even though it was in an area we didn't really know and without checking out where the nearest pub was or what it was like or what colour the sky was at night, we made an offer.  That was accepted and then a few weeks later we sold our house (way below our original price, but we were just glad to finally be getting on with our plan - it's only money after all!).

You'll be pleased to know that the sky is very dark at night with loads of stars, there is a pub about a mile away which does good, cheap pub food and good beer, the table will fit in the kitchen, the people who live around here also work around here and the countryside is just lovely.  Phew, we got away with it!