I Know What We Did This Winter

We had a great season in 2016: the seemingly never-ending flow of happy (though sometimes slightly weary) guests kept us busy and out of trouble until the end of October. By autumn we were full of their stories, brightened up by their energy and had plenty of ideas that we wanted to put into action. So when the end of October rolled in, we brushed the dust off our tools and pulled on our overalls – it was time to get dirty and get on with renovating the second floor of New Ing Lodge.

We had plenty of fun tearing down wallpaper, knocking down walls, discovering old hidden timber beams above the doors and windows and covering every possible surface of the house with plaster dust. There were times when some of us were starting to feel as if this chaos and mess we had created was never going turn into a finished and polished end product. In some early mornings you could find us zoned out with a brush in our hands literally watching the paint dry.

But you know what? We got there! After really busy three weeks at the end of October and beginning of November, we had built three new bathrooms, a whole new double en-suite bedroom where our little dorm kitchen used to be and turned one of the dorm rooms into a comfortable triple en-suite with a king size and a single bed. Two bunk beds were moved into a twin room and just like that, we had a funky new dorm room. We must admit, after keeping our heads down (and our eyes covered against splashes of paint), we were slightly awestruck by what we had achieved with the great help of our friends.

As soon as we had chased down every last bit of dust and got the last stains of paint off our hands, it was time to start again in December. This time we attacked our 8-bedded dorm room. First, we moved another two bunk beds into the other twin room and now we had two really nice dorm rooms waiting for our hostel guests. Two weeks later, we had again built a new bathroom and the best view from the house had at last received a bedroom worthy of it – a spacious family room with a king size and two single beds.

Our endless gratitude for these busy weeks go out to Nick and Rob, who somehow managed to work to our crazy schedule; to Richy, who found a previously unknown talent for grouting and siliconing showers; to Audrey, whose stitch in time saved our sanity and to everyone else who helped, especially morally!

The dream team: Rob, Nick and Richy

We took a few deep breaths over the holidays and got our heads straight after inhaling all those paint fumes. In February, however, 20 tonnes of gravel landed on our front step (almost literally) and with the help of Luke and Archie      from Wren Fencing & Landscaping (when they could fit it into their meticulous schedule of tea breaks) we spread it around at the back of New Ing Lodge as well as laid down some “stepping stones” to hop on. Willow was cut and replanted creating a fence to separate the top of the field from our back garden. We’ve already had our mowers on it, so it is all looking neat and ready for our guests.

We are now excited to show off all our hard work to a new season’s worth of guests and look forward to hearing from you all what you think about the changes to the house!