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A foreword: we've tried our best to gather some information on the history of Jameswood. We are not, however, historians, nor did we consult one in making this blog post. As I am not referencing texts, please just take this as an interpretation of the stories we've heard since moving to the area. Jameswood itself does not have a tremendously interesting history. However, Sandbank, the village located alongside Dunoon, where the building is located, has a rich and prolific history. One which makes Jameswood and the rest of the community a special place to live and explore. Where to begin? The land around Jameswood has been inhabited and farmed since the early neolithic period, if not before. In the fields just behind Jameswood, about 50 metres from our backyard, there lies a fascinating set of rocks known as Adam's Grave. The rocks are the remains of a prehistoric chambered alter - a burial chamber which is believed to date from 3500 B.C.E! That's older than the Egyptian empire! Cal loves this spot. It's so special to have such an old piece of history sitting (nearly) in our backyard.  Who knows what the Druids were getting up to here! Now lets skip to the 19th century.... This is where the story of Sandbank begins. A sheltered harbor tucked away upstream from Glasgow and on the other side of the Clyde, this was the perfect place for Lazaretto Point, a quarantine set up on the headland of Sandbank's Holy Loch. Ships were held here for an average of three weeks before they were permitted to enter the port of Glasgow. The unfortunate souls who suffered from diseases such as Leprosy were ferried across the Loch and left to be cared for by the ancient Kilmun church. Later, Sandbank was also used as a dock for the Clachaig gunpowder factory and this is when much of the working village of Sandbank was originally built. As industry quietened on Sandbanks shores, it gave rise to a Victorian holiday destination for those looking to escape the dirty industrial air of Glasgow. Sandbank had also become the birthplace of two famous Yacht builders yards, one of which produced an Americas Cup winner (Robertsons yard.)  Glaswegian holiday makers arrive at Sandbank's Ardnadam Pier on a steam ship This is where the story of Jameswood begins. In 1900, Jameswood Villa was built as three holiday flats. Interestingly, one of the flats was first owned by a Hunter. When we went through the deeds and found this, Cal decided that it was meant to be, and he became more determined than ever to restore this building!  Jameswood Villa in its HayDay. A photo taken in 1910, Jameswood is pictured as the leftmost building, with an beautiful car parked outside. In the 1930's, the building was split into four apartments, and the layout has remained this way since. Jameswood had various owners and occupiers throughout its life, until the 1990's. This included George Matheson, who was evacuated from Dunkirk during World War II, and Bobby Hollywood, who was loved by his Celtics community, and who left us an eclectic and interesting array of books, topics of which included Citizens Rights in Scotland, Churchill, Buddhism and Yoga. We don't know the exact date that the building became uninhabited. The numbers we're told by locals vary between 20-30 years. During the Cold War, the United States army had used Sandbank's Holy Loch as a Naval Base. In 1991, the Americans withdrew their ships from the Holy Loch, and nearly halved the population of the village overnight.  The American Naval base sat in Sandbank's Holy Loch At least one of the buildings owners is known to have gone back to America during this time, another resident of the building had passed away, and a third apartment owner was in his old age. At this time, Jameswood was in need of some heavy maintenance, including a new roof. One of the last remaining residents of the building even moved a bath tub into the middle of the upstairs apartment to prevent water leaking down into their own. Split ownership of the building made the feasibility of carrying out repairs difficult. Compacted by the mass exodus of American troops, the sudden decrease in housing demand meant Jameswood was left to fall into complete disrepair and eventually, all the residents of the building were forced to move out. Since then, ownership of various flats in the building changed hands a number of times - bought and sold at auction by speculative buyers. Unfortunately, with none of the apartments ever being sold at one single time, it was too difficult for restoration work to go ahead, and the building was slowly destroyed by the elements. But luckily, this isn't the end of Jamewood's story! Perhaps by fate, but more likely by dumb luck, Jameswood was accidentally bought by us - a young couple with NO intention of buying a derelict Victorian Villa in the beautiful, historic town of Sandbank. But we are so glad we did.  Thank you again to everyone who has joined us on our journey, as we mark a new chapter in Jameswood's history, by attempting to restore this big, beautiful Victorian Villa.
Written by Claire Segeren, with historical information and narrative provided by Callum Hunter
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Why don't you knock it down and start over? This is a question Cal and I get A LOT. To be honest, it's not a bad question. Even our structural engineer, who has been a fantastic help on the project, recommended we knock Jameswood down - THREE TIMES, in the same report! The Argyll and Bute council have taken the same stance on the place, recommending we demolish in nearly every meeting we have had with them face to face.  Our friend Barry, checking out Jameswood Villa with Cal, for the very first time. What have we Dunoon? So why don't we? I want to start off by saying that we respect the opinions of these professionals. Cal and I don't have previous experience doing up a house. In every task we've done on the house so far, we've relied on the opinions and advice of professionals - whether it was for drainage, stonemasonry or roofing, we try learning from others' experiences, taking their knowledge on board, and using it to do the tasks at hand as properly as we can. There are a long list of reasons for why we didn't consider knocking Jameswood down, and putting a new build in her place. Let's start by addressing the concerns of our structural engineers and the council. It was recommended Jameswood was knocked down, not because it wasn't possible to make the repairs needed to make the building safe for living, but because, based on their knowledge of these types of restorations, it would be more economically viable to put a new build in Jameswood's place.  The property was so overgrown it was hard to see Jameswood from the road. We aren't naive to the fact that this restoration will be costly, but we are also well aware of the fact that this advice was based on the average developer's life circumstances, which are very different to our own. This restoration will either take a LOT of time, or a LOT of money to pay tradesmen to carry out the work. With the amount of physical labour needed to carry out this build, Jameswood would cost way too much to restore if it wasn't a DIY project, and saving the building wouldn't be economically viable. For the average adult, who has the prior responsibilities of a mortgage or rent, a job and possibly even children, putting everything aside to work full-time on restorations is not often an option. Cal and I's life circumstances are much different from the average adult. Before Jameswood, we were quite nomadic - working and skiing in the winters, and saving up for road trips and wild camping throughout Europe and Canada in the summers. We don't have much money, but we have plenty of time to commit to Jameswood. It almost seems like fate that we were brought together. We were in the perfect life-stage to drop everything, move into a tiny caravan on a building site, and dedicate a LOT of time and hard work into a restoration project.
Photos from our Euro roadtrip, in which we wild camped for three months. A photo of our new caravan - very happy to have a clean, dry space to retire to at the end of days on site. Members of the council, as well as my father, both pointed out that even with doing the restoration ourselves, the margins on the project weren't large enough to justify the time it would take - we could quite easily make more money by working. I think this purely economic analysis of our decision overlooks some very important things this opportunity has presented us with. Jameswood gives us a fulfilling goal to work towards. It gives us an incredible experience to challenge ourselves and learn every single day - not just about house building, but about managing and taking responsibility for a team - with up to 10 volunteers at a time helping with the project. It's teaching us incredible problem solving skills, with unexpected challenges facing us every day. And importantly, it's teaching us, as a couple, how to work together as a team.  One of the amazing groups we hosted this summer for an experience exchange. We sheltered and fed our team, taught them new building skills and showed them our favourite spots in the area. From the very start, Cal and I have wanted to make as environmentally responsible decisions as possible for this project. Architectural waste is a HUGELY overlooked aspect of our ever-growing landfill problems. Our society has be designed to disconnect consumers from the life cycle of the products they use. Items we buy are conveniently brought to our doorstep or displayed on shelves at nearby stores. At the end of their life, our waste is collected from our doorstep and taken away. Out of sight. Out of mind. But where are the materials from a full demolition going? When a school in the Dunoon community was being demolished, we investigated. On site, you could see perfectly good timber flooring and joists being torn to shreds by huge machines, and stuck in skips to be taken off to the dump. We acknowledged that a new build could present us with an opportunity to build a very efficient home in its place, but with Jameswood requiring gutting, we were presented with a great opportunity to achieve similar efficiency with an eco-retrofit. Even if we chose eco-friendly materials for a new build, the fact of the matter is that all materials take energy to make and transport. The embodied energy involved in retrofitting this Victorian building is a lot less than would be required for a full rebuild. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We were going to reuse Jameswood. In this case, we felt it was the most environmentally friendly option we had available.  A very happy Cal, checking out Scottish Wood - who supply us with sustainably sourced, locally grown wood for the project. This not for profit organization puts money back into making Scotland's woodlands more sustainable! The final, but equally important reason for restoring Jameswood was because we love the character of the building, and we really feel it would be a shame to take down such a beautiful home. Built in 1900, Jameswood is a lovely example of Victorian architecture. Her beautiful red sandstone face is a piece of Sandbank, as well as South west Scotland's history. The building is in keeping with the surrounding Victorian style architecture that dominates Dunoon, left from it's days as a seaside getaway from the hustle and bustle of life in Glasgow 120 years ago. Although Jameswood isn't a listed building, it stands 2nd in a row of 5 Victorian Red Sandstones. The council had made it clear that if we were to demolish, we would likely have to incorporate the red sandstone and some of the design features of the original building into our plans in order to get planning permission. Our tight budget wouldn't allow us to create the same character and beauty that is offered by Jameswood. Why take down a beautiful building to let a new build stand as a shadow of its former self? We didn't see the point of starting afresh.  Cal and myself in front of Jameswood - our beautiful Victorian Villa. Since we decided to embark on this journey, we haven't worried about whether we should have knocked it down and started over, or cut our loss and sold the building on. Those worries and what-ifs don't feel productive or helpful for the project. Instead, our focus, from the very start, has been on moving forward. We focus, not on the problems that made people overlook this building for development, but on the solutions, that will help us bring the building back to life. So far, we are incredibly happy with our decision to restore. Will we still be so happy about our decision by the end of the project? I guess only time will tell, but until then, we will continue to try to learn and grow from the adventure presented to us. Thank you for following our journey, and for your incredible support along the way. Everyone's support has helped us immensely with our goal of saving Jameswood Villa. If you would like to support the Jameswood restoration project, you can visit our gofundme page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/whathavewedunoon, or you can follow our journey on Facebook or Instagram! Thank you. Sincerely, Cal and Claire Written by Claire Segeren  We just wanted to start off this post by saying THANK YOU to everyone who has donated to our GoFundMe page! You've helped us get a little bit closer to making our dream of restoring Jameswood a reality! As we said before, we will be including the names of everyone who has donated to the project somewhere in our house! If you are interested in supporting the Jameswood Restoration, you can visit gofundme.com/whathavewedunoon We are blown away by the incredibly kind messages of support we receive from all over the world. Thank you SO much. To catch up on the progress we had made before May, you can check out progress report #1 and #2 here! PROGRESS REPORT #3: May - June, 2019 Last time I posted, we had just gotten the hang of putting up scaffolding, and were about to start to making our way around the building with it. But first, we had to move the caravan. It was at the front of the house, which wasn't ideal for traffic noise, privacy and safety (it was sitting in front of our partially collapsed wall!), but it would also get in the way of the scaffolding braces. Our neighbour has a 4 by 4 pickup truck, and he kindly offered to lend a hand. He moved the caravan from our original driveway, around to the new driveway we had recently made for receiving scaffolding.  Our goal was to get the caravan up to the top of the garden. We were hoping to wake up to views of horses grazing in the field behind our house. But the mud was slick, and the 4 by 4 couldn't get the caravan up the hill. We came up with a solution! We tied a block and tackle to a large tree trunk, and, inch by inch, we managed to get the caravan to the top of the garden! (With lots of help from our friend Ben, and our neighbour!)  Now, I'm writing this post from my bed, while listening to birds twitter (instead of trucks roar) and enjoying a sunny view of the beautiful field and hills behind our house! **I realised I don't have a photo of the view on my laptop! I'll post one later today! For now, I guess we'll all just have to imagine it! Once the caravan was out of the way, we managed to get the scaffolding up! It went a fair bit faster than the first side of the house! We now have scaffolding right the way round the building, and were ready to start on the tough stuff!  Getting the scaffolding up with help from our friends Ben and Corina! I'll start by identifying the problems we were trying to tackle: - the roof structure has given way, and was sunk in on itself - the roof pushed out the front sandstone wall. We had partially collapsed portions of the wall to fix - the bay window, having taken a lot of strain when the roof failed, 3 cracked stones that need replacing as well as a pushed out mullion, hanging on by a thread  The weight of the roof was still sitting on the front wall, and in order to make repairs to the sandstone, we would have to lift this load off the wall. Our goal was to, somehow, lift the roof back to its original height, in order to do repairs to the front wall. Cal had a plan. He was going to lift the roof using props - lots of props. (Prop: a metal pole used as temporary support or to keep something in position.) The idea was set up two lines of props along the ground floor, and then another set of props directly above that, on the second floor. We would raise the props, bit by bit, evenly along the top floor, and the weight of the roof would be transferred and supported by the ground - slowly raising the roof.  Some evidence of a bending, sagging roof.   I was a bit dubious about the whole thing, and after doing a concept check online, I could only find examples of this being done to garages and sheds. Not a whole house! But what's the worst that could happen? We decided we'd give it a go. We took all the slates off the roof, to remove as much weight as possible. We had a lot of help from friends for this: Cal and I would scrape off slates, pass them down to friends on the scaffolding, and they would send them down, bucket by bucket, to another friend below. We then replaced the slates with a temporary plastic sheet, and although the roof isn't watertight, it is now leaking far less than it was before!  Enjoying a sunny day in Dunoon as we take slates off the roof Cal set up a string line from one gable end to the other, as a guide to show us how high we would have to lift the roof. 19 cm. That's a lot.  A string line tied from each gable end was strung as a guide. We braced the front wall with scaffolding, fearing it would tumble as soon as the roof's weight was lifted. And then, bit by bit, we started to lift the roof.
 It took a couple days, but we managed to lift it the whole way up with no major setbacks! I was AMAZED. This had seemed like an outlandish idea of Cal's, but he really pulled it off.  Using props to lift the roof back into place - inch by inch  IT'S WORKING! The joists are slowly getting closer and closer to the string line Next, we had to rebuild the compromised sections of front wall. We started by numbering the stones with chalk, and taking lots of pictures, so that we could put the stones back in the correct order.
Then, we carefully took the stones out. (I say carefully, but one section tumbled as we tried taking it down. Luckily, none of the stones were broken!) We cleaned up the wall, and, relaid the stones using a natural hydraulic lime - the same stuff that would have originally been used as mortar for this wall.  I make this whole process sound easy, but in reality, it took a few tries for Cal to get the hang of laying stones. The first section of wall he completed ended up being taken down and redone (twice) after we saw how much better the other sections had turned out! But we got the job done!  Lastly, we had to fix the bay window. This has been a worry of ours since the beginning of the project. When the caravan was out front, we used to wake up to the view of a dilapidated bay window, and wonder how on earth we were going to fix it. We thought we might have to get a stone mason in for this job - but that sounded expensive! We also thought we might have to take the whole bay window down and start again - a job that would be time consuming, involve a LOT of heavy lifting, and we weren't sure we would be able to make it look good in the end by ourselves. We decided instead that we would try removing and replacing the broken stones while keeping the rest of the structure in place. This seemed risky - the stones were near the bottom of the window, and there was a LOT of delicate and expensive red sandstone that could come tumbling down if something went wrong. We were about to play a giant, dangerous and high risk game of Jenga with our house! We did lots of research on what sandstone our building was likely made from, and settled on Locharbriggs Red Sandstone. We measured 3 or 4 times, sent the cut list in, and a few weeks later, we had new pieces to replace our broken stones.  The infamous broken bay window We braced the rest of the Bay Window with scaffolding, strong boys and props, and slowly but surely took the stones out, and managed to fit the new pieces in with a lot of help from our amazing neighbour.
The bay window now looks SPECTACULAR! (In my opinion at least!)  A little hard to see the final effect with the scaffolding up, but we're very relieved to see this Bay Window fixed! I am amazed that we were able to accomplish these tasks. They were some of the most worrisome problems with the building, but we got the job done! In the weeks to come, our goal is to fix the roof's timber structure and re-slate the roof! I'm looking forward to having a wind and watertight structure by the end of the summer, so that we can focus our attention on the timber frame inside the building! Thank you again to everyone who has followed our adventure and for the incredible support you are all sending our way. Sincerely, Claire and Cal We've had a lot of questions from subscribers and followers about how people can support the project. For those of you who would like to, we've set up a gofundme page, so that you can assist us in seeing through our dream of restoring Jameswood! https://uk.gofundme.com/whathavewedunoon Our goal is to carry out the project to a high standard and to do so in an environmentally friendly way - so that Jameswood can last another 130 years and have a low impact on our planet while being here! We hope this page can help us achieve this goal. If you do wish to donate, PLEASE leave your name, or your family's name, so that we can include it somewhere in the house when the project is completed! THANK YOU again, to EVERYONE who has shown us support, as we restore Jameswood Villa! We can not explain to you how much it means to us to have you cheering us on!  It's been nearly four months since our last progress report, and lots has happened since then! When you see Jameswood on a daily basis, it's really easy to forget how far you've come and notice the changes that are slowly happening. When a friend re-visits and exclaims, in shock, that, "the place has electricity!" Or, "this room is cleared out!" You realise, lots has changed since we first started the project! It's important to allow some time for self reflection. We've taken on HUGE project, and looking back at all we've accomplished so far helps motivate us to carry on! RECAP In our last progress report, we had managed to clear the garden - an epic task that required battling through a forest of weeds that had engulfed our property and rescuing trees from the chokehold of ivy and other climbers.
PROGRESS REPORT #2: March - April, 2019 Shortly after my birthday, near the beginning of March, we finally got electricity on site. This was a monumental step for us. Aside from no longer having to live by candle light (a risky way of living in a small caravan), we could now charge our tools on site, instead of down the road in our neighbours shed, which really helped get the project on its way! At this time, we didn't own the whole building (YET!), so, to keep ourselves out of any legal troubles, we weren't working on the actual house, aside from clearing our own flats. This meant we had plenty of time to spend on ground works. Cal spent this time digging out the old, cracked and broken sewage and storm water pipes. We dug these out by hand, but, as it turned out, the pipes were too far gone, so we took them all out and replaced them, like for like, with the hopes of not having to dig them up again in our lifetime! We crushed some of the old pipes, to use as hardcore for the driveway, and kept others to reuse as planters in the garden.
During this time, we also dug some ditches closer to the house's foundations, as extra protection from groundwater erosion and dampness. I became the French Drain Queen - filling in all of these ditches with landscaping fabric, washed aggregate and perforated pipe, to divert water to flow away from the house.  Making my first French Drain! In the meantime, negotiations were going ahead with the couple that owned the final apartment in Jameswood. By the end of March, we were proud owners of the whole building, and we could start thinking about building works! I wrote a blog post around this time, explaining how we acquired the whole house. You can check it out here! Once we owned the whole building, we spent the first few weeks clearing the final unit out - which we hadn't touched until we owned. The upstairs of Jameswood is now completely cleared back to the studs and ready for works!  I also set my eyes on finding scaffolding! We managed to get a really good price on a joblot, the only problem being that it was all in Bristol! We needed to find a way to get all our scaffolding from the South of England, up to Scotland. Our first thought was to hire a 7.5 ton truck, and drive the scaff up, with the help of Cal's dad. We soon realised that this was going to be a very time consuming option - and after a flight down to Bristol, multiple days away from the project, fuel and rental costs, it was not going to be economical. I started posting ads on haulage websites, and just as we were starting to lose hope, I got a call from Alan - a WONDERFUL guy, who was about to drive an empty truck up from Bristol to the Glasgow area. He picked up our load the day after our first call, and the next day, we had our scaffolding delivered to our door! This was really one of those happy occasions when life works out and everything fell into place! Now we had our scaffolding. Next, we had to learn how to put up scaffolding!  I hadn't known this, but scaffolding is a trade of its own. We had considered getting quick-stage scaffolding, which is much easier to put up, but we chose to get traditional tube and fitting scaff so that we could use it to brace the partially collapsed bay window and front wall while building. Cal read a scaffolding book that our neighbour had lent to us, watched numerous Youtube videos, and took on some very helpful advice we received from an Instagram follower (thank you!) We managed to get the scaffolding up on the gable end, and safely take the chimney down with a pulley and a bucket. This had become priority after chimney bricks had started falling into the house! We needed to take it down before it came down on someone's head!  With the chimney down, and a new hole in our gable end wall, we were finally ready to start work on the house! For some reason, we were both very nervous about this. I guess it felt like we were finally diving right in. We had chosen to restore Jameswood, and had been planning for months, but now it was actually happening. We were actually doing this! Luckily, Cal has worked with a VERY talented and experienced stone mason, who was happy to give us some advice! We've decided to use traditional natural hydraulic lime for repairs to the house. This will help newly repaired patches of wall move and breath in the same way as the rest of the house.  With the repair on the gable end done, we've lowered the scaffolding on that face of the building (for now, we only needed it at full height for this repair), and we're in the process of extending the scaffolding around the rest of the building. Next up: were going to be getting into the scary stuff! Fixing the front wall and bay window, and repairing the roof! I'm sure it will make for a very eventful summer! So far, we are absolutely loving our adventure. It feels so good to wake up every morning, and work hard at making something for ourselves, bring a beautiful, old building back to life, and learn new skills along the way - it's incredibly rewarding and empowering. Thank you so much, to everyone, for your continued support. We have received incredibly kind, positive and supportive words from people from all over the world! It really helps us keep going, especially on days when we feel overwhelmed by the tasks at hand! I haven't had a chance to individually thank everyone for this - but please know it is because we have a very needy building to take care of - not because we don't appreciate it! Thank you again, Sincerely, Claire and Cal  Today, I'm having a rest. I'm doing nothing. Well.. after waking up at 7 a.m. to unload scaffolding off a truck for 3 hours. After that. Then, I'm doing nothing. Cal and I realised we haven't been taking enough breaks. We typically work on the house 6 days a week, and take one day off for ourselves. Our day off usually involves hiking up one of the various mountains in the area - a peak a week - is what we call it.  A shot from our most recent "Peak-a-week" Even on our days off, we usually end up doing some work on the house. It's just hard to sit down and do nothing when there's so much to do on the place! We're doing a good job at getting enough sleep, eating well and (naturally) getting plenty of exercise, but a key ingredient we've missed out on is rest. Cal is usually a morning person. Staying in bed until 8 is considered a lie-in for him. It seems he has boundless amounts of energy, and he usually greets the day with a giddy smile and a bounce in his step. Seeing Cal accidentally sleep-in past 9 was a very good indication that we haven't been giving ourselves enough downtime! Our current workload is unsustainable. Something needs to change. We have to take self care seriously while working on this project, so that we don't burn out, and so that our relationship survives this adventure (an unrested Cal and Claire can lead to some very grumpy behavior)! So that's why, this weekend, we're taking the WHOLE weekend off. Tools down. Feet up!
We hope everyone has a happy Easter! We'll be enjoying ours while firmly planted in some garden chairs, soaking up the Scottish Sun (Yes! It's been incredibly sunny here lately! We're loving it!). Thank you SO, SO much for the ongoing support! Sincerely, Cal and Claire There's something I've been hiding from my readers since we first started this Blog in January. Jameswood Villa is a building made up of four apartments. When Cal first went to auction, he only bought ONE apartment in the building. We decided not to post too much about this because we were in the process of negotiating to buy the other units. Ironically, one of the first times we made it clear we hadn't bought the whole building was in our interview with the Scottish reporter who "broke" our story - but she didn't mention it in her final article! This week was momentous for us, because we finally own Jameswood... ALL OF IT! And now I can finally tell you all about it. The fact that Jameswood was split up into seperate apartments is likely a major contributing factor to the building falling into disrepair and becoming derelict over the years. Owners hadn't agreed to make the repairs needed to stop closing orders being put on the building, and apartments weren't sold together, or at the same time - putting off investors. The fact that the building was split into apartments is ALSO the reason for Cal's (now famous) auction mix up. You can read more about how we accidentally bought Jameswood here. Three of Jameswoods apartments were up for sale on the day of the auction. The first was sold to another bidder, the second was sold to Cal and the third had no bidders. Later that day, the Auction house called Cal and asked if we'd like to buy the third apartment that had been up for sale that day. We hadn't yet seen the place, but we knew that if the last apartment had to go to auction again, we could be waiting months before there was another investor on board for common works to commence. We saw the unsold third apartment as a loose end that needed to be tied up - so we agreed to buy the flat for a discounted auction fee. Now we owned half the building. And this is when Cal first went and saw Jameswood. As most of you could probably guess, seeing the building for the first time was a bit of a shock. It was definitely more than the "upgrades throughout" that we were expecting from the auction description. Luckily, our good friends Barry and Dexter were there to calm Cal when he first saw the place. Together they did an initial survey of the building, and started to uncover the problems that would have to be solved to repair the building.  Cal's face when he first saw Jameswood. The bones of the building were good. Lots of work.. but we could come out alright if we carried on with the project. The other guy who bought an apartment at auction didn't feel the same way. On his first site visit, he called us and offered us his unit. At this stage, we genuinely didn't know if we could afford to take on the whole building by ourselves. We had been hoping another builder would work on the project with us, to subsidise some of the common repairs. Luckily, taking our time to decide whether we wanted the third place worked in our favour. The guy decided to sell the unit to us at a loss. Now we were just missing the fourth unit. It was the smallest apartment in the building - only two rooms and a tiny bathroom, but we would either need the owner on board for common repairs, or we'd have to buy the unit so we could start work on the place. The problem is, no one knew who owned this apartment! The local pub became our investigating spot, and over the course of a few weeks, we had heard rumour after rumour about who owned the property. The council were able to contact the owner, but the overseas landlord wouldn't speak with us, and instead, they put the apartment up for auction. The auction house called us, and offered to sell the apartment prior to auction. They were asking for more than any other unit had sold for. And it was the smallest one. To take the project forward, we needed that unit. But we're not the biggest fans of the way the auction house conducts their business, and we didn't want to give them any more of our money - especially to overpay for an undersized, derelict apartment. So we held out, and eventually the place was sold at auction - to another set of buyers who hadn't seen the place - for way too much. To anyone planning on going to auction: please, please do a site visit before purchasing! The new owners were quite shocked when they saw the state of the place they had just bought, not on a site visit, but on our blog! They contacted us once they had seen it - and we found a price somewhere in the middle - a little bit more than we had wanted to spend, but a lot less than they had paid for it at auction. This Friday, we finally became the proud owners of Jameswood Villa - every square inch of it. Getting here wasn't easy. It was a nerve racking experience, but we're incredibly happy with the outcome. An unknown owner made pursuing this project very risky - but it's also what put off so many buyers in the past, and pushed the price of the property down to where we could afford it! With great risk often comes great reward. - Of course, we have a long way to go before we can claim any reward from Jameswood, but at least we've made it past a big and stressful hurdle!  There's Jameswood! Thank you so much to everyone, for your amazing support. We are blown away by the kindness we have received from so many people, and we are very excited to share our story with you all. Sincerely, Claire and Cal Wow! What a whirlwind. About a week ago, Cal and I thought we were going to be in one Scottish newspaper, having done an interview with a reporter after they had seen our story in Dunoon's local paper. As the day progressed, we were shocked to find the story spreading, first to other UK papers, and then across the globe. We were soon getting messages from people in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, Russia and Thailand. At first it was a bit overwhelming. It's a very weird feeling, knowing so many people know who you are, and know about your little mix up at an auction. The stories seemed to get more and more sensationalized as the day progressed, and unlike here on my blog, we had absolutely no control over how things were told by all these news sources. But what came from having our story spread all over the internet was amazing. Cal and I are incredibly moved by the enormous amount of support, the incredibly kind words of encouragement and the general positivity we have been sent by so many people. From all over the world, people have taken some time out of their days to follow our Facebook, Instagram and Blog, and to email, message and comment us such lovely well wishes. The scale of this project can feel very daunting at times. It is so nice to know that so many people from all over the world are supporting us as we take this on. We would just like to say a heartfelt and sincere thank you to everyone who has sent us encouragement. I will be posting a new update very shortly, but for now, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Sincerely, Cal and Claire A few of the articles we've found about our story.
While taking on a restoration project of this scale, we inevitably find ourselves hitting road bumps at nearly every step of the way. Finding a new problem seems to be a daily occurrence here at Jameswood. To keep our spirits high, and stay motivated, Cal and I like to reflect on some of the small victories we've had, instead of the huge hurdles ahead of us.  Dexter: "Oh no! What have they Dunoon?" So here they are... Finding the elusive electricity wire The first, and arguably, the best win we've had in the past week has been finding the cut electricity wire, that used to connect the property to mains electricity. Soon, I'll post a blog explaining just how hard it was to find this wire, but for now, just know that we have been searching for this wire since November! Hopes of finding the wire were starting to dwindle in the past few weeks, and the gravity of the situation was starting to become clear. If we couldn't find the wire, we were going to have to pay a hefty fee to have the pavement dug up, to be reconnected to the main line. We were told to look for a little black box, where the cut end of the wire would be sheltered, about 500mm deep in the ground. We were also given a map of the property that indicated (inaccurately) where the wire was supposed to have run. This week, while digging out drainage pipes at the front of the property, Cal stumbled upon a cut end of a thin, black wire, wrapped tightly in black electrical tape, lying in the ground, with no "black box" in sight. It was the live electricity wire and we are so relieved to have found it! (And very excited to have electricity on site in the near future!)  A needle in the hay stack? Nope. Just a wire in the mud. Getting a driveway laid One of the first things Cal did when he first got to Jameswood was clear a Ford Transit-sized space at the front of our property, to facilitate access to our building site. Now, Transits are incredibly helpful to have when restoring a home, and I'd recommend them to anyone looking to take on a project like ours. However, I would not recommend them to those of you looking for an off-road vehicle.. Our van has gotten stuck in the slick, deep mud on our "driveway" too many times to count. And with such a heavy vehicle, pushing it out (with the help of our friendly, but exasperated neighbours) is not an easy task. For a while, we would lay old plaster out on the driveway while we were clearing the house. The plaster was a great temporary driveway, but it was a bit too water soluble for the wet conditions we get here in Scotland. Once it had rained, the plaster just added more gunk to the the messy mud our van was getting stuck in. This week, we were excited to receive our first on-site delivery: 10 tonnes of aggregate, about a quarter of which has gone into making a nice, new, sturdy resting spot for our van!
Our New Home - A Caravan! As much as I love #vanlifeYoutube videos, trying to live in our Ford Transit, while also using it as a working van, has not been ideal. This week, we've found a new home! We are now living in a little, 1990's, two berth caravan. It's a dry, clean space to retire to at the end of the day (and has way better closet space compared to the Transit.) I am absolutely thrilled!  So, as frustrating as this house can be at times, Jameswood is helping Cal and I remember to appreciate the little things in life, and focus on our small victories, instead of the constant problems we encounter. I hope we have many more little victories for me to write about soon! Claire Thinking of moving to Argyll and Bute? The council has a great new website with useful information to help facilitate your move. They recently posted a lovely story about our move! You can check it out here https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/abplace2b/welcoming  |
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