January Monthly Update
The very first few days of January were picked up in the December update, so this post continues from January 4th onwards. This post will fill up, as is normal! You can skip ahead to the different weeks as they’re added by clicking the links below:
January Week 1:
Water & Winter
Facebook memories shared that it was this week last year that the snow came. The same week saw the farm frozen, no water for humans or animals, and huge difficulties feeding everyone and keeping the site running. This is important to know, because it gave us a to-do list to prevent it from happening in the future.
However, we hadn’t dug in all the temporary water pipes in 2025, because they were always supposed to be temporary. When the mains water connection arrived, we could then route the pipework in the best way possible, depending on the direction it came into the site, rather than connecting it to loop in inefficient ways all over the place. With no water connection in place throughout the year, the pipes remained where they were.
That meant that in November’s cold snap (-10c), we froze up. In this week’s cold snap, which is on day 8 and counting, the exact same thing happened again. Whilst freezing isn’t the end of the world, and we’re kind of used to it now, it is incredibly inconvenient. Entire days are spent re-piping, defrosting or relaying water everywhere, and repairing burst sections too. Ben handled the cows, using sections of the horses’ spring pump-fed systems to ensure they were watered, but we had the houses to manage, which was a full-time job for Dan.
After 5 hours spent defrosting a section of dug in pipe (1ft of frozen ground and no digger, sadly), the water that finally ran through came straight back out in a split. It’s this kind of demoralising, slow, cold and repetitive work that we know we’ll be up against every time the temperatures drop below -4c.
On Monday morning, I left the farmhouse and heard a spraying sound. Water was launching into the air out of the back of the old biomass boiler (that was supposed to be disconnected) and turning the drive into an ever-growing ice rink. Easy fix, but the connection there is now broken. Dan took Ren (the Malinois) to her 6-monthly stem cell check at Melrose on Tuesday, and whilst he was away, I lost the remaining water in the farmhouse. Heading to investigate, the water exiting the porch to head down to the cottage was flowing out of a cracked joint, joining the driveway ice rink created the day before with gusto.
That’s everyday stuff when you have your own water pipes to look after, and it’s ok, but it is frustrating because we should have a mains connection by now, it should all be underground (deeper than 1ft), and it should all just “work”. Sadly, that’s not our reality so the frustration is real right now.
The troughs were frozen, the ground oddly mixed, and the horses decided this was the week that they’d plough through every line of fencing in the field. For fun 🤦♀️
Fencing and water were on our to-do list, so the updates for house progress are few and far between. At the time of writing on Saturday, we’ve lost 3.5 productive days, but at least we do have working water in both properties and on the farm. It’s just the wait for a thaw to get things back to normal now.
With the scene set and recorded for us to look back on and wince in the future, it’s time to look inside at what DID happen this week!
The Kitchen
The farmhouse kitchen was the only source of water, cold and hot, for humans and dogs for almost all of the past 8 days, so it was a working kitchen rather than a worked-on kitchen, but Dan did do as promised and added the board to the front of the fireplace there.
Dan did circle back later in the week to put another layer over the surround. We’re not going to be adding a mantel here; the hearth is HUGE as it is, so we thought we’d make a little more of a feature out of it by stepping it out a tiny bit more into the room.
The fire has been lit daily, and it is genuinely one of the best things we’ve done for the house - it’s so cosy in this room now, and I can’t wait to see it neat and tidy!
#trusttheprocess
The Bathroom
The upstairs bathroom, if you remember from December’s update, was just insulated on one wall and the ceiling, with the window wall framed out.
This week, Dan wanted to at least get it all boarded. So off he went! Stage one was insulation into the framing, then taping the joints. Everything was cut in bedroom 2, then popped into place and taped up:
Dan did the wall boarding himself, because I was on calls for most of the week too, which he cut in our old master bedroom and popped up until the only bit left to do was the ceiling:
With me off my last Friday call, we commenced around 3pm on project ceiling. As a short person, it’s hard to help with boards above your head but thanks to some carefully placed steps, we managed to get this zone complete before 5:30pm.
The insulation in this section is already noticeable, with nowhere near the same internal temperatures as we had last year, even with the holes to the outside for the extractor and the waste pipes. For those who are just joining us, this section was dead on arrival with part of the roof missing, but the zone of the wider building is a “repair and make good” rather than a complete renovation. Therefore, anything that can be kept is kept, but extra insulation, if it can be added whilst doing repairs, is a bonus.
‘Last week to this week’ for this room is therefore sitting here:
The only other thing to note is that, given zero water, we plumbed in our old dishwasher that we brought up from Yorkshire. It was working (ish) before we moved, but we’ve left it in storage since then, as we have had no need for it.
We don’t know how old it truly is, because we inherited it from our old house’s previous owners, so it dates back to before 2019 at least. Sadly, after running two cycles perfectly fine, it then started to burn itself. Another white good unit bites the dust!
Thankfully, Curry’s had a deal on so we scooped up a new Kenwood and plumbed it in last night to run a very, very, very full load.
It all came out sparkling, and that made our week complete.
Next week I fly down to London to work and return the following Monday, so the next weekly update will be delayed until my arrival back at the farm. Dan will be flying solo for this week, including doing all animal husbandry alongside renovation work and helping with the team whilst I’m away from the office.
Hopefully, he’ll get some progress footage, and the next update will be fun for both you and me!
January Week 2 & 3:
Week 2 is a mystery to both you and me, as neither of us were present!
If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll know that I flew out on the Monday and returned pretty much exactly 7 days later, right at the start of Week 3 in January. Whilst away, we figured we could share a little bit about our lives and how we share responsibilities on stories. You can watch that back here.
Dan got so fixated on looking after animals and reorganising water after the big freeze that progress in the farmhouse ground to a near halt.
Everyone was kept in absolutely excellent health, especially the dogs who got to run with Dan for a couple of hours each day now that he’s training for a coast-to-coast later this year. Ren, Lemon & Bryt all run in harness, so they had a blast! Zest & Alf enjoyed some long walks and the cats followed for a few of them too!
In London, I didn’t stop. It was an incredible week at the annual Society of Photographers convention, where I’m normally booked to judge the international print competition for two days, teach for two days, and work with our brand partners too.
I added an extra day this year to pick up some photoshoots in the capital, and also spent an evening with friends and students at the awards ceremony.
Our company won a major award this year, taking home Best Professional Training in the trade awards - I am so proud of our students and us for the successes!
All was not lost at home, however, as a few things DID happen, and all 3 of them are worth sharing…
The Bathroom(s)
Last time we left off with the plasterboard up. Dan picked up with a little bit more prep after an old skim flaked off the top of a wall that we were going to leave as is. Dan started chipping it off, and it’s now left ready for the next stage.
Then it was time to plaster! I have numerous stills from the timelapse Dan set up. They cover multiple days, and of course, taping and beading were already complete prior:
After a few days of drying, the bathroom upstairs looked like this:
It wasn’t just the upstairs though. Whilst I was away, Dan also began prep downstairs. Immediately underneath the upstairs bathroom is a downstairs equivalent that’s had stone walls since March 2024. Before that, the walls were absolutely soaking, so their swift removal was important but since then it’s just been sat waiting. That’s partly because we need to move some pipes between the floors and there is no ceiling downstairs, giving us very easy access into there!
This week Dan began the tedious process of removing all the old nails on the studwork that sits off the stone. We will be retaining the existing studwork (unless something changes) and boarding over it for a quick refresh here too.
For both bathrooms, I ordered and received the new extractor fans and a light fitting for downstairs. Upstairs is still TBC!
Lights
Only one set of lights went up, but they are the most important.
Remember when I was sick at the start of the year? Dan banished me to the farmhouse to remove this coughing, spluttering, snotty mess of a human from the cottage, and although livable for sure, the lack of bedside lighting in the temporary bedroom wasn’t ideal. Especially considering the light fixtures were in the same room, albeit still wrapped up in their delivery boxes.
Whilst I was away, Dan put up the first of the bedside lights. There are switches at each side of the bed that also control the main light for boujie convenience.
The light shades are just the default ones that come with the lights - they will be changed when the end scheme for this room is prepared.
(Remember, that is a super-king solid oak bedframe - the lighting, switches and sockets are designed for king-sized beds with tall headboards, hence the tight squeeze here!)
Kitchen
The kitchen got 8 of my hours this week whilst Dan was away with friends. I need to talk about my farm hours, though, because it is relevant for the future months…
I (Jess) have a goal for 2026 to take one day off per week, because 2025 contained a grand total of 4 days off (excluding Christmas to New Year, which started this idea). Yep, you read that right, FOUR days off of my day job out of 360; not holidays, not annual leave, legit days off - like a weekend day for normal working folk.
The result of that was a heavy burnout from April through August, which got dark, and then surviving not thriving the rest of the time. I can’t help others if I have nothing left to give, so this year, things will be different.
The hard part is that I don’t do days off. I can’t do nothing, “relax”, or just chill out - it’s very uncomfortable and I’d just rather not. Therefore, these days off are permitted to be used for doing things that I enjoy but are not connected to photography, teaching, or our businesses in any way. Therefore, pet projects count!
Before Velia foals, I have a number of things on my ‘pet projects list’ and 2 of them are inside the farmhouse. The first is to get the kitchen prepped for Dan to take over, and that’s where we are today…
Alright, so context provided, I had a day off, which meant I could do some work… on the kitchen! 🥳
I was keen to tackle two parts to get it Dan-ready; the first was the flaking ceiling. To correct flaky paint, you first need to make the problem a bit worse by scraping any and all loose paint off. This makes the patches much larger, but with only bonded paint left up there, you can build back to smooth afterwards.
I masked up because I’m a bit iffy with flaky stuff getting into my airways, but it doesn’t half get hot under there! I made everything worse and better at the same time so it is ready for sanding, which I am not allowed to do (again, health). The next stage will be Peel Stop, then filler (and maybe tape, depending on the cracks), then sanding, then paint.
The other task I wanted to tackle was the remaining wallpaper. I did start by clearing all the kitchen worktops, removing all loose paper without the use of water, and scraping for a couple of hours. All of this was without evidence. I reprimanded myself and went to find a camera before continuing.
This was some stubborn stuff, but on arguably the oldest wall on the entire site (300+ year old wall here), it was good to get this back to a fairly solid base with the help of a soak in soap whilst I had a brew. I repeatedly lead tested the surfaces as they came off because there is some deep greens and blues, which can be old lead-based paint. Thankfully, all clear on these layers.
It’s kinda cool to see the old stair rail/dado line on top of the green area (see below), from before the middle section was added with its stairs (1800s - remember the bridge?!), and the newest section with the stairs that still exist now.
Does it look clear of all coatings? Nope. Is it actually all a solid base and ready to go? Yes!
This section near the door, above the worktop, and above/next to the window can now be sanded and prepped for painting. It’s over to Dan in here because I’ve done all I can until the cupboard is repaired (far right, last image above) 💪
Hardware
My new favourite thing is hardware, clearly. Alongside getting a couple more knobs for actual real doors along with their latches, I also ordered a matching pair of cupboard pulls.
I’m absolutely obsessed with these handles from Alexander & Wilks.
We went backwards and forwards on what to do for the utilities/airing cupboard doors upstairs because they’re narrow double doors. We ended up going with plain, solid doors to differentiate the cupboard from the bedrooms (these have also arrived), and then decided on pull handles instead of knobs to prevent cardigan grabs on the walk past. Do you like them?
We absolutely love them!
January Week 4:
Another late update because, yet again, I’ve been away with work. This time, I headed to Northern Ireland for the weekend, hence why I missed my usual weekend update, but that weekend also captured the transition into February, so technically, we can round this one up in one fell swoop!
We’ll start by finishing up the bathroom plastering upstairs, amongst other things, which Dan tackled this week.
In here, he also prepped for reworking the waste pipes which need to be sorted ASAP.
The old cast iron poop chute went under the floorboards and inside the house across three rooms and then ejected down underground towards the septic tank out the back of the pantry. The shower and sink drain had a matching but smaller cast-iron pipe following the same path. However, both pipes were well past their sell-by date and contained a lot of crystallised “deposits”, rust and more. We’d already cut off the poop chute & water waste to allow the new boiler to connect through the same handy opening in the 2ft stone walls, so it was time to tackle this re-piping.
Dan drilled a new hole in the outside wall from the new toilet position, prepared supplies for the new waste exit, and connected up the sink & bath to their new lines which will be hidden with boxing until this entire section of the house is stripped and rebuilt in a few years time. The waste is going out the wall immediately and connecting to the downstairs toilet waste that we discussed in summer 2025, when we re-worked the external pipes underground to stop them going uphill (yep, they did go uphill 🤦♀️).
With the plastering also complete, this room is now drying for a couple more days before we can paint, and then reconnect all the wastes for a working bathroom. I also raided the store room for the “accidentally too-small radiator” that I purchased back in 2024 for the cottage bathroom, and it’s the perfect size to replace the rusty towel rail in this room too.
The aim here is to keep costs down and reuse as much as we can, and we’re well on the way to having this room functional.
It doesn’t look great yet, but I promise she’s not far off:
Next up was the big ceiling in the old master bedroom. This has been insulated and boarded since October/November, but not yet plastered. It was a BIG job for Dan and one that got his shoulders aching like nothing else, but with just some tiny bits near the window left to tackle, this room will be back to being a bedroom in no time too:
Next up was the lights. Dan has finally made my life complete by popping up some of the new light fixtures.
I still need to get some shades instead of using the included ones (or none, as is the case for the main bedroom pendants), and the bulbs are not yet fully balanced, but I’m very happy that we have almost all of them up. Just a couple of down lights left, a flush mount, and a wall light for the middle section and then this area is all set.
There’s a lot of glass and some of it is very modern, so I might move a few bits in the coming months. The office is on brand so far though, and that’s the most important part for me personally. When we get the bulbs balanced, the windows dressed, floors down, furniture in and use the spaces, they’ll all tie together like a perfectly baked cake.
#trusttheprocess ❤️
Dan now has man flu, and he absolutely has to get the VAT return sorted for the accountant, so he’s going to get even less done this week. We also have friends visiting, so a pause in the farmhouse for two days there too. Fingers crossed we can plough through February like a couple possessed.
See you next time!