Your house and garden...before and after.

@Victoria' lovely photos have prompted me into rummaging through the dusty photo albums of yesteryear.
I though it might make not only an interesting thread that we can all add an input too but also might inspire new gardeners that find themselves faced with some similar daunting challenges.

Please share your pics and memories with us. Thank you.



1982....The lane was then a notorious rat run linking 2 popular areas and it definitely wasn't constructed for heavy traffic!!

Our house then.. an old 3 bedroomed farm workers cottage.


Since then we have carried out 2 lots of fairly major building works .The first was in 1983, a single story extension....horrid memories resulting in taking ( or trying to) the builder to court...no photos...or very, very few indeed!
The 2nd double story extension was started in 1989 and was twice the size of the original house. We had planned to turn the front of the house away from the busy lane and add on a linked garage so that it would make it much safer to come in and out with the car especially as we now had 3 very precious little people in tow! At the start of the building our lane was made a non through road so now we only had the milk lorry passing by to collect from the farm ( only 6 properties along the whole lane ) .This now meant a quick change of plan and what was going to be the garage now was becoming our big family sitting room, the garage was now sent back to the bottom of the garden where the old original one use to be.

New and final extension shortly after completion...which took a good few years as we had lost trust in builders so hubs and a young builder who had just gone self employed did the work at weekends.
Now with 6 bedrooms



And now today.


This shot was taken of the same aspect. With the old bathroom ( you had to keep the curtains closed as the windows were of clear glass and the milkman delivered to the kitchen door!!) and old side kitchen.

More views of the old and new .

Old front door - as in first pic


Now


And a few more.


The window to the left of this side door was where the old original front door was. The door in this pic was part of the 1st extension and then led into a hallway but now is the side kitchen door. We kept it because it overlooks the lane and we didn't want people looking in.

Old back view



Now



That's about it with the house.....garden will follow soon!!!!!

 

An amazing and impressive change. I will come back to this with a copy and paste.

 

Upsydaisy look very good, it doesn’t look like the same house

 

Here's our house on G.Earth.

And here it is again at the very bottom of the pic, this shows the lakes across the lane.

 

Ho that’s lovely Upsydaisy, I wouldn’t want to move from there, you’ve worked hard well done

 

Thanks Vicky and Flumpy, it took a long time getting there, probably 16years all told but hubs did a brilliant job. We lost all faith after the first lot builders, so hubs designed and drew up the plans with a little help here and there from a friend who is sadly now deceased. He tweaked things as hubs being foreign didn't know a lot about certain areas with regards to Building Regulations .....but he certainly does now.
He then worked with a young builder who had branched away from his Dad's building company, they worked every Saturday and Sunday and hubs worked on the house alone every evening.....for quite a few years!
The 1st extension was left standing ,it contained our main bathroom and kitchen the 2nd extension was constructed around it...it became increasingly dark inside!

During all this time not only did we have our own 3 children but I was also self employed running my own home based childcare business. I can't begin to go into all the Health & Safety procedures that had to be updated and put in place every day. I had to write up daily risk assessments each day before I could open up my doors to welcome parents and their children.
When I think back now I don't know how we coped, but we did and survived to tell this tale.
Our oldest and middle sons have taken after their Dad and have set about self teaching themselves so that they can be hands on with their own house renovations...but the youngest although he too can turn his hand to most things , opted to buy a property that required no structural work.
Wise move !!

 

A lovely transformation Upsydaisy. I've not lived in any house long enough to take on exterior alterations but my last home, on the Isle of Man, was gutted room by room. I think the worst of it was living with the ongoing dirt - impossible to keep it clean during the process.

 

Aawe Upsydaisy I used to be a nursery nurse for five years or more, wow sounds like you’ve been through a lot, but you climbed up that ladder and learned on the way, you both deserve a medal

 

Thanks @Sheal...I can't believe it's 40 years next week when we moved here.!!

 

Aawe I was only 9 then

 

Thanks @Flumpy.

My true profession was manager and working hairdresser but went back to college for 3 years to study and gain qualifications in Early Years Care And Education. I only did this so that I could earn while being with our own brood. I gained qualifications to open and run my own nursery but that wasn't what I wanted...our own children were who I wanted to be with so I opened up my own home based childcare setting.

 

The time soon goes. I've moved house six times in those 40 years.

 

Hello Upsy. As requested I will add to this interesting thread but be brief as I have An Algarve Garden from the beginning.

We bought Casadinho (Little House) or should I say ruin in 1997 ...

... so we started to tidy it up ..

The garden facing the entrance NE ...

... and now ...




Facing the shed SE ...
... and now ...



Across front of house ...

... and now ...




It is still a work in progress!

 

Looks lovely Victoria I bet you have to pinch yourself

 

I do Flumpy. However, I was your age when We started this and there is no way I could do it now. It was all manual labour!. We love it here in our little paradise. We bought it for £25,000, have about £75,000 in it and could sell it for £275,000. Sadly. we couldn't do this in the UK .