The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: manders on July 28, 2011, 03:22:03 pm
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Hi Just thought I'd introduce ourselves, only joined yesterday, so very new! We live in an old stone farmhouse on a hill in Collessie near Cupar in Fife, moved here in April of this year. We'd been looking for somewhere for the couple of years with land, seen lots of places, even thought of a new build, was just about to sign for a plot in January of this year when I saw the this place for sale. Came up to see it on a saturday, only on the outside though as the estate agents couldn't get up the hill because of the snow, walked around the grounds, peered through the windows & fell in love with it there and then. It was a repossession in a very sorry state, knew it was on at a good price so would have to move quickly to get it! I came back on the Monday to view inside this time (my partner Graham was working away that week), and Graham put an offer in on the Tuesday morning, not having seen what he was buying :o. Anyway we got it, a beautiful house with just under 6 acres and have been doing it up since moving in. We had to put in a complete heating system, oil tank, hot water tank, doors throughout, mend the roof, and have still got lots to do, but don't care we love this house and love bringing it back to life. As for the outside, well its hill grazing, not brilliant but my Highland and shetland ponies do just great on it. Our 2 spaniels love it as we have a pond in the front garden, the cats love catching the mice and we now have some ex battery hens, and as of Saturday just gone have 2 more Texel sheep to add to the 7 we inherited from the previous owners who had abandoned them when they got chucked out! I love my sheep, lots of experience with horses, dogs and cats, but not sheep so a whole new learning curve ;D. We now have 3 Texels, 1 blackface and 5 Jacob including a tup whos about to go out on loan as not sure if he's related to the others. We've got a lot of work to do on the garden ground but plan next year to grow some veggies, can't wait, I just love this life. Anyway thats us, we have 6 acres and we plan to use it and fill it lol.............. :wave:
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Welcome from Forfar x :wave:
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Hi and welcome from the bigchicken from Fife. Best of luck with your venture I'm a plasterer if you need one cheers.
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Hi and welcome from Carnoustie :wave:
You near Collessie Feeds?
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Hi and welcome Manders. I'm another newbie :yum: :yum: with a small farm in Devon tho I'm from Scotland originally. I love Texels, and miss my old gals very much. We now concentrate on rare, native, at risk breeds. See you around! :wave:
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Welcome from sunny north Cumbria :wave:
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Greeting from Orkney! :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave:
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Welcome to the forum :wave: By reading your post you seem quite delighted at getting a repo house. You may have a bargin, but as I see it, the people had to give up their home probably through no fault of their own and still having to make payments to their mortgage. I hope that you do not have to go through the same kind of thing the earlier occupiers had to go through and only then will you know what it feels like to get chucked out, your words not mine.
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Hellooooooo :wave:, not far from my brother and sister in laws, i am in Clackmannanannanananna, central scotland, nice to have you on here :wave:
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Welcome to the forum :wave: By reading your post you seem quite delighted at getting a repo house. You may have a bargin, but as I see it, the people had to give up their home probably through no fault of their own and still having to make payments to their mortgage. I hope that you do not have to go through the same kind of thing the earlier occupiers had to go through and only then will you know what it feels like to get chucked out, your words not mine.
Come on Lill. Through no fault of manders either. If you want to have a pop, have one at the banks, the building society or the Government. We probably got our house cheap because the man died and his wife couldn't manage - I don't feel guilty about that so don't rain on manders' parade. Anyway, we don't know about the previous owners - so shouldn't speculate. Sounds like the property was well neglected.
Not a proper TAS welcome, I'm afraid :(
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Hello and welcome. :)
Great that you're bringing a neglected property back to life, our house wasn't quite that bad when we bought it last year but we had it back to bare stone! Post some photos if you can please?
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Hello from me in South Lanarkshire :wave:
Welcome to the forum & look forward to hearing more from you.
Karen x
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Welcome to the forum :wave: By reading your post you seem quite delighted at getting a repo house. You may have a bargin, but as I see it, the people had to give up their home probably through no fault of their own and still having to make payments to their mortgage. I hope that you do not have to go through the same kind of thing the earlier occupiers had to go through and only then will you know what it feels like to get chucked out, your words not mine.
Hi well yes we did get a bargain, and I'm proud of the fact that we got and bringing it back to life as it should be, not a developer who would potentially knock it down or some people buy it just for weekends, whereas now its getting used as it was originally for animals. The original farmers wife lives at the bottom of the drive and she is very pleased to see it now to how it was, quite heartbreaking for her to see her old family house got to rack & ruin! As for the people who were chucked out, yes I do know how they felt, I've had a house repossesed many years ago when i was married and my then husband did not pay the mortgage but didn't see fit to tell me! Also the people that lost our house were not nice people, been prosecuted apparantly more than once for animal cruelty & neglect, sold horses to people saying they were a certain age when they were a lot older, had a puppy farm, left the sheep that are now ours all winter on the hill without food or hay or being checked on and the farmer next door had to throw some hay into them...........shall I go on (and believe me there is lots more), they were notorious in the area and not in nice way. Anyway you have your opinion and I have mine so we'll leave it at that shall we?
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Hi and welcome from the bigchicken from Fife. Best of luck with your venture I'm a plasterer if you need one cheers.
Hey thanks, will keep you in mind.............
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Hi and welcome from Carnoustie :wave:
You near Collessie Feeds?
Hi yes I use Collessie Feeds, great help, use their own sheep feed, the sheep love it.
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Welcome to the forum :wave: By reading your post you seem quite delighted at getting a repo house. You may have a bargin, but as I see it, the people had to give up their home probably through no fault of their own and still having to make payments to their mortgage. I hope that you do not have to go through the same kind of thing the earlier occupiers had to go through and only then will you know what it feels like to get chucked out, your words not mine.
Hi thanks for that, I did think this forum was for people sharing their experiences good & bad , and about learning from others about smallholdings, not about being opinionated, but hey ho..............
Come on Lill. Through no fault of manders either. If you want to have a pop, have one at the banks, the building society or the Government. We probably got our house cheap because the man died and his wife couldn't manage - I don't feel guilty about that so don't rain on manders' parade. Anyway, we don't know about the previous owners - so shouldn't speculate. Sounds like the property was well neglected.
Not a proper TAS welcome, I'm afraid :(
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Manders, I knew a lovely couple with three children, whose home was reposessed. He had apparently been leading a double life with a mistress and children elsewhere, then lost his job in the early 90s. Sad but in a way only had himself to blame. I still wonder what became of them....
Hope you have lots of fun (ha ha) bringing the house and land back to life again. Our farm was neglected and two years later we're still doing fencework etc but it will all be worth it in the end. Cheerz!
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Manders, I knew a lovely couple with three children, whose home was reposessed. He had apparently been leading a double life with a mistress and children elsewhere, then lost his job in the early 90s. Sad but in a way only had himself to blame. I still wonder what became of them....
Hope you have lots of fun (ha ha) bringing the house and land back to life again. Our farm was neglected and two years later we're still doing fencework etc but it will all be worth it in the end. Cheerz!
Hi oh gosh I wouldn't have the energy or the inclination to lead a double life........although sometimes in my dreams I'm being whisked away to a sun drenched island by George Clooney dressed in lovely clean non animal smelling clothes with beautifully manicured nails lol ;D, but then I wake up, see my ponies in the paddock out of the bedroom window, hear the sheep calling for their breakie, hear the hens & the ducks, and realise I am the luckiest person in the world............its hard work doing it all up but what an experience! x
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I dare say a lot of pre owned homes have sad tales that lead them having to being sold, I always think we are just borrowing houses anyway, welcome again :wave:
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Hello from a (was sunny but now a clear nights sky) Oxfordshire! :wave:
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Hello Manders :wave:
Big welcome from Worcestershire where we too are breathing new life into a neglected property - and loving every minute, from picking plaster out of our hair, scraping ice from the INSIDE of the bedroom windows in the winter right through to the neighbours popping by to tell us how much they love having a family live here who are showing this old house some love.
Enjoy it - it sounds like you are the right people to bring about some happy times to a house and livestock who've seen misery
LIsa xxx
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I think most properties are updated to a greater or lesser extent when they change hands. Our project in 1993 ws to completely revamp an old cottage, but it wasn't a repossession. (Sorry, Lill, I don't really like shortenings!) The old couple who owned it had been finally presuaded by their 5 kids to sell the croft and they were terribly unhappy about it. So we included them by telling them what we were doing and they often came back up to just sit in the car with a flask or stroll about the fields. They wouldn't come in for a cuppa - they said it would be interfering, but they were happy for us to make changes - we put a lot of original features back in. Nan died a eyar after they moved into their easily maintained bungalow int eh middle of Inverurie, Sandy died a couple of years later. Perhaps they would have done anyway, but I felt sad for them.
Even this ready to walk in place has been changed - a log burner, a conservatory, redecorated - we all do it. We bought a repossession in 1988, and they left 50,000 in LOCL debts behind them, lifted all the carpets, all the curtain tracks, all the light fittings - we had to view it in daylight. We insisted in using local trades to repair the place to try to redress the balance.
So a very very good luck vibe is heading your way! Enjoy your work and remember the before and after photos!
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Hello Manders :wave:
Big welcome from Worcestershire where we too are breathing new life into a neglected property - and loving every minute, from picking plaster out of our hair, scraping ice from the INSIDE of the bedroom windows in the winter right through to the neighbours popping by to tell us how much they love having a family live here who are showing this old house some love.
Enjoy it - it sounds like you are the right people to bring about some happy times to a house and livestock who've seen misery
LIsa xxx
Hi Lisa
How spooky, I was originally from Astwood Bank Redditch, then moved to Middle Littleton for 6 months before moving up to Scotland in 2009 to live with my partner Graham who's from Scotland. Thank you for the welcome, and yes we do love this house very much, I am at peace here at last...........Good luck with your project, keep in touch, I come down to Studley quite often to see my daughter, Cheers for now
Manders xxx
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OMG! we are in Bennetts Hill, South Littleton!!! and even more spooky...we moved to The Littletons from a village not far from Astwood bank (flyford Flavell), in fact that was our nearest chippy and curry pick up point lol! what a very small world
what you say about being at peace, at last - well (this will sound soppy so don't laugh ;) ) about a week after tony and i moved to this smallholding, we were both stood leant over the fence watching the sunset (imaginary piece of grass stalk in mouth lol) and both had this overwhelming feeling that we'd lived here before and had "come home at last". Strange really, but still very happy ;D
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hi and welcome :)