This week, on our fourth week of owning the house, we had our first full seven days of DIY. When we first knew we were getting the house, we agreed that all holidays would be devoted to its renovation until further notice.

Now at the end of our allotted time we are bruised and battered, and finding simple actions like gripping the steering wheel a little taxing, but it’s been a satisfying and worthwhile push.

One of the surprises of the week was that we realised we have a couple of lodgers. An enterprising wren had worked out that a quick hop through a broken letterbox led it to possibly the safest nesting spot for miles around. So far, the family seems to be doing well and isn’t bothered by our comings and goings.

More remnant house items also found themselves a new home, with all our assorted kitchen items donated to a local refugee charity, a couple of panes of glass helping a local woman with her greenhouse repairs, and various electrical goods making their way to a repair shop for some rewiring and eventual resale.

Possibly, the most tiring job of the week has been filling the skip with wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of plaster, broken wood and old carpets. Amazingly, one day’s work filled the skip nearly to the brim, with us cautiously adding additional bucketful each day after that.

One of our slightly fiddly jobs this week has been to start installing the structural supports, in order to stop the walls from falling outwards (so fairly important). Though it’s hard to imagine our metre thick walls ever budging an inch, large tell-tale cracks emerged from under the plaster, reminding us that this isn’t a job to be left undone.

Staircase dismantling continues, with the wooden frames finally removed from both. While one staircase is set to be removed entirely once we have new joists to reinforce the floor, the other will be replaced with a slightly wider, more open version, to make both the staircase and the lounge feel larger and brighter.

Following on with the same theme, the wall between our future bathroom and the hall has been removed in order to build it again a foot further back. This will allow the bedroom doorway to move likewise, in order to allow room for the wider staircase. As always, one job leads to another, and another, and another.

But by far the winner of the week’s DIY jobs was the replacing of our first lintel. While luckily most of the lintels have already been replaced in the Erw Helen side of the house (the house once having been two separate residences), it seems the Sunnyside half had very little maintenance over the years. In this part of the house the lintels are largely composed of semi rotten, woodworm-riddled pieces of uneven timber.

With this first window lintel, the structural safety had been even further undermined by the historical builder only keying the wood in on one side of the window, the other end resting by its very edge on the stone below.

Although slightly amazed that the whole house hadn’t collapsed years ago, we were a little nervous that we might upset some carefully balanced masonry by affecting the repair, like removing a bottom Jenga piece from a currently standing but precarious tower.

However, despite our concerns, and the physical strain of lifting new concrete lintels into place, the window is now safe and secure once more. Only another three to go, while trying not to collapse the house.

Overall, our week was a big success, though naturally, there are still a hundred and one things to do, as Chris likes to remind me whenever I start sounding too optimistic.

My favourite part of each day at the house is always the same. When we stop for lunch, covered in dust, and already exhausted, and go and sit on the pile of scaffold boards at the side of the house.

When our hammering has stopped, and the dust is floating back down, all you can hear is the sound of bird song and the rustle of the wind in the leaves above us. Whether it’s the respite from the work or the beauty of the place itself, there’s something almost magical in those moments between the noise and dirt and pain. I look forward to the day when we’ve placed a garden bench in that spot and we can come and sit there whenever we choose.