Turning bat-filled barns into character homes is great fun, if a little daunting at times, for both the builders and the owners, because quite often you have to deal with the unexpected. While a new build provides a ‘blank canvas’ allowing you to design whatever you want, you don’t really know what you have with a renovation until you start building.
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Fortunately, this recently restored property in Fres had sound foundations and 50cm thick stone walls allowing us to add a second storey without the need to add unsightly concrete columns. Also, we were able to reuse the cypress beams from the original roof on the downstairs ceilings. And it would have been a crime to have ripped out the bread oven and the stone window and door surrounds and to have plastered over the various wall nooks – features that added instant character to this now modern dwelling.
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Our first job, though, was to remove the 1950’s concrete roof over the kitchen and to demolish the breezeblock outhouse that had been home to the previous owner’s goats. We then stripped the old tiled roof, levelled the gable ends and added a downstairs bathroom – all of which we tied in with a concrete ring beam and first floor steel-reinforced concrete slab.
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From this we were able to construct the first floor bedrooms, bathroom and two balconies, adding a few original stones to help it blend in with the original ground floor. Then we erected a wooden frame and tiled, pitched roof with guttering,
added an upstairs Romeo balcony and plumbed for central heating. And hidden under the garden is one of our English Builder special septic tanks with soakaway, meaning you can flush away loo paper without having to have your cesspit pumped out every couple of months (at 130 euros a time) – the local system consists of small, perforated concrete rings that eventually block.
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The wooden staircase and floors and the abundance of exposed stone give this house an old feel. But that hasn’t stopped us fitting a spar bath, solar panel water heater and range-style gas cooker (neatly tucked under the bread oven arch), thus providing all the mod cons of a new build but with plenty of Cretan character.
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