Category Archives: Holiday Cottage

You’ve Been Framed

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The windows, well most of them, are in.

You've Been Framed

Made by Catchweasel from locally sourced oak, with a little help from Jac.  Bendigedig.

Blog posts have been a little infrequent recently.  We’ve been busy doing other things.  Here are a few images of what we have been up to over the last few weeks…..

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The weather has been better so we’ve also been riding our bikes more.  It’s important to get one’s priorities right.

Our first guests arrive at the end of July.  This is exciting news.  We’d like more so if you or anyone you know would like to stay with us this summer, let us know by completing a booking form here.

Through the Pane Barrier

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Catchweasel windowRichard is making windows.  Eight of them.

Made from sustainably sourced oak supplied by our local timber yard, each one is different.

Inspired by old Welsh farmhouses, they are a modern take on an old style designed to keep the weather out, the heat in, and the spectacular views framed.  Nicely done.

The Barn Gets an Extension

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It’s about time for another update.  Progress is good and we are on schedule for a June opening.  Must start planning the party. Over Easter Gwyn was off site putting together the timber frame for the barn extension.  It was delivered last Wednesday and went up very quickly with help from our neighbour, Ian Jones.  We’re very lucky to have helpful neighbours and ones that have useful pieces of kit such as telehandlers. Some pictures of the delivery and construction.  There would have been more but Richard helpfully deleted them from the camera before I had chance to upload them.

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The extension will be timber clad with a slate roof.  The overhanging eaves at the front will have a bike storage area and somewhere to store logs for the wood burning stove.   Next week its time for the slate roof and underfloor heating with heat supplied by the new biomass boiler.

We are taking bookings, there’s a booking enquiry form here.

Wild Wales Challenge

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Entries to the Wild Wales Challenge are now open.  As the organisers say, it’s not a sportive, nor is it a race (shame).  It is a challenge.

We are both Wild Wales veterans, sort of.  I have ridden it about five times, Richard once.  I was even the first female finisher one year, although as it has been said, it is not a race.  I used to travel up from South London in a mini bus with a motley crew of cyclists and stay in the White Lion Royal Hotel and latterly Bala Backpackers. It was how I came to know and love Bala.  There is no irony here. I did have a nice collection of commemorative slates but they were lost in one of my many house moves.

The challenge starts and finishes in Bala and we can offer you the ultimate in bike friendly accommodation at Ty Beic.  We have secure bike storage, workshop facilities, a bike wash and hosts who can give you the lowdown on the local area and who will be delighted to listen to tales of your exploits and triumphs after you have completed the ride.  We may also give you a beer.

Each cottage is available for a special rate Wild Wales Challenge rate of £70 per night.  If you want to make a weekend of it, we have a special rate of 3 nights for £200.  There are further discounts available if you book both cottages together. Use the contact form in Prices and availability to make a booking.  Please mention Wild Wales Challenge when booking.

And start training so you can see this view on your way back to Bala… Cadair Idris and Barmouth Bridge

Hoping to be open in June…

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We’re still planning for an early summer opening and despite appearances to the contrary, we are reasonably on track.

Most of the messy external work was completed in March. This included drains and a package plant, courtesy of Peacock Drains, and stonemasonry by Eilir Rowlands and Aled Jones (not that one). We now have holes in both buildings ready for the Richard to make the window frames and doors for as well as being a lover of bicycles and mud, he is also a fairly competent cabinet maker. Some of his more interesting creations, which may find their way into the cottages, can be found on www.catchweasel.com. Apologies for the blatant advertising.

Towards the end of the month the internal timber frames in the barn and stable were built. Gwyn is now off site for a few days building the timber frame for the extension which will house the entrance and staircase for the barn.

Some pictorial evidence of March’s work….

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The most momentous event in March was the arrival of Jac:

Jac, Head of Marketing

Everyone’s work rate has decreased since his arrival but the distraction is a welcome one and I’m not complaining.

Probably the nicest laundry in the world*

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* potentially, Carlsberg not included.

February has been a strange month.  The snow and freezing temperatures at the beginning of the year more or less put a stop to work but once that cleared a couple of weeks ago, it has been all systems go.

Eilir Rowlands has been with us for a few weeks and as well supplying us with photos of Ty Hen through the decades, more of these later, he has been building stone walls and creating lots of holes in existing walls.  This is all good and planned.  We are turning the (pictured) pig sty into a laundry.  The door opening has been widened and made taller so a washing machine and tumble dryer can be installed and unless you are 7ft tall, one can also enter without the fear of decapitation.  Eilir has also started work on creating a new window in the barn and closing up the east end wall. Laundry room

I do love a nice stone wall and the one that Eilir has built is particularly nice:

holiday accommodation

And here are some pictures of the rest of the work that has been taking place:

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Gwyn has been with us throughout and has been in charge of concrete, floors, shuttering, block work and other things that keep him outside in the snow, hail, sleet and rain.

I’ve been working on the website, which has been tweaked and updated, and the facebook page.  In a nice warm house.

Byd bach, small world

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We have a new person on site. Eilir Rowlands, landscape gardener and stonemason, is building a retaining wall and creating new openings for windows and doors in the old stone walls. Eilir knows the house well as his grandmother, Kate Rowlands, lived at Ty Hen. Byd bach.  Her diary is being serialised on twitter by St Fagan’s National History Museum.  The tweets are in Welsh and often in the local dialect so they are a little difficult to understand (for me), but they do offer a fascinating insight into life on the farm 100 years ago.  From taking a large sow to Bala (I may not have understood that tweet correctly), to the travels of the threshing machine and the news of a young man in Llandderfel dying of TB.  And the weather is usually ofnadwy.

Eilir also gave us a photo of Ty Hen from 1960s and a picture of him in front of the pig sty.  Eilir is on the right. Eilir Rowlands Ty Hen c1960

Ffensio (Cymraeg for fencing)

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December was busy and productive, January less so. Some concrete was poured then Gwyn went skiing for a week in Austria and brought back snow and ice.  Not the requested cow bell.  It gave us an excuse to test the new sledges and made for some very pretty photos but put a stop to anymore concrete work.  Too cold.  In the meantime, the rotten sycamore was felled (see previous post) and we had some fencing erected in the field in front of the barn.

That doesn’t sound very exciting but it is to us as it means we have an area of the field set aside for guest car parking and a separate garden and barbecue area.  The natural/organic lawnmowers (sheep and cows) can continue to use the field until we turn it into a pump / cyclocross track.  That’s next year’s project. We have lots of other ideas for the field including a sauna and pizza oven.  The latter inspired by many happy, slightly drunken evenings spent at Bob and Ian’s pizza nights at Casal dei Fichi.

Work starts on the Barn

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The barn is a farm building the first floor of which had been converted into an office by the previous owners.  The ground floor was used as a wood store and cow toilet.  We are now transforming the building into a warm, comfortable and luxurious holiday cottage.
Our friendly farmer helped us again with the ground works.  Using his digger and pecker he relocated the flowerbed, dug the footings for the extension which will house the new staircase and entrance, pecked a trench to house the pipes and cabling for the biomass boiler and dug out the floor of the barn.

Gwyn arrived just before Christmas the shore up the stone walls.  He loved doing this in near freezing temperatures and with a horrible cold.  Sorry Gwyn.

as it was
Before we have started work
It was used as an office by the previous owners
bringing heat and hot water to our lovely guests
Original ground floor
Barn from the house minus flower bed
no more flowers
digger at the ready
still some rubbish to clear
getting ready for the new entrance

Work starts on the Stable

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It’s December, well it was when I wrote this, its now January.
The first job was to pull down the internal stone wall and remove the rotten floor joists and floor. The stone wall was a remnant from the old stable but it no longer has a structural purpose.  The decision was made to remove it to give more space.  We’ll re-use the stone elsewhere and we’ve left a few of the larger ones because we think they will look interesting.  It has nothing to do with them being too heavy to move. We engaged a local farmer and his mini digger to dig out the floor.  Much to our delight he discovered cobbles underneath the concrete.  If we ever have the time and energy, our drive may become a Welsh Koppenberg.
The stable is now a ready for the next stage of works.
This is what the stable looked like when we bought Ty Hen
The first floor was used as storage by the previous owner
The stone wall had to go. We will use the stone elsewhere
There as some big stones in that wall
wall debris
Stairs have also gone. Nice firewood
Being over cautious with acro props.
Mainly demolition and removal at this stage