A tour of our old cottage

The front of our cottage with hand-painted house sign

We mentioned in a blog post last week that we’ve recently moved house and business. So, what’s tempted us away from Todmorden?

Sitting room with original Victorian red & black chequerboard floor tiles

Well, it’s this lovely old cottage in Ceredigion, mid-Wales.

Dining room showing the wood-burning stove and ladder up to loft bedroom

Having spent 20 years in Yorkshire, we felt that a change of scenery would do us good.

View from library into dining room showing the wattle & daub wall and slate flagstone floor

We’d been on a few holidays here, so we knew we liked the area. And, by a whole string of chance meetings and coincidences, we had an offer accepted on this fabulous place.

The kitchen with rustic stone floor, whitewashed stone walls and original Cardiganshire hood over the stove area

It was formerly two cottages. One side was built in around 1840 – the other side is actually even older than that.

One of the bedrooms in the loft

The house is full of original features – such as stone walls, slate flags, pottery tiles, wide wooden floorboards, exposed beams, wattle & daub walls, ladders to the bedrooms, pretty windows, Cardiganshire chimney hood and inset bread oven. As you can tell from the photos, there’s not a straight line or right angle in the place. It’s wonky and slopes back & forth…. but we love it for that!

The garden room with arch windows and French doors

We’ve also got a small veg plot, young fruit tree orchard, greenhouse and pretty garden with paths and seating areas. It’s just the thing for us. We hope to be here for many years – giving the house some TLC whilst retaining all those features we mentioned earlier. We’ll be able to potter round the garden when we need a break from the paint brush…. and of course run our business. It’s the perfect place for our cottage industry!

The elevated vegetable plot at one end of our cottage The mini-orchard at the back of our cottage

And Troed Rhiw Haidd? Well, it’s the original house name – and it means ‘Foot of the Slope of Barley’.