Barn Conversion, Chipperfield

Barn Conversion in Chipperfield

We were delighted to tender and win this barn conversion project in Tower Hill, Chipperfield, Hertfordshire. However, it didn’t come without its challenges, being a grade II listed building we were under strict rules to work within the constraints of the heritage building officer at Dacorum council. Luckily we love a challenge and moreover we love working on the preservation of buildings with historic value.

Tendering to English oak that dates back hundreds of years is almost surreal in the way it takes you back to the time when the building was first constructed and how difficult it must have been with only the use of hand tools for the oak carpentry. “Wow”, you think, “how long must it have taken to mortice and tenon that oak beam”? Not just one either, but dozens of big and heavy oak timbers that are used to frame these beautiful old barns….

Thankfully we have power tools to help us these days and where we were allowed to add new oak timbers we enjoyed employing our finest carpentry skills to add further structural oak timbers to reinforce the frame (if you look carefully in the images, you can spot the difference of old and new).

We were commissioned to look after the entire project from bottom-up, which also meant rejuvenating any old brick work such as the fireplace and some of the outer walls (as you can see the bricks have been restored to their former glory).

Once the structural work was out the way we set upon the task of first and second fixing which again meant being sympathetic to the barn’s historic nature. This meant custom made, hard wood windows and doors that were made in our workshop by our joiner, Steve (up the road in Chipperfield!). We managed to complete this project on time and more importantly handed it over it one very happy client.