Renovations

One of the old lodging houses is undergoing an extensive renovation, as you can see from this photo. It is a Grade II listed building, as are all the houses in the main part of Saltaire. There are very strict guidelines for altering or repairing them, and the owners have to seek consent from the local Council planners.

This house has had some of the windows and the front door replaced with copies of the originals, and some of the original sash windows are being repaired. (Sash windows slide up and down and need complicated systems of rope pulleys in the frames.) No uPVC here! It's hard to tell what is being done inside the house, but it looks like a major job. Despite being over 150 years old, the houses have good-sized rooms and high ceilings, compared with modern homes. I've never been inside one but these three-storey houses probably have five or six bedrooms, maybe more. They're pretty solid and soundly built and make lovely homes when sympathetically treated (especially if you want a big house but don't like gardening!)