New Orange Farmhouse

It was a hot August day and nothing much to do apart from chill on the beach and read a book! Rich was very bored but just about hanging in, waiting for September when the climbers returned and he had people to play with.

Now I have always fancied a small studio apartment down on the beach front at Villa Joyosa and just did a quick google to fill some time, and it does not hurt to dream! The search was in Spanish and I asked to be shown houses for sale in Villa Joyosa, you can imagine my surprise when top of the links was for "milanucios" which is the Spanish "gumtree", and a small photo showed a mountain range that I thought I had seen before.

Passing the ipad to Rich to take a look he said "that is Sella, in fact I know that house, its up at Sector Final". "Hmmm" said I, "not really a beach front location". The following day I decided to look up the link again and suggested as we had nothing else to do why don't we take a drive up with the dogs and have a look around. Tony Pearson a friend was over from the UK for a short break and said he would come too, just for a nosy around of course.

Squeezed in the Rav, dogs and all, we set off up the road to Sella that we knew so well. Ignoring the private road sign this time, we continued past Sector Final and after a few new turns we took a left along an almond lined private path and met this view!

Truely breathtaking, we all said at the same time "we need to buy this house". A quick phone call to the agent and a meeting was arranged for later that day, Tony had a flight booked back to blighty that night so we had to move fast.

Little did we know that we would have to wait until December until we could finally sign, but it was a great belated Christmas present and we collected the keys on the 28th.

The house had been used for years as a weekend hunting lodge, the first thing we wanted to do was pull down the metal structure they had erected at the front, we wanted to let more sun into the house during the winter and will put up some nice shades when the summer gets here.

Metal in place, but not for long!

Half way through removal!

What a view?

More light was needed upstairs so we added 2 new windows, one at the front and one at the side. The original house was built without windows upstairs, just large openings front and back. This was as the upstairs was made to dry out the almonds, they would be laid out all over the floor and the wind would blow over them.

Was a door now a window

This was the old opening for the wind to dry the almonds, now a  window

The large pink building which at the moment is a garage and store room will shortly become an 8 person bunkroom with lounge and small kitchen. Camping will be available once we have sorted a shower block. Have you spotted how close the building is to the crag, you will not have to go far in a morning to go climbing......

Here are a few more random shots for the views which really need to be seen to be believed!