Plaster repairs reveal more information...

There was some damaged lime plaster to bed 1 (caused by water ingress over the years) and so this was to be removed and re-plastered in traditional lime, using horse hair to aid strength to scratch coat.
In April when the plaster was removed from the east gable wall in first floor bedroom, this revealed timbers set within the gable wall (see photos) and these look like they could have been old ceiling timbers, before the ceilings in the two main bedrooms were raised to give a better head height.
See also the bottom photos, showing details of masonry and timbers above the fireplace to main living room chimney breast.

First floor Bed #1 old water damage to plaster

Bed #1 damaged plaster

April 2016 old lime plaster removed, see some plaster is darker to centre and left, lime plaster is lighter to RHS, not sure if this is the aged effect of water ingress?

See RHS mortar appears lighter

See a line of timbers, a wall plate, joist ends and boards above (could be old floor boards), joists in place now are the higher ceiling level.

Plaster removed to hallway reveals an old timber (looking as dusty as the stonework) but with giveaway axe marks.

Main living room fireplace chimney breast exposed, see corbel detail above and many timbers near the top.

Corbel and timbers near top

The other chimney breast in the (new) dining room, again various masonry sizes to bricks.

Internal details including the bed cupboard

There are many little details of historic and conversational interest and these all add up to make the property grade 2* listed. See below some photos highlighting details and also asking questions;
One interesting aspect to come out of this, is the question of how to treat the bed cupboard, (see a few images down the page) especially as on first look it appears tired and unkept, but is basically the old limewash patina effect. 
Conservation principals say minimal intervention, as much as necessary, as little as possible. Any works must be reversible. We would look as seek advice from conservators, curator and archaeologists, but they may or may not all agree the same outcome. The bed cupboard has lime-washed lime plaster and timber panel finishes, so we agreed to leave the timber as it is so it becomes a record and just lime wash the plastered areas.
As this will be a tenanted property we also added an out set of double doors to provide security for this unique feature within a Cumbria farmhouse and the doors can still be opened for viewing as required. 

See the tree, too close to the building so it had to go

Roof truss in attic, see the horizontal grove, any ideas?

Attic floor, see the raised section, this it seems is to give more headroom to the main bedrooms beneath

Attic west gable, see the old remains of the fire hood 

Living room fireplace, see the old stone surrounds still in place indicating a grander fireplace, also the stone lintel is only about 90mm deep and hides an old brick curved arch lintel.

View into the bed cupboard, the beam at head height probably was part of a partition, doors to the right leading to a living room with a fireplace.

Inside the bed cupboard (brick and slate sconce is a later addition) corner oak posts in place

Bed support in place and you can see the ends of the old ropes now cut off set into the beam, the ropes would have been used to form a lattice bed base, hence the term 'sleep tight' could refer to pulling the bed ropes tight.

Slate scones within the utility room and see the stone flagged floor

Spice cupboard door dated and initials of the owners 

Inside the 1704 cupboard there is patterned wall paper (yet to be analysed)  see to the left and bottom the remains of an old window frame, indicating an external wall. 
See photo below showing some wall paper on back wall of the 1704 cupboard.

An further spice cupboard in the same room as the one above but no date.

Nice old hinge

Once the wall was stripped, old timbers were revealed, possibly the back to a seat?

Inside the cupboard, note the original blue decoration.

External elevation images for information

Here we have some external elevation photos as background, all taken before summer 2015.

West side elevation, alongside the lane to the caravan pitches 

The stone barn added on the end is the 'down house' and was linked through with doorways to join the farmhouse as some point

Eaves detail, gutters brackets and slate drip course at high level

Front elevation, main entrance to the south

East elevation, the rear and this is the worse condition. 

Closer view of rear walls, note patches in cement and casement windows

Circa 1960's lean to extension

West gable wall, note the old windows now blocked up 

Lake view just down the track from the farmhouse

Down by the lake, tree roots exposed.

Side west door, note the blue color, faded but used throughout the building and site

Initial works summer-autumn 2015

We were working towards a refurbishment and liaising with planners, historic building surveyors, archaeologists, curator and conservators and whilst all this background research and discussions are going on we realise that we will not get the works complete before the end of the year in fact it is unlikely to start until 2016 and so we need to get some external repairs carried out to make the shell wind and water tight.
This meant working up a pre-refurbishment external repairs work list and getting a local contractor involved to carry this out before winter. The works generally involved the repair of the lime render to the east rear gable and roof and chimney repairs as there was water getting in following rainfall to the east and north roofs.

House martins making nests on the west wall, luckily this did not impact on the works (as working on east elevation), but could have done, so be prepared for nature to call.

As this involves lime work the works needed to be done before the cold winter weather and so were planed to start in summer once we had negotiated with a local contractor who had experience of lime work of this nature.
SCC Ltd of Windermere were instructed and commenced with scaffold and protection works. We looked at the chimneys and also the lime detail so that we could try and copy the render finish. Once we had scaffold up and started to look more closely this was harder than first thought as there were a number of repairs, patches and the render varied all over the building. The eastern gable being particularly poor, whilst most of the other render was acceptable, except for a section to the top of the gable to the west elevation. We also took the opportunity to re-point and render the chimneys and sort the pots, flue liners and top rolls whilst we had scaffold access to the roof. 

Rear east elevation, being in the worse condition

Chimney stack cracked render

Old oak window with leaded lights in attic east elevation, protected by slate externally then render.

Leaded pane in oak window

Close up of leaded glass

Hidden window found during repairs, recorded and left in place.

Generally the window lintels were good, but there was one to the rear first floor which needed replacing and some stone work repaired. Also whilst re-pointing and repairing old render we discovered an older leaded window, so this was recorded and details sent to update the VBS (vernacular building survey). 
One of the issues with the render and trying to match the finish was that the stones appeared to be pebbles, possibly from Coniston water and these varied in size, we were not going to take lake pebbles and so finished using a slightly larger aggregate and brushing up to bring out the finish.
Here are a few photos to show elements of the house;

West side door, note repairs at bottom due to a step down into the house! 

Official front elevation, south side, general sash windows, except front left being a quite large wide sash, good daylight.

Attic chimney breast, note the timbers half way up being part of the old fire hood.

Slate porch roof, a bat was recorded to be roosting in the crack between the wall render and slate roof

South west chimney refurbished in NHL lime render with a new flue liner and pot 

South east chimney refurbished with slates reinstated

Rear view with scaffold and sheet protection for lime work