Two Welsh smallholdings to show you this week, but you'll need to get a wiggle on if this first one appeals.
The four bedroom house comes with a whopping 20 acres of land, split into multiple paddocks, plus interesting outbuildings.
It is, however, up for auction (and you all know how I feel about that particular cash sink) and the auction date is tomorrow (27th March).
The property is in a lovely location, down its own track off a quiet country road, a mile or so from the village of Llanybri, in Carmarthenshire, and close to two rivers (the Taf and the Towy) as they drift into the sea.
Downstairs is a large kitchen, two reception rooms, shower room, boot room, utility and hall. Upstairs are four bedrooms and family bathroom.
All needing a LOT of stripping out and reworking. The decor is 70s disco, ceilings are artexed (likely asbestos), and bedrooms have challenging shapes. There's a good possibility you'll be rebuilding.
But the land, the privacy, the location, the gorgeous views, the large footprint of the house and the cuteness of this stone outbuilding, combine to make this a really interesting project.
Up for modern auction via John Francis with a guide price of £300k. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My next pick has a great deal less land to work with (just under two acres) but perhaps less work to do on the house itself.
Like the first property, it sits just outside a small village (Pontsian, in Ceredigion) and off a quiet country road.
Your near neighbours are a gaggle of corrugated farm buildings, part of the original farm which looks to have been split and sold in parts. Your part is the farmhouse, garden and a paddock of 1.7 acre leading down from the garden.
The house itself is a jumble of wreck and the least that might be done to make the house roughly livable for the old chap who presumably made this is home for as long as he could.
So, a walk in shower in a rundown bathroom; new gas central heating radiators alongside ancient electric storage heaters; peeling, damp wallpaper on old walls facing off against replastered new walls after windows were updated.
Downstairs are three reception rooms, kitchen, large pantry and that shower room. Upstairs are five-ish bedrooms, plus access to a large loft room.
Again, a fair bit of stripping out and remodeling to do, but you are starting with a well-shaped, traditional stone farmhouse in a lovely bit of the Teifi Valley.
On the market through Morgan & Davies at £320k. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
If you're up for browsing more smallholdings to do-up, have a look at this post from a couple of weeks ago.
Talking of Welsh valleys. There's a scene in one of my favourite Sunday afternoon films that I always think of on days like this. Spring days when the sun warms your desk through windows grubby with the remains of the winter's weather.
The film is How Green Was My Valley, which won the Best Film and Best Director Oscars for John Ford in 1941, beating Citizen Kane. The bit I always think about when I look at those streaky Spring windows, is when young Huw, bedridden for months, realises that Spring has arrived and with it his hoped for healing. Spring's arrival is signaled by the women in his family arriving in Hollywood-styled headscarves and aprons to start the big Spring clean. I couldn't find the full clip but this will do. Enjoy.
