The House Renovation

I return to my home town after being gone for ten years, I had done very well and had inherited a lot as well. I knew my old home town was having a rough time and the big local employer had closed up. I wanted to live a quiet life and already knew what house I wanted to buy. It was empty even before I left and had a 5-acre block and was in the Gothic style and most importantly it had a 5 or 6 foot stone wall around its boundary. I use to go there for peace and quiet as a teenager, I was shy and a bookworm and didn't date or play sport. Now at 35 single and able to work from home I returned, I had already purchased the house and had been in contact with local builders about restoring it. There only was one local builder left and I knew they did good work. My father had them do work for him before he retired to the coast and he was full of praise of there work and reliability. I'm Gerald and had been at school with the builder's daughter Tilly 34, but I knew she wouldn't have noticed me then. As she was the sporty type and I was the don't get notice type. I booked into the local hotel and then the next day I met Mark the builder at my new house. We went over the entire house from basement to attic, I also had a landscaper Alan come and I told him what I wanted to do the gardens. Beside the garage, was an old tennis court and it was beyond repair and need as far I was concerned. I told Mark I wanted it removed and a swimming pool installed in its place, Mark they had never built a swimming pool and weren't willing to build one. I said I knew they don't build swimming pools and just wanted them to clear the area and work with the company I had hired to build it. He was okay with that and said they would start the following Monday. I said I will see you then, he replied I won't be here as I'm building a fire station in the next town and my daughter Tilly will be controlling this contract from start to finish. I said then I will see her on Monday, on Monday around 10 I arrived and found the place alive with people. Some were clearing the overgrow from the block and other tearing up the tennis court area and still others removing windows and doors from the house. I was looking around and saw Tilly directing the work at the tennis court. I said hello and she told me that she had talked to the pool company and they would start on the pool Wednesday and so she had to clear the sight straight away for them to start. Then I toured the house with her telling her I wanted the house repaired and its old charm kept repaired and replaced with the same if was to bad to repair. She said she liked the old place decor as well and would do it justice. As we were heading back outside, one of her workers found a hidden room 6' by 6' behind a panel and so Tilly and I investigated it. There wasn't any reason that we could think of why it was there or what its purpose was. Then Alan came in to see saying there was hidden cellar out in the garden as well, he also had a quick look at the hidden room and said it might a priest hole or something similar. There was no need for priest holes, but it might have been used for the underground railway for slaves fleeing to freedom back in the 1840s to the end of civil war. On investigation, we also thought the cellar in the garden might also be another hiding place. Then I left and went to the library to investigate what history of my house. I found out it was part of the underground railway for runaway slaves and that it was raided several times and no slaves were found. The local planning office had the original plans and they didn't show the hidden room or the cellar in the north corner of the block. I started to wonder what else might be hidden there, I got a copy of all the plans and property maps and took them with me to the house the next day. Tilly helped me measure every area of the housetop to bottom and we found another hidden place. It was only 2' wide and ran the length of the room, Tilly said it was a later addition and wasn't that well done. I asked did think it was worth keeping, no it was in bad repair and made the window off-center in the room and was probably a decoy for anyone looking for the hiding places to find and it is empty they would have left without searching more closely. I was getting on with Tilly very well and had noticed no wedding ring on her hand. The following week I asked her if she would go out to dinner with me sometime, expecting a no. But she said okay and on Saturday evening we went out for dinner and a movie as there wasn't that much to do in the town. After that, we dated some more and final slept together on our sixth date night. At first, I thought she was just going out with me to keep the client happy as the work fell a bit behind schedule. But the pool was finished and on the first weekend it was usable Tilly and I tested it out and again had sex in the pool. As for the renovation of the house, it was going as fast as it could, the main problem was getting the windows replaced with double glazed version. Finally, it was finished and I had an open house for everyone who worked on it. I had also bought the old mill and had reopened it and had only a quarter of the employees at first to what it had when it closed. But I had found a market for what could make and hope to get bigger as times passes. I asked Tilly to marry me and she accepted and we're marrying in early November. But we're living together and she still working with her father and I have started a small training program to help train the locals for jobs I bring to the area, instead of bringing outside labor. Tilly's idea and the town is starting to pick up.