Maybe, NO, But Maybe?

It all seemed to be going so well. First, the conservation officer had made encouraging signs about opening up the loft to the public. Then I saw a nice planning officer lady at the Council who sounded very enthusiastic about my ideas and said she could see no problems with it. My next stop was to ring the buildings regulations guy who had been so lovely when I set set up
Ted Coney's Family Portraits two years ago. Anyway, this is were the dream of turning our loft space into a gallery, ended!! It seems, for it to be allowed, I would, among other things have to fit a corridor into our living room (the best room in the house!) so visitors could get to the front door in case of a fire. This would be madness and make an 'only just big enough room', smaller.
I felt quite depressed for about an hour.And then I got to thinking, what if we eventually made the family of the front house an offer on the bottom flat? (it;s already divided into two flats anyway) It would stretch us financially (not another bloody morgage) but we could let out the part we didn't want, at least to start with. Anyway with those pleasant thoughts I went to sleep.