Phase I: Mould Begone (part iii)

17th February 2024Leave a comment

To finish off the utility room, all we needed to do is add some tiles and some paint. Sounds easy, but it seems like it took a long time.

But the floor tiles came in, the paint went on, radiators were installed, and before we knew it, we had a useable utility room, and a mini bathroom too! And you have to admit that it’s slightly better than the toilet that used to be there!

Confession Time

Time to admit something! It was about this time that I leant my camera to a friend, so we weren’t taking as many photos. But even when it was returned, we had sort of become used to the utility room in it’s wonderful new form, and rather than take lots of nice photos, we just started using it!

And, because it’s a utility room, we got the washing machine, and dishwasher back in, started storing a few bits in there again, and so it wasn’t quite up to photoshoot standards again.

We would clear it out and get some more photos, but as I type this, we actually have the builders back in starting Phase II, so it’s pretty messy agian, and it going to need a good deep clean, and probably a re-paint when they are done. But we will get there and there will be more photos.

Living on a Prayer – part 2

22nd April 20189th June 2019Leave a comment

[Check out part 1, if you haven’t read it already.]

The plumber came first on 19th February 2018 and installed three radiators (Hallway, living room and dining room). He also advised us that our boiler is at least 18 years old (because apparently from 2000 all boilers sold had to be condenser boilers – and ours is not that ) and that we are doing well for it to still be working. (Admittedly it’s a bit temperamental – but his comment has allowed us to prioritise the new boiler to be one of the next jobs).

[Aside – As we want our new boiler to be located in the attic, rather than wasting our valuable kitchen space, this is due to be an expensive job. I would rather, however, have this job prioritised and spend the money on doing it at our convenience then having it unexpectedly break and either have a new boiler quickly installed without having it moved, or having one installed and us going without hot water in the meantime.]

He was quick and got all the old radiators off and the new ones on (and copper piping done) in a day, which was handy.

We weren’t sure what order things were going to be done in, but we knew that as well as the radiator/plumbing, we had the plasterer coming and a carpenter to do the window sill, and someone to swap the door around, so we tried to get everything ready. And by chance on the same day as the plumber (and at almost the exact same time) a Virgin Media engineer turned up to move the cable entry point. It was a silly little job, but it meant that we didn’t have leads trailing all over the place, and it made sense to get it done before the plasterer turned up.

One thing were very glad to see the back of was the old window sill. This had rotted and had some weird growth beneath it. We think that at some point there must have been a leak and the wood slowly rotted away. And the attmept to fix this was some to leave it an cover the mould with some decorators caulk.

The plasterer came over just a few days later, again fortunately when we were both off and were attending a cookery course over at River Cottage, so we were able to get everything ready but also didn’t have to sit in the house whilst the work was going on.

Note the Wifi Router protected but in place

Impatient

The plastering was actually one of our biggest problems. Whilst 95% of it was fine, we had a few problems with the rest of it. The problem areas were all of the difficult parts, like around the sockets, pipes, and floor. There were sections that had just been missed around the copper piping, that we had to fill in ourselves, and gaps around the skirting, which although would eventually be covered by the skirting boards, were so uneven that we’d spend many hours trying to make it fit for purpose.

Please mind the gap

All white

Then it snowed.

After that, we got back to painting and decorating.

Starting to come together

Kate’s idea of decorating

But my skills aren’t much better

Although our calculations on the paint were pretty damn accurate

Oh yeah, then it snowed again.

I must admit that writing this makes it seem like as soon as the plaster went on, we got everything painted. But in reality this took fucking ages. For weeks, it was was a case of waking up, going to work, coming home, painting, sleeping, and repeat. It was quite soul destroying.

But eventually, we got there. And in the process we did learn a few thing about decorating, that we put together in a quick guide.

Then we had the carpenter come to put the new window sill in. Some time last year we purchased a load of oak sills ready to go into the windows as and when they were ready. Again, we were keen to see this, having had such horrible sills there before. After about 15 minutes of the carpenter being there, he did notice that the wood we had wasn’t actually going to fit in the window properly. Basically, I had fucked up the measurements and not thought things through properly. But in contrast to the plasterer, the carpenter was fantastic, and was actually able to fix my mistake by using a couple of the other sills that we hadn’t used yet and did a fantastic job.

Although once he had installed the sill, we quickly realsied that the plasterer hadn’t quite been able to plater right up to the edge, so there were some more gaps that we had to fill in.

Now the room was starting to feel like it was nearly there. One last thing (or so we thought), and that was the flooring. Originally we were going to carpet the front room, and have some hard flooring in the dining room, but we wanted to keep the costs down and get things done as soon as we could. We popped over to our local carpet shop (literally around the corner) several times, as we kept trying to get some samples, and eventually got some to try.

We were sensible compared to last time and when for a reasonably priced option that would be quite hard waring.

One problem though; the manufacturers didn’t have any in stock so we had to wait a few extra weeks. As it turns out that would be a good thing.

The last job to do, was the skirting. I was not looking forward to it, but I watched some YouTube videos to see how people did it, and we bought a proper mitre saw (having realised it was cheaper to buy one than rent one for a few days). However, things didn’t go as easily as planned. Despite following the instructions and having faith in trigonometry, the wood didn’t slide together as easily as I had hoped. And thanks to the plasterer, every wall had to have chunks of plaster taken off and sanded down so that the walls were even and straight (or as straight as we could make them).

Even after all of this, the skirting was pretty uneven and a bit of a mess. We hoped that after a bit of sanding and filling, it might be a bit better, but even this was a struggle. I don’t think I even took any photos of the skirting, as I was too stressed trying to get it done. And it took a hell of a lot longer than we’d expected too, so the delayed carpet turned out to be handy. In the last weekend before the carpet fitting, we even got Kate’s parents to come over and help finish of last few jobs, like caulk, sockets, and filling, to try and get everything finished.

After several attempts with the filler, a lot of sanding and several coats of paint, things started to look a bit more normal. All we had to do was remove the frog tape we placed around the skirting to protect the paint on the walls. How bad could that be?

As it turns out, this was not a simple job. And it meant that we had to go back over almost every inch of the wall that had been covered in the tape. And whilst this didn’t take long, we only had 2 days before the carpet was due to be fitted, so had to use all the spare time we had to get it done.
We’re not sure why this happened, or what we should have done to prevent it because we even bough specific ‘low-tack’ tape but it made absolutely no difference.

Thankfully we managed to get those bits covered just in time before the carpet fitters arrived.

The wood underneath was actually in not bad shape, and we could have used it. Maybe next time.

Random Holes

Standing by

The carpet fitting took hardly any time at all and for the first time in a long time, the room looked like it was ready to live in.

Time to finish it off…[see part 3]

Living on a Prayer – part 1

14th February 201824th June 20183 Comments

It’s been a long time since I have posted with any updates on the house, mainly because it’s been a long time since anything has been done.

After quitting my job in June, it was a couple of months before I found a new one. Although we had money to fall back on, we preferred to wait a while and top up our savings again once I had a new job.

Now that we have done this, we have started again with the home improvements, and where better to begin than the living room?

The living room is the area I feel most conscious about, especially when inviting people over. It’s supposed to be a place to relax but I found that when spending time in there I would fixate on the un-plastered walls, or the walls where we’d ripped off the wallpaper, the stained carpet or the mould growing on the wall below the window.

Dirty

I felt I had to apologise about the state of the room and explain myself to visitors.

Grey Artex

It has also taken the longest of all the rooms to decide on how to decorate and have probably caused the most arguments of all of the rooms. (You may, by now, have noticed a common theme with the arguments about the decor)

Despite a long time thinking, discussing and planning, I am still uncertain about the colours I have chosen. I know it’s only paint but I think we would both be frustrated if we finished and had to re-decorate because we were unhappy with the outcome.

After buying some testers and painting patches around the room, I agonised for days and even now I am still tempered to change my mind.

Swatch watch

Paul and I then agreed to the quote issued by the building company. They were going to change the location of the radiators, plaster, put in our windowsills and switch the doors around in the frames (we can’t do this ourselves because we have metal door frames).

I opted to use Farrow and Ball paint for this project. I was gifted a Farrow and Ball book, ‘How to Decorate’ and after looking through it, I have decided that I would like to give it a try. Their paint is highly pigmented, with a completely matt, almost chalky finish, and not only are they eco friendly, the paint is non-toxic (pet friendly) and (almost) Odourless.

Inspiration

I measured the rooms and calculated the size in meters squared to allow us to buy only as much paint as we need (because it’s bloody expensive). More on that in the follow up posts.

I have opted for the colour ‘Hay’ in the living room and ‘Light blue’ in the dining room with ‘Down pipe’ on the arch to separate the rooms. I was very close indeed to painting the living room a beige ‘String’ colour and the dining room a much lighter ‘Powder’ blue, however, even Paul thought I was playing it safe with those. Paul chose the dining room colour (which was a surprise because I’m usually the one trying to convince him to go for a darker colour rather than the other way around), and well as the arch colour, which is a dark grey.

We also opted to remove the coving from the rooms, after some thought. Although I think I like coving and feel that it ‘finishes’ a room, I think it might be a little old fashioned and the house is a 30’s house and wouldn’t originally had coving anyway. Paul and I pulled of it off in about an hour, and it really makes the rooms feel a lot bigger without it.

None of that forgein stuff

We also pulled off the skirting boards. This was something of a last minute decision that Paul wasn’t keen on. We had a decision to make, becase they were in bad shape and there were bits missing. Although they were salvageable, it would have taken a lot of time (like the skirting board upstairs). I was happier ripping them out, buying new and having it look as good as the rest of the rooms, but Paul wasn’t so keen as it was a job we hadn’t done before and we’d need new tools to do it. But we went ahead anyway. We were pretty sure that the skirting was original as it was nailed into the wall very deep, and they simply refused to come out. Even when using a large crowbar, and a considerale amount of force. And when it did, it brought half of the wall with it.

How to destroy everything

Original features

But one thing Paul was happy about, was that this meant that he could finally justify buying a multi-tool, as this was the only thing we could think of that would be able to cut all of the nails out, and get new skirting boards in. And as it turned out, this became one of the most used tools we had throughout the project.

I promise this blog isn’t sponsored by Dewalt

Despite our plans of an extension, we decided to decorate the dining room because of the time that the extension is going to take, and because we do find it difficult living in the house as it is. It never feels clean, and it’s depressing when we’ve spent almost 3 years in our house and it still feels like we aren’t getting anywhere. It’s an affordable thing to do, since the adjacent rooms will be done at the same time, and it will make a big difference.

We have tried to take photos of all of the stages of project. And below are a selection of the works we did prior the the work taking place.