Summer Terrace - Day 6 and 7 - rewiring and plastering

Since the I bought the kitchen in a sale several weeks ago (not such the brilliant idea as I thought at the time) and it has been taking up space, I decided to go slightly out of sequence. 

Firstly, I had to finish stripping the wallpaper, which revealed some slightly damp patches, some area s where the plaster had failed and some truly delightful mould!

You know it's bad when you peel off the wallpaper and the pattern remains in mould....masks and gloves at the ready!

I had the kitchen rewired - ready for the new layout and spotlights instead of the fluorescent tube that was there. This is more or less the new layout, I'm not sure you can quite see but it's a shaker style door and although it looks really dark here, a traditional oak worktop.

Then the plasterer came in to cover the artex ceiling and skim all of the walls since there were a few dodgy patches (see above) and I have decided (but reserve the right to change my mind!) to have upstands rather than tiles in the kitchen for a more contemporary finish.

After the inspiration of the CAD picture...... the current reality is so much less appealing, and generally the point where I start to doubt myself, but it all comes right in the end.

                    

Next to get the kitchen fitted and out of the way!!

Summer Terrace - Day 4 and 5 - plumbing

The start of reconstruction! Hooray!

With winter quickly approaching, it's time to get a new boiler installed, and get the heating on.  It was installed in the same position as the previous (old) one so not too much mess or trauma.

And just in time because the snow has just started falling. 

At the same time, the plumbers made a start on the first fix for the rest of the plumbing - including the new ensuite on the top floor.

Meanwhile.....I'm still stripping wallpaper and scraping artex off walls. The only silver lining to this is that it saves me labour costs and gym membership costs!!


Not many photos, far too busy up a ladder stripping wallpaper, plus I'm sure you can imagine what a radiator looks like.

Summer Terrace - Day 3 - deconstruction

Always the worst part of the project for me, not only because I find the physical side really tough, but I always feel like i've taken on far more than I can handle, and that it will never be finished, just a genial spiral of dust, grime, doom and gloom.

The progress so far:

The kitchen - the old kitchen is out, tiles are off the wall, the gas and plumbing has been removed and made safe.  (The window and door are new too - see Day 2.

Before - bad picture, it was just an 'L' shaped kitchen

Progress: old kitchen out, tiles off the wall (a few tough fixings are hanging on but not for much longer) and excuse the fridge, it is on its way to a new home.  Flooring is also up, wow, 1980's glue is tough stuff. 

The before picture for the bathroom is in day one. (Find it here)  

Here are the progress photos, the majority of the plumbing and fittings are out and the tiles are off the wall.  

The toilet stays until the last possible moment, and the bucket you can see.....that's the flush!! 

The tiles came off 2 of the walls quite easily, the other wall, not so much, they were stuck on so hard that part of the plasterboard came away too, which will need some serious attention when I have a plasterer in the house.

Other rooms have had carpet taken up, but that doesn't really show up in a photograph so I'll not bore you with those.

Other developments - I have salvaged all the scrap copper to sell to add to my budget, and the other metal that was in the skip has been removed over night, which I expected to be honest, but leave me more space in my skip - bonus!

Summer Terrace - Day 2 - windows and doors

So, as I mentioned last time, it isn't really day 2, its week 4 but it is the second busy day on the project.  I've been busy with my design and project management work for other people so this little project is having to go quite slowly.

Today was 'windows and doors' day.  The windows and rear door were uPVC and not in bad condition, but not great either and probably from 1980's when the last renovation works were completed.  

So I decided to upgrade them, also, because they were the only ones in the street that didn't match.  All the others in the row of terraces have the cross style (as you can see on the edge of this photo).  While these rows of terraces are in a conservation area or in any way protected, I just think it's important to keep to the style of the street.  I'll talk more about this later.  It is also the reason that the front door hasn't been changed yet, this will be replaced with another wooden door - to fit in with the rest of the street.

Before

After

Sorry about the terrible photo, I took it from my car just before a skip arrived and blocked the view!

I suppose it isn't a massive change, but looking up and down the street, it suddenly looks a little more loved, obviously the garden needs attention and the front door replacing and painting to complete the 'kerb appeal', but it's on its way.

So, back to my thought on making sure changes are in keeping with the area.  There is a problem area with the layout of this house, which is the bottom of the stairs from floor 1 to 2.  ON the floor plan, the stairs are bright red (I don't know why either) and the corridor effect from the top of one set to the base of the next has no natural light.  The ideal solution would be to add a window, but it would be the only one on any of the houses in these rows and I feel that it would not only look odd from the outside (it would be on the front above the door) but could affect the appearance of the neighbours.  

I feel like impact of neighbouring properties isn't something people consider much these days, which is really sad.  In terms of planning permission and permitted development, I would be absolutely within my rights to add the extra window, but morally, I just wouldn't want to change the look of the street so much.

I'll talk about my solution to this problem another day - once it has been done and worked as well as I hope!!  

The other ongoing job at the moment is the big clear out, trying to get the old kitchen, boiler and carpets out without causing any damage to the things that are staying is always a challenge but I'm taking it slowly and saving everything that I can.

Day 3 - central heating - fingers crossed it doesn't snow first!