First Home - Renovation Project

Brozart · 12 Jul 2013 at 20:48

Just bought my first house, a semidetached property built in 1910.

I've decided to gut the building back to bare bones, removing old lath and plaster ceilings and walls and dealing with any damp & water penetration, giving us solid foundations to work with. From here I'll then make the structural changes, a full electrical rewire with additional lighting, renew the plumbing, new kitchen, home cinema and deal with any problems that might be expose a long the way. I'm going to open up the living room area by removing the load-bearing wall and replacing the back window with doors that lead onto the patio area, bringing a lot more light into the room. As this will make the room a lot harder to heat in the winter, we will also be insulating the walls, ceiling and installing a wood burning stove using one of the old chimney channels. Here are some pictures to start:

EndlessSky · 12 Jul 2013 at 20:53

Love these threads. Good luck and don't forget to enjoy all the hard work

Brozart · 12 Jul 2013 at 21:11

EndlessSky said:
Love these threads. Good luck and don't forget to enjoy all the hard work

Thanks mate,

I hope you all find this project appealing, I will be documenting all my progress and problems throughout.

SideWinder · 12 Jul 2013 at 21:23

Looking forward to seeing your updates!

Duke · 12 Jul 2013 at 21:42

Great project, keep us posted

LeeUK · 13 Jul 2013 at 11:36

What happened to the occupant to leave all their crap behind?

Griffo · 13 Jul 2013 at 11:37

Watching with interest

VIPER258 · 13 Jul 2013 at 13:25

Sounds good. keep us updated with pics.

bitslice · 13 Jul 2013 at 13:45

LeeUK said:
What happened to the occupant to leave all their crap behind?

I think the stairlift is a clue

rotters · 13 Jul 2013 at 13:51

Pretty obvious what happened to previous owners. Mate I'm really jelous, have always wanted to have a project. That's going to be a fantastic home when its done. If you don't mind giving the details I'd love to know:

How much you planning on spending and do you have some contingency money somewhere.

What time scale you looking at?

cheechm · 13 Jul 2013 at 15:15

Sub'd.

Brozart · 13 Jul 2013 at 19:06

LeeUK said:
What happened to the occupant to leave all their crap behind?

From what the neighbors told me, the previous owners didn't have much luck, their daughter died of cancer, shortly after the wife fell down the outside steps and died in hospital, then shortly after that the husband had a major stroke which left him speechless and paralyzed down one side for the last 4 years of his life, he died this March.

As for leaving the crap behind, the estate agent asked if it was ok for the seller to leave all the furniture and take some sentimental items, I agreed thinking that they would take some family photos and I could cash in on some of the items... I went there two days later to find they took the TV, vintage sideboard and the stair lift! I did get a couple of decent items but it was still a pain, I must have wasted half a day getting rid of it all...

rotters said:
Pretty obvious what happened to previous owners. Mate I'm really jealous, have always wanted to have a project. That's going to be a fantastic home when its done. If you don't mind giving the details I'd love to know:

How much you planning on spending and do you have some contingency money somewhere.

What time scale you looking at?

No problem mate,

I currently have £9000 to spend and was hoping to add around £1000 a month from my wage, but this is where the thread will get interesting, I was made redundant last week... bad timing to say the least. So until I find another job, all extra cash for the project is put on hold. The only benefit to this situation is I have much more time to labour and do all the dirty work for free.

I've got £5000 for contingency and was planning to slowly double that figure with what was left after all the bills and the £1000 extra for the project.

I'm pretty laid back on the timescale, the goal is flexible depending on progress and any problems we need to address.

rotters · 13 Jul 2013 at 22:11

Sorry to hear about the redundancy. But your right every cloud has a silver lining and all that. Should easily be in by December if youve already started to clear it. Good luck fella. Looking forward to the photos.

LeeUK · 15 Jul 2013 at 08:09

Brozart said:
As for leaving the crap behind, the estate agent asked if it was ok for the seller to leave all the furniture and take some sentimental items, I agreed thinking that they would take some family photos and I could cash in on some of the items... I went there two days later to find they took the TV, vintage sideboard and the stair lift! I did get a couple of decent items but it was still a pain, I must have wasted half a day getting rid of it all...

Typical them taking all the good stuff and leaving the junk behind. I'd charge them for having the house cleared out unless it was already reflected in the price.

a1ex2001 · 15 Jul 2013 at 11:01

Don't strip it back to the brickwork unless you really need to, you'd be amazed what a quick plaster skim can save you in terms of mess and hard labour you also risk loosing a lot of old detailing in skirting board, architaves and picture rails etc. Also if you want to avoid the horrible mess overboarding a lath and plaster ceiling is a great solution stopes the cieling from falling gives a nice smooth clean finish but doesn't involve filling your house with chocking black filth.

Enjoy the experience!

EndlessSky · 15 Jul 2013 at 21:15

Good luck in finding a new job fella.

Brozart · 15 Jul 2013 at 22:49

a1ex2001 said:
Don't strip it back to the brickwork unless you really need to, you'd be amazed what a quick plaster skim can save you in terms of mess and hard labour you also risk loosing a lot of old detailing in skirting board, architaves and picture rails etc. Also if you want to avoid the horrible mess overboarding a lath and plaster ceiling is a great solution stopes the cieling from falling gives a nice smooth clean finish but doesn't involve filling your house with chocking black filth.

Enjoy the experience!

If this project was purely for profit that's exactly what I would do, but I'm planning on living here long term. By removing all the lath and plaster from the ceiling means I won't loss any height when adding new plasterboard, also will be easier to insulate between the joists of the 1st floor and loft, easier to run the electrical and network wiring and cleaner if I ever decide to do more work once I've moved in. I will be keeping most of the walls though as the majority haven't blown, will just coat in a PVA Primer and skim over.

EndlessSky said:
Good luck in finding a new job fella.

Thanks mate, I added my profile to totaljobs and had some good feedback so far, so I'm feeling optimistic. Worse comes to worse, I don't mind getting my hands dirty and doing some trade work to tide me over..

Brozart · 16 Jul 2013 at 00:13

Its been a hard few days but coming on nicely...

Removing the lath and plaster wasn't as difficult as people make out, I just opened all doors and windows, pointed three fans towards the bay window and hoped for the best

I did the work in two sections, front room then back room.

Some Tips:
Make sure to wear Dust and Liquid Safety Goggles, safety spectacles do not work with dust, I found this out the hard way.
Also don't skimp on the dust masks as the plaster can be seriously harmful depending on the age of your house and what compounds were added - until 1895 horsehair was added to plaster as a binding agent, this could potentially breakdown into anthrax spores (very rare) and also between 1920 - 1980s asbestos may have been added to plaster and artex. Luckily my house was built between these dates (1910) but I still need to be weary, especially if repairs or upgrades were done between 1920-90), I personally went for a 3M Valved Dust Respirator P1 (FFP3 type, European Standard EN 149 - provides protection I need against infectious agents).

I then dealt with the fire, at first glace I thought the gas was connect via a lead pipe I had friend who is gas safe registered to cap the pipe for me.

Not a bad start with only a claw hammer, stone hammer and shovel...

Did I mention I'm too tight to pay for a skip,

Hostile-17 · 16 Jul 2013 at 08:25

you got all that in the back of a Corsa? Fair play to you Sir!!

nice job subd!

LeeUK · 16 Jul 2013 at 11:15

Like wise, I never pay for skips. My car is my mobile skip. :cool:

It's just a pain at the waste recovery centre aka tip as you got to sort it out into sections. They won't allow you to just chuck it all in together.