1970 House Renovation - 3 floor townhouse build log
Many thanks.
Yes ideally looking to insulate all floors with 100mm rockwool sound block and internal stud walls with 70mm sound block. Hoping it will make it a nice place to live and reasonably quiet.
Obviously it's a town house so the bottom floor is all concrete - definitely doesn't seem cold and have no idea what's under it.
So it's been a month.
Front room ceiling
This has been an adventure to say the least. The issues of level became much more pronounced towards the other end of the room, and without levelling was heading for a very wonky ceiling, and finished reduced level of 2 inches or so from original joist!
I decided to find the lowest sitting joist and use that as my reference point, attaching a 2.4m beam into the joist ensuring it was level sideways across all other joists. This allowed me to place new battens parallel to the existing off joists and sort the levels out, smoothing out the joist drop towards other party wall.
To make the job easier (considering I have an entire house to do), I've invested in a lift which set me back £70, and makes the job a one man possibility.
Some idea of how I was levelling the joists
In the end, over a 5.2M span I ended up with 14mm deviation in floor to ceiling height, not sure if this is good or bad but I'm happy compared to what it was before.
[url=https://ibb.co/md3MWk]
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[url=https://ibb.co/bwRfP5]
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Front room flooring/walls
Basically all done, pretty level and no noticeable lippage between sheets, so feeling confident of laying engineered / laminate and not having any issues. I've maybe excessively battened some areas, but this does now mean the floor feels like it could take a tank and still be standing, there is 0 bounce or reverberations noticeable within the room.
Managed to fit the radiator, however need a re plaster for the bottom brackets as sods law dictated blown plaster exactly where my lower brackets need to go!
The walls are also done, just need to grab a few skim beads and get them on
Kitchen
This has now been stripped out, and actually fairly happy with the quality of the plaster that remains, very minimal to skim.
The floor however, is not going to be fun. A single joist is sitting 5mm above every other, so to avoid sistering every joist to match it, I'm going to plane the joist down with the hope that it solves the issue. The floor for some other reason has seen a major leak at some point, and the chipboard is rotted in some areas.
Plans for the kitchen stand as 70% tiled floor (down on schluter ditra), and 30% will be laminate or engineered wood, most likely transitioned with a schluter profile. We're also going for a fully tiled feature wall, in a very decorative porcelain which should complement the white kitchen nicely to stop it being overly cold (trying to get a sketchup done).
All of the plumbing will be moving, as well as any central heating. Will be plumbing in a semi-central island with wash basin, and on the stripped wall above plumbing in a new radiator, and removing the capped gas feed (teminating the other side of room) in preparation for a 90CM gas/electric induction
Front room ceiling
This has been an adventure to say the least. The issues of level became much more pronounced towards the other end of the room, and without levelling was heading for a very wonky ceiling, and finished reduced level of 2 inches or so from original joist!
I decided to find the lowest sitting joist and use that as my reference point, attaching a 2.4m beam into the joist ensuring it was level sideways across all other joists. This allowed me to place new battens parallel to the existing off joists and sort the levels out, smoothing out the joist drop towards other party wall.
To make the job easier (considering I have an entire house to do), I've invested in a lift which set me back £70, and makes the job a one man possibility.
Some idea of how I was levelling the joists
In the end, over a 5.2M span I ended up with 14mm deviation in floor to ceiling height, not sure if this is good or bad but I'm happy compared to what it was before.
[url=https://ibb.co/md3MWk]
[/URL][url=https://ibb.co/bwRfP5]
[/URL]Front room flooring/walls
Basically all done, pretty level and no noticeable lippage between sheets, so feeling confident of laying engineered / laminate and not having any issues. I've maybe excessively battened some areas, but this does now mean the floor feels like it could take a tank and still be standing, there is 0 bounce or reverberations noticeable within the room.
Managed to fit the radiator, however need a re plaster for the bottom brackets as sods law dictated blown plaster exactly where my lower brackets need to go!
The walls are also done, just need to grab a few skim beads and get them on
Kitchen
This has now been stripped out, and actually fairly happy with the quality of the plaster that remains, very minimal to skim.
The floor however, is not going to be fun. A single joist is sitting 5mm above every other, so to avoid sistering every joist to match it, I'm going to plane the joist down with the hope that it solves the issue. The floor for some other reason has seen a major leak at some point, and the chipboard is rotted in some areas.
Plans for the kitchen stand as 70% tiled floor (down on schluter ditra), and 30% will be laminate or engineered wood, most likely transitioned with a schluter profile. We're also going for a fully tiled feature wall, in a very decorative porcelain which should complement the white kitchen nicely to stop it being overly cold (trying to get a sketchup done).
All of the plumbing will be moving, as well as any central heating. Will be plumbing in a semi-central island with wash basin, and on the stripped wall above plumbing in a new radiator, and removing the capped gas feed (teminating the other side of room) in preparation for a 90CM gas/electric induction
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Looking good, plenty for you to get stuck in with.
I want to see this £70 lift
Same model as this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Drywall-1...%3A3e8dfd1915e0aa47267408bbfff73f2c%7Ciid%3A1
I couldn't have done the room without it to be honest, didn't want to cut down sheets and have too many joints.
Final bit of plasterboard is done now, just got the angle beads to go on and some touch up. Will be skimming the left wall just to finish it all off.
Also got a sketchup on the go for the kitchen. The units and wall tiles are completed in terms of design. It'll be DiyKitchens Luca Gloss
In terms of windows, most likely now settling for 2m x 2m double/triple glazed unit, and a set of doors for the remainder. Unlike the image, the end won't be behind the cabinets, my drawing is slightly off
Also got a sketchup on the go for the kitchen. The units and wall tiles are completed in terms of design. It'll be DiyKitchens Luca Gloss
In terms of windows, most likely now settling for 2m x 2m double/triple glazed unit, and a set of doors for the remainder. Unlike the image, the end won't be behind the cabinets, my drawing is slightly off
Soldato
Looks good! I'm also getting a Luca gloss kitchen from DIYkitchens
Cheers, I'm following your build!
At the moment can't decide if to do the bathroom or kitchen next. Partner wants to do the bathroom incase my wet room leaks and destroys a new kitchen.
Living without a kitchen when you both love cooking is the hardest thing.
Soldato
Wet room does sound good, my bathroom also needs completely gutting! I've heard a wet room is an arseache to get right tho for sealing it? Does it cost much Extra? I figured a new bathroom would be 5 to 6k ish
There are a bunch of different systems around. Costs can be high or low depending which route you go down. You have a few categories really
- Tanking via vinyl style Matt (imprey system) which seems by far the easiest and most resilient but is expensive
- Tanking via your backer materials such as using schluter systems (this would be my preferred if not for cost)
- Tanking with wet membrane you paint on the walls and floor (which is what I'll be doing)
Also depends how far you go with tanking which is all a wet room really is. Some people only tank the shower area so that's much cheaper. I'll be doing floors and walls of entire room.
For a bathroom of around 3x2 it will add approximately 500 onto my build costs.
I'll be using aquaseal for my wet system, but you have loads more choices like bal, maipei etc.
I guess like anything you can build it wrong, but the principles are pretty simple, Prime, seal, tank
There's little logical gotyas I have done a lot of reading on such as sealing bottom of room first so your joints always go over your lowest. In the event water gets behind tiles it will run down wall over your sealing tape rather than possibly finding a way behind your lowest joints.
In addition fitting boards and so forth, people make mistakes like your walls running behind your floors, whereas you really want your wall coming out over your floor. Same goes for tubs and showers trays... You want your wall coming out over lips to ensure any potential leaks run down the wall onto a tanked surface.
This is all theoretical for now, rubber will meet the road when I start!
I'll be doing the walls and floors in hardibacker and tanking onto that.
A major milestone for us as the front room is almost done. It is at least now liveable, and radiator in just in time for what feels like a cold winter coming!
All painting was done with two coats of dulux trade supermatt (one heavily watered / one slightly).
Given its the first time we've painted a room im very happy, walls are silky smooth.
All that remains is:
- Doing the caulking around windows and sil
- Minor touch ins at wall/ceiling joints (most likely will be sorted by painting colour)
- Painting walls in teal
- Fitting flooring (most likely laminate with sonic gold)
- Skirting
- Replacing the cheap sockets with final chrome ones
After that will convert the corner under stairs to a snug with a bookshelf built in, but that's less of a priority for now while we tackle bathroom and kitchen.
Some photos of the work (plastering to finished)
Decided to try my hand at a spot of plastering - In hindsight I should have had him skim the whole room
All painting was done with two coats of dulux trade supermatt (one heavily watered / one slightly).
Given its the first time we've painted a room im very happy, walls are silky smooth.
All that remains is:
- Doing the caulking around windows and sil
- Minor touch ins at wall/ceiling joints (most likely will be sorted by painting colour)
- Painting walls in teal
- Fitting flooring (most likely laminate with sonic gold)
- Skirting
- Replacing the cheap sockets with final chrome ones
After that will convert the corner under stairs to a snug with a bookshelf built in, but that's less of a priority for now while we tackle bathroom and kitchen.
Some photos of the work (plastering to finished)
Decided to try my hand at a spot of plastering - In hindsight I should have had him skim the whole room
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Flooring ordered now, along with sonic gold.
Got this setup which was a nice easy job to get out of the way. Nothing fancy, just a screwfix Labgear 48 element. We were getting terrible signal in front room, along with 10/20% quality now near 100% which is great.
Got this setup which was a nice easy job to get out of the way. Nothing fancy, just a screwfix Labgear 48 element. We were getting terrible signal in front room, along with 10/20% quality now near 100% which is great.
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So ready to go this weekend.
Got 30m2 of sonic gold, looks ok so will see how it goes down!
The flooring we'll be using is this, seems like decent quality and is AC4 so pretty hard wearing given it's the living room and will have a lot of traffic. Opted for this over engineered purely down to maintenance rather than cost, didn't want to have to treat it every so often etc.
Also tackled something that I've toyed with for a few weeks. Because they used joist hangers where the stairs are for the void, there was a floor level difference at end of room and they didnt hanger up level with the supporting joist.
In the end I opted for 9mm plywood, primed it with PVA to seal it and put a few mm of self levelling in to ensure it brought the floor level up. It half feels like a bodge, but short of rehanging the joists and messing around with acros I'm fairly happy with the result.
I'm now thinking of using self levelling in the kitchen and bathroom, instead of trying to get the sub floor mm perfect. Bathroom seems like a good choice as I can underboard with hardibacker and self level up to the shower tray, if anyone thinks that is a bad idea let me know!
Got 30m2 of sonic gold, looks ok so will see how it goes down!
The flooring we'll be using is this, seems like decent quality and is AC4 so pretty hard wearing given it's the living room and will have a lot of traffic. Opted for this over engineered purely down to maintenance rather than cost, didn't want to have to treat it every so often etc.
Also tackled something that I've toyed with for a few weeks. Because they used joist hangers where the stairs are for the void, there was a floor level difference at end of room and they didnt hanger up level with the supporting joist.
In the end I opted for 9mm plywood, primed it with PVA to seal it and put a few mm of self levelling in to ensure it brought the floor level up. It half feels like a bodge, but short of rehanging the joists and messing around with acros I'm fairly happy with the result.
I'm now thinking of using self levelling in the kitchen and bathroom, instead of trying to get the sub floor mm perfect. Bathroom seems like a good choice as I can underboard with hardibacker and self level up to the shower tray, if anyone thinks that is a bad idea let me know!
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My only concern is with the difference in flexibility between the two mediums, wood and self leveling compound. Would the compound not crack ?. Unsure. I'm no builder and far from it, but the transformation between now and then on the house is amazing. Keep up the good work and you'll have a lovely home, as for the laminated floor.
We installed something almost identical in the living room and dinner when the kids where young and running around with stones in their shoes and playing with their toys etc on the surface. Very hard wearing and lasted a lot more than the cream stairs and landing carpet which my wife insisted "Looked nice". It didn't, and it was ruined within 3 months of it being down.
Soldato
Assuming you put a your sonic gold underlay on top of compound and you've got compound just on single sheet of ply it sounds like a good idea to me.
If you have any q's about Luca gloss diykitchens give me a shout / @ btw! I recommend the curved corner units, they look very sleek, however are poor in terms of real estate compared to a pan drawer! I recommend as many pan drawers as possible!
(the cost of curved units is also a bit painful!
If you have any q's about Luca gloss diykitchens give me a shout / @ btw! I recommend the curved corner units, they look very sleek, however are poor in terms of real estate compared to a pan drawer! I recommend as many pan drawers as possible!
(the cost of curved units is also a bit painful!
Assuming you put a your sonic gold underlay on top of compound and you've got compound just on single sheet of ply it sounds like a good idea to me.
If you have any q's about Luca gloss diykitchens give me a shout / @ btw! I recommend the curved corner units, they look very sleek, however are poor in terms of real estate compared to a pan drawer! I recommend as many pan drawers as possible!
(the cost of curved units is also a bit painful!
Yeah that compound is just a fix up. The sonic gold will sit on 18mm WBP ply for the majority.
For the bathroom I was considering more
> Tanking Solution
>Self Level Compound
>HardiBacker (6mm)
>WBP Ply (18mm)
I still need to win around the other half to the curved units, last time I checked the doors were £200-300 each? But I definitely want them having seen a showroom in Wren with curved corner units. Is your door a single door or is it two smaller curved doors?
Soldato
Mine is a single door on a base unit. They look great, but usable space not as good as a pan drawer. I worked out curved units plus the island 260mm side attachment (to the right of mine) worked out around £500 thus I only have one!
I have pics of it below. Thankfully I'm having my own floor (karndean) fitted by the fitters right now!
Bungalow build log
I have pics of it below. Thankfully I'm having my own floor (karndean) fitted by the fitters right now!
Bungalow build log
Soldato
The hidden gem - This made my buy the house, so now you can get to see it. The garden is currently massively overgrown, but is set on essentially 3 levels. The stairs up lead to the 3rd level (I believe), and this goes back maybe 10+ meters and backs onto a conservation area (so completely private). When at the top, you can see the entire of wales and the sea... can't wait to clear it out and enjoy it.
What a build, a lot of effort and skill here imo. Only thing I can think of is my dad always had a big machine to damp course fluid inject the brickwork under joists and would have been putting in damp proof on bricks while freely available, I've no idea if that would be of any use in this case but if its in Wales I presume lots of water
Was under floor heating viable, for any big overhaul I like the idea of that but not sure its as efficient as radiators
The garden part reminds me of my sisters house which was a bit of a bargain thanks to literally an impassible jungle/triffid invasion of the entire back garden going back 60 feet. Renters occupied the house and left it completely unkept for a decade. Their garden leads onto a school field but its a great point to buy on because it can be done at your own pace and its basically just legwork not cost so much.
I helped my brother in law cut down the trees and weeds and many car loads of rubble and stones to remove. He found a dozen large Victorian porcelain sinks in the mud. Very much in demand and worth something. The ladder makes it look interesting but the slope could be a bit of a challenge to shape
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I guess you could argue yes given I'm redoing most radiator locations and doing sub floors, but doesn't seem worth it - If I was doing a new build I would have underfloor wet heating with beautiful polished concrete floors!
Definitely can't do electric underfloor throughout the house unless I was big into solar! Would cost a fortune in electric bills.
Update
Painting is now done, very happy with the result and have a few ceiling cut lines to go back and finish as messed up a bit there. Overall on the walls they are silky smooth and it looks seamless so really happy for our first ever painting project. Walls are coated in Dulux Trade Diamond Matt, bit expensive but results are good.
Also laid all the laminate flooring, although will admit I had a slight "duh" moment and laid all of the sonic gold, gold side up! Not a big issue as it's down on a floating floor, so not exactly needing the damp membrane too much. There were some tricky puzzles to solve to get the floor looking ok, and had to start from the doorway, then from TV corner back to doorway and then rest of room. Luckily have ended up with full boards all the way through room with only partials at end of room where sofa etc will be.
Close to finishing the room now, all that remains
- Skirting
- Sockets changed
- Window sils painted
- Wall paper corner area
- Building corner seating unit
Some pictures of progress
Soldato
Phew, i got to the second picture and thought you'd laid them like that rather than interlocking, but then made it through to the others