Grotty house advise

[Funky-Melon]

My girlfriend and I have just had an offer accepted on our first house. It's a 4 bed (technically 5 but no full time stairs to loft bedroom, so can't be classed as one). Very good size in a great area etc but it's cheap for a reason.....It was owned by an elderly chap who hasn't really looked after it that well with age and he was an extremely heavy smoker. He went into hospital a few months back and sadly didn't come back out.

All (once white) walls throughout most the house are heavily stained in nicotine, house smells of fags etc, needs new kitchen, both bathrooms need gutting etc, it's a mess...

Does anyone have any suggestions on getting rid of the nicotine? Obviously we got it as a project and will be redecorating the whole house overtime but the nicotine smells are disgusting at the moment and will need dealing with quickly when we move in.

I assume ripping out all carpets and curtains is the first thing but is there anything good out there for the walls?

 

[chroniclard]

Scrub all the walls and ceilings with some form of cleaner, rip out everything possible, lots of airing. Once walls/ceiling scrubbed clean and prepped then paint over it.

 

[Ginger-Menace]

sugar soap for the walls will get the nicotine off

 

[darael]

This would make a good project log to watch, if the OP wouldn't mind posting photos of what they started with and their progress.

 

[Molep]

Zinsser cover stain should do the job, although every surface will have to be tackled to get rid of the smell.
http://www.zinsseruk.com/howto/paint-nicotine-stains/

 

[gord]

Did you budget for cleaning or are you planning to do it all yourselves? I'd be tempted to get a professional in for a first round of cleaning.

 

[booyaka]

Rip EVERYTHING out, I mean everything - carpets, underlay, wallpaper etc - Even if possible skirting etc - Years ago I work for a company that did professional house clearance/cleaning and we literally ripped it back to the walls and nothing else.

Tried cleaning with sugarsoap/various other things but nothing got rid of the smell of nicotine/fags etc. Open windows and doors as much as you can.

 

[Funky-Melon]

sugar soap for the walls will get the nicotine off

Thanks, never heard of this stuff before - Not too expensive either.

This would make a good project log to watch, if the OP wouldn't mind posting photos of what they started with and their progress.

Yep, I'll get lots of pictures once we're in and get a thread going when we start the work. Won't be for a while yet though since the property is still going through probate, could be another 3-6 months yet

Zinsser cover stain should do the job, although every surface will have to be tackled to get rid of the smell.
http://www.zinsseruk.com/howto/paint-nicotine-stains/

This looks good, thanks

Did you budget for cleaning or are you planning to do it all yourselves? I'd be tempted to get a professional in for a first round of cleaning.

We're planning on doing as much as we can ourselves, though having never done this before we may be (probably are) in over our heads

 

[ants83]

Zinsser cover stain should do the job, although every surface will have to be tackled to get rid of the smell.
http://www.zinsseruk.com/howto/paint-nicotine-stains/

This stuff works wonders on nicotine. Had the same myself in a house we bought.
Carpet, curtains have to go. It stains wood and gets into plastic.
Get rid of wallpaper too and zinsser everywhere before you paint.
I think you can get THL crystals for cleaning it cuts through nicotine. Will try and find out the proper name for it but it works .

 

[jellybeard999]

Thanks, never heard of this stuff before - Not too expensive either.

Get concentrated and dilute yourself... as you'll need gallons of the stuff, it'll be much cheaper! eg https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonse...rc=aw.ds#product_additional_details_container or https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonse...QFM6w4GGwo_9a0cYHCBoCaY8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I'd start by ripping everything out. If you're living there, you'll need a kitchen and bathroom obviously, but I'd get rid of carpets and underlay throughout.

Hoover and mop everywhere thoroughly with some strong cleaner or bleach (inc floorboards etc... just don't get them soaked).

Give the bathroom a good deep clean.

Strip any wallpaper throughout, then thoroughly sugar soap the walls.

Consider ripping the kitchen out and just keep the bare minimum (oven, grill etc) and buy some cheap frestanding cupboards or drawers for storage. We moved out and lived with family during refurb, so it was easier, but if the kitchen was anything like ours before we ripped it out it was covered in a thick layer of grease, grime, possibly nicotine stains... it was yellow and sticky anyway, and couldn't be shifted with anything!

If you plan on staying for the forseeable, consider replacing skirting boards, wiring, adding new sockets, removing any stud walls (or structural if you plan to), replastering/skimming etc while the house is apart. Though I appreciate this may not be in budget, if you're ripping the house apart, now is the time to get the messy work out of the way if you can.

 

[Mark A]

Buy some giant bags of bicarbonate of soda and use that as a cleaner after using sugar soap etc and also put bowls of it in every room to help remove the odour.

You can buy it in bulk fairly cheaply from Amazon and ebay as people use it for making bath bombs and other crafts.

 

[xb8browney]

I'd probably get a garden pump spray to help aswell as what everyone else has said (rip out carpets etc)

 

[thenewoc]

+1 for rip everything out.

If it's as you say in a good area and you want to add value to it, it needs to be stripped back.

Tear down and re plaster board ceilings. Whilst they're down you can also use the opportunity to route cables for networking, tv aerial / satellite, down lights etc.

If you have more than one bathroom scrub the best one to make do whilst work is being done and gut the other(s) or use the worst one as a utility room for builders to get water / decorating clean up etc.

If you don't have a spare bathroom for builders / yourself to get water from then gut most of the kitchen except the kitchen sink and just strip it back to being ready to plaster. Set up a make shift kitchen with the bare essentials.

Tear off all skirting boards and architrave.

Do some research as to what is required to make the loft bedroom legit. You probably require fire doors on all the rooms accept downstairs toilet and any family bathroom or en-suite judging by how things are done on my home which has a loft room by design from when the house was built. Therefore if you need to replace your internal doors don't waste time painting the old ones.

Fit staircase to loft bedroom.

Clean walls and allow to dry out fully before priming them with a sealer.

Replace any windows and doors before re-plastering.

Re-plaster new ceilings plus walls.


Maybe if the loft room is not as accessible as the rest of the house it may have escaped the penetration of nicotine and you can be less severe with renovation on that level, maybe get that level done first so that can be some sanctuary from the mess of the renovating in the rest of the house.

If you can put the majority of your stuff in storage somewhere else it will make it easier to rip through the renovation quicker and prevent your stuff getting in a state.

 

[Syla5]

Things to consider doing before you move in:

If the wiring is shocking get a complete rewire done. Include getting your board updated, and also consider getting in touch with the power grid supplier to get the main house fuse upgraded, then your energy supplier to get a mains isolator and tails upgrade done.

Does the kitchen need doing, if so, do it.

All flooring taken up and out.

Whilst you are at it, and if you get the place rewired you may as well get the whole place replastered.

Any of these HUGE jobs you can do before you live in there will make your lives 100000% easier vs trying to do them while living there. 3 months extra wait time vs many years of happy living without disruption is well worth it.

As for the loft room, are you even sure the rafters are suitable floorboard rafters, as not having permanent stairs up there makes it sound like a loft that's been boarded out and rather then properly converted to a useable bedroom.

 

[Funky-Melon]

Any of these HUGE jobs you can do before you live in there will make your lives 100000% easier vs trying to do them while living there. 3 months extra wait time vs many years of happy living without disruption is well worth it.

As much as we'd love to do this prior to moving in (or even as soon as we're in) huge jobs tend to cost huge money, of which we won't have after moving

So far from what we've seen it needs...
- Bloody good clean all over
- New downstairs bathroom
- New upstairs bathroom
- New carpets/ laminate all round
- Potentially re-plastering, definitely painting
- New kitchen

First thing after the big clean is to move some of the doors further along the walls on some of the upstairs rooms to improve the layout so we can get on with redecorating. No point plastering/fitting new carpets then knocking walls down, making a mess again.

Then it's on to the things we'd like to do to it after, like redo the conservatory, en suite in master bedroom and sort the jungle of a garden - That won't be for a while yet though I expect.

 

[ants83]

Google trisodium phosphate for the nicotine stained walls.
Some great advice in here.

 

[DampCat]

There was one room in my house, I guess his office, that smelled. It took a lot of work. We had to remove everything, stripped the paper, skirting, coving, carpet, underlay. It did go, but I don't envy having to do an entire house

 

[Russinating]

Be realistic about what you're getting yourself into.

The house we're currenlt in/in the process of selling was a dooer upper, we thought it'd largely be cosmetic but turns out cosmetic basically is everything. In the end it was easier/quicker to just remove everything and go back to brick/studs and plaster/paint fresh than fannying about trying to patch over artex, strip wallpaper etc. Plus all the internal stud walls were lath and black plaster.

We didn't do any wiring, minor plumbing, and we spent about £40-50k, not including the side return extension, on a 2 bed. We expected to spend about £20k.

It's also incredibly difficult and inefficient to live effectively in a building site and do work around you.

It was totally worth it but we were fortunate that we could do it (with the unexpected spend).

 

[Funky-Melon]

We didn't do any wiring, minor plumbing, and we spent about £40-50k, not including the side return extension, on a 2 bed. We expected to spend about £20k.

£40-50k? Eek - What was that mostly spent on?

 

[Russinating]

Everything. It very quickly adds up. I stopped tracking expenses in the end because it was pointless (hence the £40-50k ballpark), it's not like you're going to say "we can't afford to install a bath" or "let's not get a skip and leave that pile of rubble there" etc; all of the stuff was a must-do rather than could-do.

New front door was £1k, ~5 skips would be approx £1.5k, £3k on flooring, probably £10k on boarding and plastering every room (inc. ceiling and materials), £2k bathroom suit, £2k tiles and tiler, etc. Sometimes they're relatively 'small' amounts but they add up, and you do find yourself not even questioning another £1k bill there, another £1k bill there. We had to screed the living room floor which is another casual grand. That ballpark doesn't include the side return extension (£35k), kitchen (£5k) and garden (£10k).

We did a lot ourselves initially, certainly for the first year, so all the demolition, removal, skip lugging, plumbing, bathroom suite fitting, laminate fitting, loft boarding, loads more besides etc. We painted the whole of the upstairs ourselves but for the time and effort, when you're living in it it's really difficult, and by that point you just want it done so we probably paid another £3k for a painter to do the downstairs and outside; they probably did in a week what would have taken us over a month of evenings and weekends. That was probably the best money we spent!

Be prepared to be living entirely in one room for a month, cooking on a gas camping stove and washing up plates in the bath .

They don't have much content in them because quite frankly who has the time, but my original thread is at https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/russinatings-first-house-and-project-log.18636615 and the finished article at https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/home-renovation-complete.18755668.