My DIY Adventure...

[Hamzter]

Having gone temporarily insane, I decided to buy a house, I then spent the best part of 2 years doing the place up, I thought I might share my adventure with you all. I really dropped myself in the deep end here, having not done more than put up shelves previously, I then went straight into a DIY loft conversion and bathroom refit, everyone thought I was bonkers but I showed em

Anyway, on with the photos, starting with the bathroom. This room was pretty grim when I moved in...

...and got much worse when I had to pull up the floor to sort some piping...

I started off stripping everything back to the stud work and brick...

Fitted a dropped ceiling so I could fit downlighters (loft room above stopped me going straight into the ceiling)...

Fitted insulation and plaster boarded...

I also put tile board on the walls, this stuff is insulated which is good for keeping condensation off the tiles. Amusingly enough, these things are held in place with studs called 'spankers'...

New pipes finished, my soldering skills could use some work...

New plywood floor goes down...

Bath goes in...

Shower tray goes in, and cubicle tanked (it's amazing how many people forget to do this, even waterproof grout is porous, so the wall starts to degrade from the damp after a couple of years if you don't tank it)...

Tiling begins...

Shower and cubicle in...

I love these taps...

Door hung...

Underfloor heating mat laid...

Stay tuned for the concluding part...

 

[Hamzter]

...and here is the concluding part

Phew! That took about 4 months to finish, but the house took nearly 2 years to complete which might give you an idea of the scale of work I had ahead of me

Coming up later - I remove a floor, then put it back

 

[Hamzter]

That looks stunning - great work! How come you didn't put the extractor fan nearer to the shower by the way?

There was already an extractor hole there, I don't think you can have the extractor right next to the shower anyway because of electrical zones...

Nice work that. Were you living there while you did the work?

Yep! It required some careful planning to ensure I always had a working bath or shower, keeping the dirt out of the living areas is a real nightmare.

Nice. Very nice. But you changed the taps!?

I want underfloor heating in my next house. Is it easy to fit and worth the effort/expense?

I was very tempted to leave the taps, I've had more compliments on the old ones than anything else!

The underfloor heating was surprisingly cheap, about £80 for the mat + £60 for the thermostat. It needs to be bedded into a layer of self leveling compound before covering it with tiles/laminate/stuff, which is dead easy to do. It has to be on the correct base though, straight onto floorboards is no good because the self leveling compound will just go down all the gaps, there's probably solutions to that mind. Insulating underneath the floor is also a good idea, but not vital. I'd say it's definitely worth the expense in the bathroom, tiles feel freezing even in summer, but with the heating they feel great under your feet. If you're planning on doing multiple rooms, it might be worth looking into the water systems (this one was electric), it might work out cheaper in the long run.

 

[Hamzter]

4 months

With kids in the house there's no way I could take that long on a refit, though I need to do one

What did you put above the dropped ceiling to stop steam going up?

This was a complete strip and rebuild job, not a shred of the old bathroom is left, so this is a pretty extreme situation. I was also working full time about 60 hours a week, reckon if I took time off work I'd have it done in 3 weeks.

The only place the steam can get up there is around the downlights, they're zone 1 lights so virtually nothing will get past them and they're a tight seal to the ceiling.

I'm also interested in the underfloor heating.
I've been looking at the 200 watt ProWarm electric mat kits for our en-suite. They look quite easy to install up until the point where you need to decide where the thermostat goes.

Did you get a Pro elec installer in to finish it off. My understanding this is a legal requirement ?

I went with Devimat, I think they're all quite similar though. I got my regular sparky to wire it up, although I ran all the wires, I had trouble running wires in places where the stud work got in the way, but there are creative ways of getting round it. I've been very careful to comply to the regulations on this house, don't want anything coming back and biting me, sparky has signed off all the electrics and building control signed off the structural work I had done too. Makes sense really, I got this house at a steal because the previous owner didn't follow the rules, and he found no one was willing to buy it as a result.

 

[Hamzter]

Time for some more pictures

The real big job in this house was the loft, the previous owner had converted it himself, and not to building regulations. There were a number of things that were very wrong with it - floor structure woefully unsuitable, not enough head height on the stairs, very little insulation, no fireproofing, unsuitable fire escape window etc. Basically it had to be completely stripped out and done again, I got this house very cheap because very few people were willing to do it, but I love a challenge

Here's how is was when I moved in...

Not a bad area (6m x 6m to the eaves) and a decent head height (~3m to the ridge), being an old cut roof style structure it was perfect for conversion. Modern houses are no good for this without rebuilding the roof as they use trusses now. My first job was to remove all the old carpet, wood, plasterboard etc., this took a surprisingly long time to do since everything had to be carried down 2 flights of stairs and down to the skip at the end of the garden. It all went in the end though...

Here I found my first shock, a window had been added without putting in a lintel to support the stuff above it!

This is pretty bad normally, but there's a purlin (major roof support member) right above the window, which takes about 1/8 of the weight of the roof. It's lucky it didn't collapse when he was fitting the window!

It took about 3 months of free time to finish stripping out and disposing of the old loft, then I got started with the construction. First up was fitting the Velux windows...

This was all done from inside, there's no need to risk climbing on the roof with modern Velux. About a days work per window, here's the second...

I made an potentially annoying discovery at this point - I can now see my work (about 1.5m away) from my house! It's a good thing I like where I work

 

[Hamzter]

Next job was to finish removing the old floor structure so that the new one could be put in, the previous had used 2" steel box section and angle iron instead of the usual I beam and joist arrangement, my structural engineer spec'd beams which were at least 10 times the strength of the old ones! He'd also welded it together which may it a pig to remove...

Fortunately I was wearing my asbestos pants that day! The last section of steel also supported the stairs, so it was time to remove that. I wasn't looking forward to this, because it was the only thing stopping dirt from getting to the rest of the house, but it couldn't be helped.

Now you see it...

Now you don't!

Tada!

This is the point where the builders took over, to fit the ~800kg of still required to support the new floor...

They also bricked up the old window for me, which finally made the walls structurally sound again...

And then they went on their way to leave me to the DIY once again. This is about 7-8 months into the project now, it was quite daunting to think how much more work there was to do, just gotta keep moving. The views out the window were also quite a distraction...

 

[Hamzter]

The internet's a small place aint it!

Time for some more pics. With the builders gone, I got started putting in the floor joists, getting equipment into the loft was interesting without a staircase, I ended up setting up a pulley to haul the heavier stuff up.

Around this point, the ceiling in one of the bedrooms decided to give way...

Another job to add to the list. Being an old lathe and plaster job, I decided to replace it with plasterboard, so I got stomping, 5 minutes later...

This actually made things easier, it gave me more space to store materials and a safer route to enter the loft (ladders over staircases are dangerous).

Stud work then started to take shape...

I continue with the worlds largest jigsaw puzzle cutting and sealing all the insulation...

And the views continue to distract me...

 

[Hamzter]

Next up was fitting the staircase, this was a huge relief as I was climbing up and down 30 times a day (without a ladder, jumping and doing a pull up, safer than using a ladder)...

With the insulation complete, I started on the plaster boarding...

Just about done...

Boxed in and plaster boarded the staircase...

 

[Hamzter]

Valuable lesson learned here, don't forget to close your windows before you go to work! No damage luckily...

I had the sparky finish off all the electrics, and the plasterer turned up to do his stuff...

A lick of paint later...

And another sunset

 

[Hamzter]

And there we have it, 18 months down and I finally finished the room, moved into the loft and had a party! I absolutely love how it's turned out, I get a big grin on my face every time I come up here

The next job is to make all the furniture, nothing fits up here!

Until my next crazy project!

 

[Hamzter]

Wow, really nice work there, looks loads better than it did. It makes me wonder why anyone would pay to have this sort of work carried out when it's so much fun to do it yourself .

Did you not fancy having a go at the plastering yourself?

I think most people aren't willing to give up their social lives for 18 months I've not had the place revalued yet, or added up how much the materials cost, but I think I saved myself in the region of £10k by doing it myself. There were also moments where I thought 'oh god what have I taken on!', you've got to have real patience and persistence with this kind of job. There are also some jobs which I hated, like cutting over 100 pieces of insulation to size, very slow work. But then there are plenty of jobs which I loved, I enjoyed anything to do with timber, you can be precise, make quick progress, and it's easy stuff to work with.

Never gave plastering a go, the loft isn't an easy one to start with, I plan on giving it a go in the future though.

 

[Hamzter]

Nothing to do with the building trade, I'm a design engineer at Triumph Motorcycles, there's a surprising overlap in skills though, problem solving is essential for both my job and my DIY!

 

[Hamzter]

That's the door from the hallway/ground floor stairs. The regs say that if you add a 2nd story you have to provide a fire protected stairway for all rooms, which means all rooms leading from that hallway must be protected with a fire door. Also, it would be a bit weird having a bedroom without a door on it...

 

[Hamzter]

I used a BAL WP1 kit, it was either that or the Mapei one, they both get good reviews from what I remember.

 

[Hamzter]

Very impressive work, it's very rewarding being able to do the work yourself, gives you a buzz.
Good to see you fitted a smoke alarm, are they interlinked with others on the lower floors?

Hamzter: That wooden fire door looks good,where did you get it from, which model is it, been looking to replace the doors in my place, but decided to fit fire doors from the kitchen to the hallway & dinning room.

Yeh there's smoke alarms on each floor, all interconnected. The doors are Wickes Ludlow fire doors, they do em in a few different sizes. Note fire doors should be fitted with intumenscent strips and fire rated hinges to be effective.

 

[Hamzter]

A nice job on the whole by the looks of it, but one or two things my 'anal eye' has spotted:

1. That is rather a large gap between the top of the door & the frame in the Bathroom.

2. The door handle looks too low, it should be 990mm from the floor.

3. By the looks of it, you've used truss clips instead of joist hangers for your ceiling.


Are you including you own labour time in that calculation?

1. The gap's about 3mm, don't think I could have got it tighter than that. The door's recessed into the frame, it might be the shadow making it look worse than it really is.

2. I matched the height to the rest of the doors in the house, it's about 870mm, 990 sounds a bit high to me? Can't say it's ever bothered me.

3. Yeh I used face fix hangers instead of the wrap around jiffy type ones, it had plenty of load capacity though, is there some reason the wrap around ones are preferred?

I can be pretty anal about the details too, probably why it took so long to finish!

The saving I mentioned doesn't include my time, that's tricky to calculate since it depends how much you're paying yourself. I got rough quotes of 20k and 22k including materials for the loft, I wouldn't have had half the control over the details though, and I would never have learnt how to do all this. I spent about 10k on materials for the loft, 4k on materials for the bathroom.

love how much insulation you've used, your bills are gonna be very low..

That's building regulations for you, there's actually 2 layers of the stuff in the ceiling (140mm thickness total), I had to meet an insulation value higher than for walls in a new build! If anything it gets too hot, if I forget to close the landing door the heat from the rest of the house rises and it becomes an oven up there

 

[Hamzter]

How much was the radiator?

Did you consider putting cupboards in at the lowest level in the attic conversion? Seems there's a lot of unused space there.

Bedroom radiator was about £80 (on sale), bathroom radiator about £60. The bedroom one is a whopping 9000btu, my plumber friend says this is the 'correct' size, the room heats up in an instant, but it’s on a TRV so it doesn't get too hot.

I put in some little doors into the eaves for storage, one of them you can see in the pictures, the other one is hidden behind the bed. The space in there is too small for regular usage, but is good for sticking Xmas decorations and things in that you don't need very often. I'll be building drawers, a wardrobe and shelves in a few months which should make the make the place a bit more practical.

 

[Hamzter]

Just to check, did you tank between wall and top of shower tray with the tanking tape?

Yeh, my shower tray had an upstand, I filled any gaps with silicone, then applied the tape to bridge the shower tray to the plasterboard, then applied the tanking paint over the lot. If you've not got an upstand then I guess just try and get the tape to stick to the horizontal surface as best you can before painting over.

 

[Hamzter]

Nice work

How did you find the plasterboard hoist? Did you buy it from eBay?

I'm in the process of removing all my lath & plaster ceilings!

Yeh I got it off ebay, I found I couldn't actually use it much in the attic because the sloping walls tended to get in the way, I ended up just lifting them manually and using batons screwed to the walls etc to support it while I was screwing them in place. It was pretty useful in the bedroom that I did, lifting full size panels to replace the ceiling, I would probably have given myself an injury without it!

 

[Hamzter]

Very impressive without a doubt, so prior to getting this house the only diy you ever done was putting shelves up ? That makes it even more of a achievement.

Yep, I can honestly say I'd never done any real DIY before buying the house. Helps if you have a few good books (i had 3 which I treated like bibles), and forums like DIYNot are brilliant for both help and inspiration.

Fantastic work there

Did you have someone draw up plans for you to follow? For example when faced with a bare roof what made you choose the battening layout you did? I tend to find myself struck with indecision when it comes to many DIY matters.

I had a structural engineer draw up some plans for the loft, but they're were bare minimum, they just had the floor structure on it, window positions and sizes, fire door and fire alarm locations, plus the required calculations for the floor. Pretty much all the decisions were left to me, I found myself staring at things far too long pondering how to tackle it, sometimes you just have to jump and hope that you've picked a reasonable way of doing it.

I think planning is the key to it all, you have to think right to the end of the project whenever you're starting something. A prime example was the loft window by the stairs, the position of it was dictated by the position of the banister (couldn't have the banister running into the window), which didn't actually get fitted till 18 months after the window!

When are you free to come and do my bathrooms!?!?

Haha, get in line