Well done, my good and faithful servant

The words that make up the title of this post are words we live to hear, and perhaps heretically i whisper them over the ever present servants in the house project. An era came to an end as I returned the scaffolding, mixer and trailer back to Pops Ward. They were essential equipment for our restoration and I thank Pops Ward and Grandpops Ward for the extended loan I have been privileged to receive - it would have been a lot harder and more expensive without these items. So, thank you.

And well done, my good and faithful servants.

The mixer that has mixed all the plaster that is now stuck to our walls and ceilings, and the scaffolding used to strip the outside of the house and during the re-rendering. Would have been tricky without it.

The trailer that has carried all the rubble from the house (old plaster and fireplace and ceilings etc) and also all the new materials, like sand and lime from Womersleys. A dedicated work horse for sure.

Insert witty title about painting windows here...

Morning,

Quick update….

We’ve generally been enjoying slightly more relaxed times at the moment, although we’re still kept busy – but most of it is enjoyable such as having the lads round for the champions league final and family ward landing for some al fresco curry.

We have made a little progress with the house though. Curtains are now up in the spare room (no photos yet) and on Saturday Hannah and I did the first coat of paint on the windows on the bowling green side of the house.

We are doing that side of the house first so we can return the scaffolding to Pops Ward.

The paint had got a bit messed up with the re-rendering over Easter – but even if we didn’t do that they still needed painting as they had begun to flake and the wood needs protecting.

A couple of saturdays ago i painted the guttering and down pipes too.

Doesn’t get much more rock and roll than that.

Oh yeah, it does, here are some photos…

the yellow is the previous window and door colour

And now, the end is near...

Note - I wrote this a week ago, but hadn't got around to posting it, so time references may be off.

Also, I hoped to have found our camera by now, but alas not yet, so only a few photos of poor quality accompany this post. I'm sure you'll survive though... I'll get some better snaps, and gather together other ones we took along the way.

Oh, i've not proof read this so i appologise for any spelling or grammar issues me made...

Happy reading.

---

Guten Tag.

Right, well, this could be a test of memory! It’s coming up to a month since the last post and a lot has been going on in the cottage in that time.

Also, I have mislaid our camera – hopefully it’ll turn up, but it does mean any photos are from my quite poor quality phone camera for now, of which there aren’t many. It’s the usual trick of not taking photos because I’m too busy getting on!

The last time I posted we had finished the plastering on the Sunday and were waiting a couple of days for the plaster to dry out. On the Monday I last posted we travelled to Newcastle to see the Unthanks perform at the The Tyne Theatre. It was a fantastic performance and venue. Brilliant. We both enjoyed it and loved being back in the toon and seeing a little bit of family! It truly was a fleeting visit as we left on Tuesday morning to get back to work having kipped at the long bank B&B. We had a Will in tow with us too on his way back for uni exams in Liverpool.

Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday evenings were spent lime washing the walls and ceiling transforming the room from brown to whit-ish. The white we had chosen for the walls was ‘portland’ – which we used in the rest of the house. However, as we were going for the all white country cottage look in the bedroom we realised the slightly grey/green off white of the Portland would be quite obvious next to white furniture and flooring, so decided to re lime wash the walls with pure white lime wash. This turned out to be a good decision and it looks good!

The Friday was set aside for installing the radiator. Although I had put the day aside, I had secretly hoped I would be done by lunch. Turned out to take all day. Bah. The installation of the radiator on the wall was surprisingly easy and lulled me into a false sense of optimism.

The radiator is chuffing heavy, and knowing how tricky it is to get a good fixing onto our walls we decided to fix panels of ply wood to the walls using window anchors before putting the top layer of plaster on the walls. This allowed us to use coach bolts into the plywood to fix the radiator brackets, and it worked a treat. Brill.

The old radiator was on the wall to the right as you walk into the room. To maximise useable space for furniture and storage we worked out the best position would be a vertical radiator next to the door. So the plumbing needed to be run around to the new radiator. This was relatively easy, although I needed to modify the step to run the pipes though. There is a lot going on in that step. All electricity cables, network cables, data cables, gas and flow and return pipes run through it!

So all went quite well until I filled the radiator and found the valves were weeping. So the radiator had to be drained, valve taken off, put PTFE tape back on, re tightened valve, and fill up. Then it still leaked. SO did it again, and again. The problem was I couldn’t find my valve allen key so had to improvise using a file to tighten the valve! Clearly I could get it tight enough. I then found my allen key, stuck on a load of ptfe and gave it a good seeing to – being careful not to split the female thread. That got it. It was very frustrating – good job I allowed the whole day.

Tilt your head to view correctly :)

I think on the Saturday we were at a wedding, then Sunday was easter day. We didn’t get much done on wither of those days, although a couple of hours were spent on the Sunday afternoon getting stuff ready for plastering the outside on the Monday.

Monday came and we got a good start on plastering the outside of the house. We had decided to go with the eco mortar finish as it was easier to finish, quicker and easier to mix and not much more expensive. It had also worked well on the other side of the house last year.

The first mix was done by 8am and I got plastering. Hannah did the mixing and general labourer work and helped with the sponge finish in the places she could reach. I think it was about 7pm when we finished and got packed away. A long hard day but well worth it. It is greatly improved (although I would like it to be better ;p) and we got it done in a day. Brilliant.

The Tuesday I was back at work, but decided to take Wednesday and Thursday as holiday and make the most of the long weekend her Majesty had gifted us.

The Wednesday and Thursday was spent finishing lime wash in the bedroom, stripping plaster from the window reveal, cleaning stone work and emptying the room. I did several tip trips too. Oh, and under coated the wood and constructed the boxing around the edge of the room having finished installing network and coaxial cable.

Friday was put aside for laying the floor. This was quite un enjoyable. I got it done in a day which was good, but not really know what I was doing I didn’t know if I had completely messed it up or not. It got to the end of the day and the boards just needed screwing down. Saturday morning I fixed skirting boards before going to a birthday party near barnard castle for the afternoon. In our usual way of doing multiple things at once we went via Dewsbury Wilkinsons as it turns out this was the only place locally who stocked the ‘international snow storm’’ floor paint we wanted for the floor boards. The magazines Hannah had done her research reading only recommended this paint, so we tracked it down.

Now I quite liked the floorboards with the natural colour, but Hannah was very keen to have them white and they do look good white, but I still quite like the wood look too.

I must learn how to rotate these photos

On the was back from the party we called at B&Q to get some finishing strips to cover the expansion gaps at the edges of the room, and promptly bought the wrong ones. Doh, so after church on the Sunday I returned them and got the correct (much cheaper) ones.

This has been a bit of theme over the last few weeks – returning items. We have saved quite a bit of money returning unused items to Womersleys, B&Q and Wickes. It has definitely paid off keeping receipts safe this time around!

Saturday evening I put a couple of hours in filling behind the skirting boards with coarse lime mortar, then painting the skirting boards with undercoat.

Sunday afternoon I thought I would finish screwing floorboards down and then fit the finishing strips. A simple job. Until you put the last screw through a pipe! What a pain the proverbial. It took the rest of Sunday to get the floorboards up and drain the system, then about 6 further hours on Monday to replace a section of the 22mm central heating pipe. Morale was low over those 2 days for sure. We were both very tired having been working flat out for weeks and it’s always demoralising to undo work you have just done. It was a tense few days as Will will testify to. Hannah had thrown a wedding day party on the Friday which will had come over to Huddersfield for then decided to stay for the weekend. I don’t think he realised what he was letting himself in for.

Funnily Sunday marked 4 years to the date that we got the keys to the house, and a day short of 2 years since we stripped the plaster from the outside walls, marking the start of the major work in the house.

Anyway, once the pipe was repaired and tested (twice as one of the joints failed on the first system refill – my fault – I didn’t get an even heat around the joint due to the awkward positioning.) hannah, will and I emptied the room, sanded the floor and put the first coat of paint on. Grand – we were getting back on track.

Tuesday Will left, and I put the top coat of paint on the floor in the evening.

Wednesday I think Hannah did the top coat of paint around the door frame and boxing.

Thursday afternoon our electrician chum came around to do second fix in the room, installing lights, sockets and switches. Again, something I could have done but apparently it’s worth being legal on these things. It’s all ok until the house burns don and the insurance company starts to ask questions! Thursday night Hannah picked me up from work and we went to Ikea to buy the shelves for the room and a couple of other bits like a rug (the cheapest going, naturally, which was also the one we liked, which was good!) and bedding. Thursday night we set the futon up and turned the lights on. That was a good feeling!

Friday Ben Ward arrived for the weekend and was the first person to kip in the spare room marking it’s sort of completion! When I got in from work I tried some cillit bang on the windows. Ever since we had plastered the outside of the house 2 years ago we really struggled to get them sparkling clean, and there were some very bad stains that we couldn’t shift following the latest plastering. I realised that it was probably just lime scale and a limescale remover would probably do the trick. So we gave the windows a going over with the cillit bang and man it did the trick! They’ve not been that clean since they were put in over 2 years ago. Fantastic, particularly as we thought we had screwed them forever!

Friday night we went to a friends house for a BBQ and had a cracking time sitting out in the warm evening, playing cricket in the garden and drinking beer. What a feeling to hang out with friends and relax again! Missed that for a fair few weeks!

Saturday was the first day we didn’t have to crack on with DIY for quite some time. What a novelty. We had a steady day, dropping ben off at the station for him to go to Liverpool at 8ish, then we had a breakfast sandwich and a coffee from a well know high street fast food supplier and set about putting up flat pack furniture, sanding the desk and sorting out all the junk that had been cluttering up the house. Not the most relaxing day, but a satisfyingly productive one!

Can’t remember Saturday night.

Sunday was church in the morning, lunch with Ben and a cup of tea, then a meeting at church in the afternoon, then the evening we had a takeaway to belated celebrate Ben’s birthday, played on xbox and kinect and got a loooooong game of Carcassonne in too.

Monday we were enormously blessed to have a meal dropped off at our house from a friend at church out of the blue. Lasagne, wine, garlic bread and salad and lemon cheesecake. Absolutely brilliantly fantastic. Perfect timing. We thoroughly enjoyed it and put our feet up.

So that’s all up to date.

Oh yeah, somewhere in all that Hannah and I lime washed the outside of the house a few times and we took down the hessian curtains. I think that was Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

The spare room is pretty much finished. Lots of sorting out to do and little things like finishing strips and window frames need doing, but it is as good as done. Awesome. It feels good.

Desky office type area.

White painted wooden floorboards

lights

some more lights

a futon

a rug

Exposed stone window surround and mullions

Lights and new shelves

Floor which I had to take up to fix the pipe...

So there we have it. All rooms have been completely gutted since 2007 and made good from scratch. Windows have been replaced and the outside has been rendered. 4 years – that’s 1 year ahead of time. Who’s that saying it’s taken us a long time?!!!!

Of course, I don’t think it will every really be finished. The outside windows need repainting, as does guttering and downpipes. The bathroom needs repairing following our leak before Christmas. Then there are things like staining the doors and painting the windows in the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. So there is still plenty to do. WE would also like to do something with the garden and the bit of space we have at the front of the house. This requires saving the pennies though, as the bedroom has been far more expensive than hoped! Now this is the kind of stuff I imagine is more typical to do when someone buys a house, so we’ve got ourselves to point zero in that sense J

First thing up is to repaint the windows and tidy the external paint work generally, then after that we’ll see how we get on. We’ll keep you posted.

Until next time…

Grafting away.

Hello.

It’s been a busy few days in the cottage!

Thursday afternoon I left work early and went to womersleys to pick up lime and sand and prependuit for the spare room.

Traffic was ridiculous, so turned a 20 min journey in to an hour.

[insert rant here]

Thursday night I continued with the plasterboarding, nearly getting it finished.

Friday I took off work to get a bit of momentum on the house as Saturday was free too. I started at 8am putting hessian up outside the front of the house ready to do the slurry coat on Saturday. After that job, I finished the plasterboarding, then put a coat of prependuit on the plasterboard. This is a bonding coat to allow lime putty to be used on plasterboard.

Following that, I got a top coat on to one of the bedroom walls. Grand. A good days work, finishing up for a home cooked meal from Hannah at about 10pm I think. I realised during the afternoon that I might get as far as putting lime putty on the ceiling over the weekend, which would be great, but I didn’t have any, so Hannah travelled the well worn road to womersleys for me.

Saturday morning I got a good start again, getting a mix on at 8am for the slurry coat. I don’t much enjoy putting on stipple or slurry coats, so it was nice that both the weather was good and Hannah helped out. Brill. It took until midday to get it done and cleared up. I’ve learnt it’s worth trying to clean things up as you go with plaster rather than leaving it all to the end when it’s dried hard as nails!

So with the slurry coat on, we’re ready for putting on the new top coat on Easter Monday. I’ve got a friend helping out and Hannah too so I’m hopeful of getting it all done in the one day. I hope.

After the bacon and bagels cooked up for lunch I got going putting on the top coat on the rest of the bedroom. I under estimated the time to do this drastically, but really wanted to get it done in the one day. After clear up I clocked off at about 10:30pm. Another good day of graft.

Late Sunday afternoon I started to put the top coat of lime putty on the ceiling. Again, it quickly became evident that the 2 hours I had guessed was going to be longer, so enlisted Hannah to get grubby and help me finish off. It took the hour count down a little but it still took 4 hours. However, that is a momentous point in our project as that is the last coat of plaster to be applied internally.

Although there are and always will be a gazillion of finishing off jobs to do, it’s starting to dawn on us that we’ve nearly finished the bulk of the project – quite strange after nearly 4 years, the last 2 of which have been quite intense!

SO the plastering is don in the bedroom. Cosmetic work will begin now. We need to wait a couple of days and then we will start lime washing the bedroom, this will be done on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I hope to install the radiator and plumb it in and possibly make a start on the floor. Saturday and Sunday is taken up with a wedding and church stuff, then the Monday is doing top coat outside.

Still a bit of a way to go, but definitely getting there now!

Here are some photos of the finished plaster work…

Until next time, stay classy.

Ticking over

Hello,

Quite a lot has been going on since we last spoke.

Where to begin….

Phil, our electrician chum came round and did first fix on the Friday after the last post.

Plans for the electrics.

He did a grand job – nothing I couldn’t do to be honest, but that’s how it has to be done to keep legal. That sounds very ungrateful, but actually it was quite nice to go to work, and then come home and something has been done! Having done the whole house on our own it’s a treat when something is done for us with no effort on our part! So although we’ll pay for it, it is nice!

Light cables all in

Phil ran out of time to put the wall boxes on and the plastic coverings, so I did that on an evening ready to put stipple coat on.

Friday afternoon we went to ikea to try and suss out some furniture options. The pitched roof and large oak beam make it tricky! But then what do you expect??!!

Saturday the Wards landed bring a trailer, a mixer and scaffolding. All essentials and greatly appreciated. They also took us out for lunch. Fantastic.

Saturday evening we hit B&Q and bought floor boards for the spare room and on Sunday we picked up plaster board, getting our 15% discount on both purchases. It makes a difference! Oh, we also bought some lights too.

I did the stipple coat on the Monday afternoon. As stated everytime I do a stipple coat, I don’t enjoy it. But it has to be done and went ok.

The following day Andy the builder came to look at the window lintel. Turns out he’s a really nice guy. Very helpful and friendly and was up for doing the work. However, he was going to France in 2 weeks at the time of speaking so we had to get a wriggle on with sourcing some wood.

I got on the phone to Yorkshire oak frames and they came up with the goods. I can’t recommend them enough. £25 for a piece of green oak 3” x 5” x 2.2m. That is a cracking price. However, to get it in time we had to go over on Saturday morning before a wedding we had to go to. So we picked it up from York at 8am on Saturday. All good. Cheap cheap.

On the Thursday before collecting the beam I did the familiar trip to womersleys for materials for the 2^nd coat of plaster, which I did on the Friday having taken a day off work. I got it done in the day, but forgot how long it takes and how many mixes are required! 15 mixes all haired with goats hair was what was required. To get the coverage. It takes about 30 minutes per mix so that’s 7.5 hours just to do the mixing. Now, I was plastering while it mixed but it’s clear to see that it just inherently takes a long time. So many mixes are required due to the thickness. This is the main coat in many respects where the walls are evened out a little! Just takes a long time.

Second coat done

Anyway, it was nice to get it done, and was the first major step to making the room look like it’s improving!

After much internet research we took the plunge with some insulation board for the ceiling. Expensive stuff, but due to the space available it was the only sensible option to get a warm room! 75mm Celotex GA4000 board. It’s nasty to cut and install but it’s all in now. 4 Sheets were required, plus delivery made it very expensive, but like I say, the only way to get close to a decent R rating.

Any gaps were filled with expanding foam. Does the trick.

We also took the plunge on a radiator. We wanted a vertical radiator as a space saving method, but that makes it expensive, and often lower power output. Hannah did some sums and calculated the output we needed, and we found a radiator which for it’s style was very cheap and matched the power rating. However, compared to a standard radiator it’s still extortionate. Hopefully the benefit to the room will be worth the extra £100+ it cost for a vertical radiator!

Radiator we chose. That's not our room though.

Hopefully, other than plaster costs, that is it for expensive outlays. The bills have quickly added up, that is for sure!!

I took Tuesday off work to work with Andy the builder in taking out the old lintel and putting the new one in. This was a cost cutting measure, but it was also enjoyable. The job couldn’t have gone any better. Props went up, cut out the old beam, knocked it about with a chisel, got it out, slotted the new one in, squared off the rafters, slotted beam back in, packed it out, screwed it in. Job done. Great. £90 well spent. It only took the morning too. Bonus.

This is all that is left of the lintel we took out. The rest of it crumbled away!

This is the new lintel in, however it's covered with masking tape to protect it from the expanding foam. Which incidentally is tricky to get off your forehead.

The afternoon I finished insulating around the beam and started to plasterboard the ceiling. Got about half of it done.

Next up – finish plasterboarding, attach board for radiator to wall to get a good fixing, prependuit the ceiling, then we can get on with doing the top coat. I’m hoping this can be achieved over the next couple of days/evenings

Current state of the room

We’re going to start redoing the outside this weekend too by doing the slurry coat on the front elevation on Saturday. This is a binding coat ready for redoing the top coat on Easter Monday.

Right, lunch time over now. Must get on.

Ben.

"The heat is on, the time is right, It's time for you, for you to play your game. 'Cause people are coming, everyone's trying.."

Real quick note of what's going on...

Monday night I 'cleaned' the spare room as best as I could! it's still pretty dusty but clean enough to unseal the door. We don't have to use the window to go in and out now!

I've made contact with conservation to get clearance for replacing the window lintel - i've not heard from them yet, but in the mean time I booked Dave Haigh from Marsh Design (a structural engineer) to cast his professional eye over the situation.

I highly recommend Dave - he's very helpful and generous with his time. He came around and agreed it needs replacing and gave some advice on sizes etc. Tip Top.

I've made contact with a builder dave recommended, unfortunately not the same Andy who did the living room lintel (he's made a run for it to Newcastle - good man) but another Andy - hopefully he'll prove to be just as good. He's giving me a call tonight to book a time to look at the job.

I had a word with our electrician friend too and he's coming around tomorrow to run the cables for the ring main and lighting circuits.

Tomorrow we're going to get plaster materials to do the stipple coat on Monday. Also, there is a 15% off at B&Q voucher available for this weekend, so we're thinking of stocking up on some materials we'll need soon - things like plaster board, floorboards, lights etc.

We think we've also sourced a radiator online for £100 less than most places, so that makes it a little less painful!

That's all for now.

Right, must go and get Pop's birthday present and Ma's mothers day present.

bye buy.

And they're out of the blocks...

Morning – depending on when you are reading this.

We had a cracking day on Saturday – it all went to plan pretty much which is nice!

I left work early on Friday to get some prep work done ready for ripping apart the spare bedroom on the Saturday. Prep work involved clearing the last of the bits and bobs from the bedroom, moving scaffolding, checking tools and buying some supplies.

Screwfix came up with the goods – well almost. They were out of stock on a few items, but had gloves, and dust mask, and damp membrane (to seal the door) gaffa tape etc. Also, following a long phone call to Screwfix head office I managed to get a new SDS drill J

The drill I bought in April 2009 is just in warranty and has started to play up a little, so on the off chance I rang up to see if I could get a replacement. Unfortunately, the replacement model number is a lesser specification than the one I have – they’ve down graded it basically, so had to pay an extra £30 to get a variable speed drill. Still, considering the absolute hammering the drill has had, I’m pretty happy to pay £30 to get a brand new one!

Now, they didn’t have one in stock in Huddersfield so we had to go to Bradford to pick it up. Not too bad. – once we found it! And as a bonus, Screwfix aren’t picking up the old drill until Tuesday, so I had 2 drills over the weekend. This was good as my good chum Luke volunteered to put a few hours of graft in on Saturday morning. So we both were able to go at it. Brill.

Friday night we also picked up a trailer we were able to borrow to take rubble to the tip, and popped in to the Gleich household to borrow their angle grinder to clean the beam.

We were all set to go.

Saturday Hannah and I both woke up with headaches, but a bit of breakfast and a coffee and w were ready to go. We sealed up the bedroom door using lots of gaffa and taping some damp proof membrane to both sides of the door. This has worked a treat, no dust has gone in to the house at all!

Access to the bedroom was now through the teeny tiny window!

I started taking the plaster off the walls at about 9:45am. As predicted it was quite hard as the mud and horse hair crumbled in very small parts. Luke joined me at 10:15 ish I think and then we both went at it. The dust was incredible with two people working in a small space with no ventilation! You could barely see a hand in front of your face. So we did 20 minute bursts then wait for it to settle, then go again. All the while, Hannah was serving us up with bacon and egg butties, coffee and doing a few trips to wickes and screwfix for extra rubble sacks, goggles and other bits and bobs.

Unfortunately Luke had to leave at half 12 but by that time we had finished getting the plaster off the walls. Cracking.

It then took a couple of hours to get all the rubble bagged up and out the window. A bit of team effort was required there, with me on one side and Hannah on the other dragging the bags out the window.

Next up I took the ceiling down. I wanted to do this to check the roof timbers were all ok, and electrical cables will need to be run through the roof space anyway. It took about an hour or so to get the ceilings down, then a while to get it cleaned up again and shifted out the window. How many rubble sacks do you need to fit a bedroom in? about 32.

Hannah had to go out in the evening to help at an event at church, but during the day she had been cleaning the beams in the kitchen of lime wash and plaster splatters left from when we did the kitchen 18 months ago. It’s a job well done, and something we had put off for a while!

After the ceiling it was time to get down to business with the beam. The beam had brown varnish/paint on it and we wanted to take it back to a more natural colour.

As we did in the living room, I used an angle grinder with a flat disc. It’s quite aggressive but does a grand job. It took over 2 hours and was incredibly dusty and quite awkward due to the pitched roof and lack of head height, but it did the job. It will need some more work to finish it off, but the bulk of it is done now.

So walls stripped, ceiling down and beam stripped. That was a productive Saturday and all the dusty work done! I finished at about 9:30pm, so put in a good 13 hour day – and feel very knackered for it too! A few aches and pains that is for sure. And then we had an hour of sleep stolen from us!

The room is fairly unremarkable really! We wondered what we might find under the plaster, but other than a rotten lintel, which needs some TLC everything is plain sailing – which is good, if a little boring. No interesting stones or features really.

Sunday afternoon we did 2 trip runs to drop off all the rubble and then dropped the trailer back where it belongs.

The evening was spent resting playing Carcassonne, then I had a nap, and Hannah cooked tea (great deal!) before vegging in front of a DVD. Just what the body ordered!

So what’s next? The room is still sealed up as it’s still filthy as! Tonight I hope to clean it and enable us to unseal the door, making access a little easier!

After that I need to get our electrician around to advise on electrics (I think he’ll do all the work to keep it legal – costs a little more but at least it’s a good, safe job then), hopefully I can put the wall boxes on in preparation though!

We need to get someone to look at the lintel as it’s quite rotten!

Next Saturday we take delivery of the mixer which enables us to do the stipple coat in the bedroom next Monday afternoon. Then we’re well away. Looking at 2 to 3 weeks after that for completion. Fantastic!

Still have a few decisions to make regarding flooring and radiator but all in good time!

It’s certainly a good start to project!

Until next time…