"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…

Any claimers??

I took the radiator off the spare room wall on Wednesday night and found these behind it...

They're a bit crusty, but i think that is due to the heat... I think... So if any one wants them back let me know. Will, I'm looking at you.

Conservation Email and Thoughts

Hello.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I had been in touch with conservation to check the works we wanted to do were in line with the listing and whether we needed to apply for formal written consent. Below is the reply...

Dear Ben

I am well thank you, and I am pleased that you now feel ready (after the last episode) to take on further works - very resilient!

Here are the comments in relation to the issues you raise:

1. Floorboards: As the floorboards are modern replacements you will not require listed building consent to paint them, unless it is to a colour that is substantially out of keeping. We can not ask you to replace them with new floorboards.

2. Replacing the gypsum plaster with a lime plaster is an alteration but not one that impacts on the special interest of the building and is, as you know, an enhancement. Thus, no listed building consent would be required and this is fully supported by this team.

3. Secondary glazing would only require listed building consent if it is interfering with any special features, such as original/moulded timber linings. From memory this is not the case at your house, so no listed building consent would be required.

4. Wood Burning Stove - a ridge vent would be acceptable and is much preferred to a standard vent which often sits very proud of the roofscape. You will require listed building consent for this element so we can fully consider the potential impact on the fabric (visual and physical) that feeding and venting the stove would have on the building. It is not too contentious if the vents are inconspicuous and the flue does not protrude through or too close to any significant features.

Kind Regards

So as you can see it's all tickety boo, which is great.

You may have also noticed I enquired about a wood burning stove for the spare room. I think this would be a fantastic feature - but could be tricky and expensive to install, so we'll put it on the back-burner (great pun, i know) for now. We can always do it at a later date if we fancied!

Despite my frustrations at the start of this building project I have to say that the conservation office in Huddersfield are very helpful, quick to reply and actually just want to make sure people look after their old buildings correctly. It doesn't mean I necessarily agree with all their policies, but when i see some of the techniques and materials people use on old buildings it saddens me as it damages the evidence of the history of our country. I'm pleased that our home improvements are not only improving the look of the property, but actually preserving the fabric of the building and allowing it to last a little bit longer!

In other thoughts over the last 24 hours I've been thinking what connectivity we may need in the spare room. I'm planning on running coaxial cable for possible TV installation and network cable for potential media streaming service around the house.

As part of our build project we are sorting our gear out room by room, and we're thinking of backing all CDs and DVDs on to a media server and then installing the ability to stream them around the house to any room over the network. We could then pack CD's/DVDs away rather than having them all out on display taking up precious room. It's a nice idea, i don't know if we'll do it, but it makes sense to put any cables we need in now.

That's all for now, tea break over. Back to work.

Ben.

"Ain't about the ka-ching ka ching, Aint about the ba-bling ba-bling, we just wanna make the spare room change, forget about the price tag"

Hallo,

March already? What happened there? We are ¼ through the year already, which is unbelievable really, but I am loving the light mornings for my ride to work, and the significantly lighter evenings – which means only thing, it’s time to crack on with some DIY.

It’s just over 2 months since my last post – sorry about that. We have done some bits and bobs – but mostly doing planning work for the spare room. But lets start back on January 22nd, the day after my last post.

I left work early that day and went for lunch with Hannah, but when we arrived home we discovered our house was for sale!

Had we really made so much noise and mess the neighbours were trying to sell our house for us?? I checked with Hannah and she hadn’t tried to sell it so we assumed there must be a mistake. Hannah rang the estate agents (who sub contract the putting up of for sale signs – it’s a crazy world we live in) and they said they would sort it.

Sure enough a man in a van came and took it away. It then re appeared 2 days later just down the road at 5 Mount Road.

So that was a laugh!

The following day (I think) I grouted the tiles in the vestibule – another step forward to completion. Over the next week or so we pretty much finished the vestibule, put some coat hooks up and shifted some gear in for storage – shoe rack etc. We thought it would free up some useful space in the pantry – which it sort of has, but we’ve only used it for storing junk from the spare room while we do that room!

I also fitted a light outside our back door (which is sort of the front door) which was a nice touch. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take it off this weekend… but we’ll come to that in a bit...

Hannah spent a Saturday afternoon doing a sterling job of covering the dining room chairs. The chairs were my grandma’s and we inherited them, they are good quality, but the red didn’t really ‘work’. So Hannah found some material which matched the curtains and recovered the seats with it - and now they look cool.

Before

During

After

All Finished... you would think i would know how to rotate images wouldn't you??

Since then we’ve had a few Wards come to stay and Ma and Pops Evans stayed for a weekend – the first stay in the house since we did it out. Very enjoyable. We also had a weekend away in Northumberland which was part of our Christmas present from Ma and Pops Ward. Brill.

In recent weeks however, our attention has turned to the spare room.

The first task was to clear out the junk! That involved selling the sideboard on ebay. We got a good price for it, but that was the same week as the boiler broke. So Bouk, a big Danish dude picked up the sideboard and left the cash, then the plumber came, fixed the boiler and took the cash. Easy come, easy go. We have hot water now though. (On a side note - I had a hunch it was a diaphragm on the domestic flow circuit but didn’t want to mess about in the boiler. I was right though, and it wasn’t hard to fix. Good to know for the future.)

It served us well through our first 4 years of marriage, but it was just too big!

I’ve also sold my original xbox and associated stuff on ebay too. Sad to see it go. Good memories!

Sad to see it go - I have hung on to a couple of games though...just in case....

Saturday just gone we finished emptying the spare room, putting a load of stuff in the pantry and under the bed, as well as dropping a lot off at the charity shop too. We’re really trying to take the opportunity to downsize our material possessions a little – after all, you can’t take it with you.

We spent the afternoon researching at B&Q. Man, stuff its expensive. We have nearly decided on the lights – as always these are tricky due to the low ceiling and beam, but I think we’re going with 2 circuits, one each side of the beam consisting of dimmable white spots. We think this will work well. In one corner of the room we’re going to but lots of shelving, and I think a pendant light is going to go there to make a kind of reading corner. Should be nice and cosy one hopes!

The other item we were pricing up was floorboards. In the morning we lifted a section of the carpet which then had hardboard nailed under it to even out the floor. It took some getting up but once pulled back it revealed the floorboards. We like the idea of having painted floorboards in the spare room. It will give it a nice cottage feel and look and will be quite minimal. We will paint them off white too which will maximise the light and illusion of space we hope! Unfortunately, yet predictably, the floorboards we pulled back were not in good condition.

Looking good in my slouchy pants/pyjama top combo. Love a lazy saturday doing DIY!

So the back up plan is to lay new floorboards over the top – kind of like really thick laminate. We compared the price of doing this to laminate, and to laying new carpet, and surprisingly, the floorboard option worked out the cheapest. Remember these things are all relative though! Nothing is actually cheap.

So what’s next?

Well, this Saturday I’m going to strip the plaster off the walls in the spare room. This is a grim task but has to be done. The biggest concern is keeping the dust in the room and not leaking out in to the rest of the finished house! As part of this the door will be taped up so my access will be through the window, which means the pointy topped light above the back door is going to have to be moved!! The window is teeny tiny, so this could be a laugh on Saturday!

The process is going to be get the room sealed up as best as possible, leaving the carpet down and putting a tarp down to put as many layers as possible between the muck and the kitchen and getting the plaster off the walls as quick as possible. It is all mud and horse hair plaster with an thin skim which can be harder to get off than big chunks of gypsum! It will then be bagged up and taken out through the window and taken to the tip. The room will be cleaned as much as possible before unsealing the door.

I’m not sure how long this will take, but I’m aware stripping the varnish/wood stain off the beam is a very dirty job too, so maybe if I have time while everything is sealed I’ll get to have a bash at that too.

Next week I’ll be running cables for the lights and ring main and putting the back boxes on the wall etc.

Next Saturday Pops Ward is dropping off the trailer and mixer so then we will start getting some plaster on the walls.

All go, but we have moved the schedule forward a bit so it’s taken time pressure off the easter holidays and hopefully given me a little more time for writing up my MSc. I’m still hopeful of a leisurely 5 to 6 week turn around from now though. Should be pretty easy (famous last words) as the kitchen took 4 weeks. Relatively, there isn’t much to do.

Having said that, there are plans to re do the render on the front of the house too in the same period…

Despite the tasks in front of us, the mood in the camp is good – it’s exciting to be doing the last room – 1 year ahead of schedule too!

Cheerio for now. I’ll let you know how Saturday rolls.

With a hey and a ho and away we go...

La de da de da

Happy 2011.

Well, what will this new year bring?!? Who knows, but hopefully a finished house!

Looking over the blog I realise we have done a fair bit since the major work culminated with the carpets going into the living room in the summer of 2010. Last time I blogged anything vaguely informative I was talking about the garden and our desire to get that tidied.

Well we got it cleared and laid some turf which we bought from a farm in the hills above Holmfirth. Highly recommended. An odd lady sold it to us, but nice all the same, and much cheaper and better quality than B&Q.

That went down one Saturday in early July I think.

I don’t really remember what happened over summer regarding DIY after we sorted the garden, but the highlight certainly was a 10 day holiday in the north east starting by celebrating ma and pa in law’s joint birthday shindig then on to a friends cottage near coldstream.



We love Northumberland and particularly enjoyed a night camping on the beach just south of Berwick. Brill.

Not a bad spot to bed down

My birthday came and went. Got a strimmer to cut the grass. Handy.

Through the autumn term we pottered about trying to do the bits you don’t really think about – like buying curtain rails and curtains for the living room and bedroom.

Hannah has made the living room curtains by combining a cheap ass curtain and another bit of material to make something quite nice! She’s done a good job and saved us a packet. Want to make money? Sell curtains – outrageously priced.

The bedroom ones still need adjusting as they are about 3 feet too long!

The run up to Christmas was outrageously busy with work and church commitments so we made the most of a great break with family over Christmas, spending 10 days in Gateshead and shildon. Brilliant. We’ll make it home one day for good hopefully, but for now we are rooted in Huddersfield, so let’s get on…

I should mention that 2 weeks before Christmas we did have an issue with our plumbing. The toilet was flushed one Monday night in December, and a lot of water came through the ceiling and down the walls. Nice, real nice. It turned out the seal around the pipe that fits on the back of the toilet had disintegrated (odd as it was only 3.5 years old – one too many asian style dopiazas?). To fix it though I needed to cut out some panelling and remove some tiling around the loo and bath. This was a shame to say the least. Sad to undo your own work!

It also unveiled a poorly thought through piece of plumbing which led to a joint in the waste pipe coming apart. Grim. Grim grim grim. Poop and pee running down the walls in the vestibule. Nasty.

It was a grim job, but the next morning I was at B&Q by 7am getting the parts and to replace all that went wrong, and thankfully got it fixed in a relatively short amount of time. Unfortunately it does mean the bathroom needs some TLC. It will probably be a good catalyst for us to get on and get it finished. We have tentatively talked about putting a new floor in there anyway so maybe once the pennies are back up we might do that!

Over Christmas we bought some photos for the house. We really wanted a picture of the Newcastle/Gateshead quayside for a wall in the living room, but we wanted something cool too, so found a deal on acrylic pictures – 2 for 1. Sweet. Using the 2 for 1 we took the opportunity to do something with one of our favourite wedding photos as we have failed to do anything at all with them yet!

Unfortunately, we forgot to measure the wall before we left for the north east, so took a punt on the measurements when we parted with our cash. We were a little concerned we may have made a boo boo, but having found an online version of our previous planning app we could sleep easy for the rest of the holiday knowing that the wall was big enough! For once, something in the house was bigger than we remembered!

Just over 2 weeks later the pictures were delivered and we put them up as best as we could. I say ‘the best we could’ as it wasn’t as easy as you might think. How do you get a picture to look straight when both walls, shelf and ceiling are all wonky at different angles?!?! We ignored the spirit level and took a guess, I think we got away with it!

We like them and they certainly add something to the house.

The first Saturday back after our holiday we got on with doing a few jobs to get a good start to the year. These tasks were to sort out the lighting on the stairs/landing and to do something with the floor in the vestibule so we could actually start to use that space! We hit the sales on the bank holiday and picked up a couple of lights for a wee bit cheaper than retail, and some tiles which had a little bit off too (some of them physically as well as monetary!).

The tiles went down easily enough and look good. They still need grouting (a job for Saturday) but we’re pleased. There was some debate about whether it was worth spending £50 to tile such an inconsequential space, but it is a nice touch of quality…probably.

That was the Saturday morning. The afternoon was spent fitting/wiring the lights. A fiddly task with them being over the stairs and having to run new cables in the roof. A good bit of team work though and me and Hannah got it sorted. We decided a few nice spots going down the stone wall would look effective while a more general light on the landing would suffice. We used the same style bar of spots as in the living room. They’re great. Janny lights from Homebase. Buy them.

It's always tricky buying and placing lights in our house due to the low ceilings, but i think we have got away with it so far!

We also put the Christmas decorations away that day for another year. I miss Christmas.

I miss Christmas...Even if the tree wasn't as good as last year... (Loads of logs from Pops Evans)

We set ourselves a budget of £30 for each other this Christmas – well, I did, Hannah however was extremely naughty and spent the money she had saved from teaching her music lessons and bought a Kinect sensor for the xbox for me! Naughty, but brill! It’s great fun. I was a little apprehensive of how it would work with our projector setup and low ceilings, but it is actually very very good! I even came up with a great solution for a stand to mount the sensor on – a piece of old plywood from the shed and a broken mic stand from work. Tip top.

Broken mic stand and a piece of wood - saved me £40+

I think that brings us pretty much up to date.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots out, but I don’t suppose you care that much!

What’s next then? Well, we will continue doing the snag list – like outside light, cleaning paint from beams, painting windows, finishing vestibule, but the major work will be over the Easter break when we plan to strip out the spare room and get that turned around pretty sharp. I’m hoping within 3 weeks start to finish – but we’ll see.

It’s a tricky room to plan due to the huge beam and sloping roof so we’re spending plenty of time thinking and planning to make sure we get the best room possible.

During the same period we also plan to re do the top cout on the front elevation of the house. This was my first piece of plastering ever – and it shows. It looks pretty messy, so I’m keen to make it look good!

That’s all for now I think. I’ll keep you posted on a more regular basis as we plug away making things nicer and better.

Until next time….