Our Little Durham Restoration Project...
Discussion
Last post tonight, I'm waiting for more images to upload.
Next job was to get the timber frames up on the far sight and fix them to the new wall. These frames set the height of the new room walls, and the new stairs are coming up next to this one, so it's essential that we get 2m head height with these frames. In the end I went to 2.1m and had the bricky run an extra row of bricks:
Levels checked and surprisingly spot-on. My memory is failing me a bit, maybe the levels were bang on because I waited to expose the existing wall and made this frame once I'd measured what I needed. This frame was done in two lengths, I suspect because otherwise it would be too heavy for me to lift up on my own.
I think I have 4 days until my roofers come at this point and not very many things to attach slate to!
Next job was to get the timber frames up on the far sight and fix them to the new wall. These frames set the height of the new room walls, and the new stairs are coming up next to this one, so it's essential that we get 2m head height with these frames. In the end I went to 2.1m and had the bricky run an extra row of bricks:
Levels checked and surprisingly spot-on. My memory is failing me a bit, maybe the levels were bang on because I waited to expose the existing wall and made this frame once I'd measured what I needed. This frame was done in two lengths, I suspect because otherwise it would be too heavy for me to lift up on my own.
I think I have 4 days until my roofers come at this point and not very many things to attach slate to!
Got some more pics, here's the other frame, with views across the garden:
And the new floor the otherway. At this point I'm wondering if we should sack off the roof, build a BBQ in the corner and call it done, it would make a lovely terrace:
I need a level for the new roof next, there's a truss to be made to support a new ridge beam in the centre and it needs to be references off the new ridge beam that went in the main roof, so I lashed up a support and put another hole in the roof:
Proped it until the box made the noise and measured the truss height:
Then there was wood and bolts and it all became a truss. I remember this being a lovely day for late October, the last nice day of the year unfortunately:
Is this right?
The first beam is in vaguely the right place, ready for a one-man lift and slide manoeuvre:
This will become more relevant later, but you can see in the foreground the modified lead flashing that is draining the old roof into the shower below. Genius.
More later........
And the new floor the otherway. At this point I'm wondering if we should sack off the roof, build a BBQ in the corner and call it done, it would make a lovely terrace:
I need a level for the new roof next, there's a truss to be made to support a new ridge beam in the centre and it needs to be references off the new ridge beam that went in the main roof, so I lashed up a support and put another hole in the roof:
Proped it until the box made the noise and measured the truss height:
Then there was wood and bolts and it all became a truss. I remember this being a lovely day for late October, the last nice day of the year unfortunately:
Is this right?
The first beam is in vaguely the right place, ready for a one-man lift and slide manoeuvre:
This will become more relevant later, but you can see in the foreground the modified lead flashing that is draining the old roof into the shower below. Genius.
More later........
Popped it up:
Popped it on:
You can see the sheer magnificence of Knobhead's roof here, I'm sure it'll work brilliantly if it rains. I think it's Friday here, rain is due on Saturday, the roofers are due on Monday and I've got no help at all at this point as it was all booked in for the week where I was sat around waiting for Scaffold.
Popped it on:
You can see the sheer magnificence of Knobhead's roof here, I'm sure it'll work brilliantly if it rains. I think it's Friday here, rain is due on Saturday, the roofers are due on Monday and I've got no help at all at this point as it was all booked in for the week where I was sat around waiting for Scaffold.
Here's a panorama from the ridge:
I've left as much of the old roof on as possible such is my (legitimate) distrust of the temporary 'roof'.
Mark the Bricky has started to crack on with the blockwork now and it's starting to feel a bit less sketchy up on top of hte house and a bit mroe like there's going to be another room up there:
The Gable wall has started:
Corner up to full height:
Luckily the roof isn't relying on the blockwork, so the scaffold issues delaying things with Mark won't impact on the roof, I can build timber walls much quicker than the blocks can go up as he's using mortar from site that has some super-slow set additive in it and it'll be 10 days before it's hard enough to support anything.
Then I started getting some rafters in to fix the new ridge in position:
I've left as much of the old roof on as possible such is my (legitimate) distrust of the temporary 'roof'.
Mark the Bricky has started to crack on with the blockwork now and it's starting to feel a bit less sketchy up on top of hte house and a bit mroe like there's going to be another room up there:
The Gable wall has started:
Corner up to full height:
Luckily the roof isn't relying on the blockwork, so the scaffold issues delaying things with Mark won't impact on the roof, I can build timber walls much quicker than the blocks can go up as he's using mortar from site that has some super-slow set additive in it and it'll be 10 days before it's hard enough to support anything.
Then I started getting some rafters in to fix the new ridge in position:
The next time period is a little light on pictures, but essentially there was a storm that started on the Saturday about 4pm and carried on until 2am. It poured down and I spent most of the time in the cold and dark dealing with water trying to get where I didn't want it. This was bad because I lost Saturday evening for graft and Sunday morning for sleep and tidying up.
Obviously the roof thing, it needs a better name as it's an insult to rooves to call it a roof, didn't work. Water pooled rather than running off the end, obviously and it was going to all get dumped off in one go at some point.
In the end I pierced it strategically above the main roof so that I could drain it onto slate and then down some guttering that was pointed into the shower below. I used a broom to lift the roof and move the water from one side to the other so I could drain it where the bath was, so most of the rain ended up in there, then I spent ages brushing water into the bath too.
My roofer took pity on me and called in to cover over the holes in the roof too, so the main house was kept just about dry with the aid of a bucket under the new ridge beam hole.
It worked out OKish, nothing got trashed, but it was very cold, lonely and stressful and I was left with loads of work to do still. Not fun at all. Anyway, here's the aftermath on the Sunday morning:
Obviously the roof thing, it needs a better name as it's an insult to rooves to call it a roof, didn't work. Water pooled rather than running off the end, obviously and it was going to all get dumped off in one go at some point.
In the end I pierced it strategically above the main roof so that I could drain it onto slate and then down some guttering that was pointed into the shower below. I used a broom to lift the roof and move the water from one side to the other so I could drain it where the bath was, so most of the rain ended up in there, then I spent ages brushing water into the bath too.
My roofer took pity on me and called in to cover over the holes in the roof too, so the main house was kept just about dry with the aid of a bucket under the new ridge beam hole.
It worked out OKish, nothing got trashed, but it was very cold, lonely and stressful and I was left with loads of work to do still. Not fun at all. Anyway, here's the aftermath on the Sunday morning:
Mark was back on Sunday after whatever Rugby match was on and by the time I went to bed that night the gable wall was up to window-lintel and I had the rest of the wall-plate up and ready for roof:
I'd also done the first section of rafters and the valley boards so the roofers could make a start.....er...... tomorrow? I'm sure it'll be fine.
You can just see the old roof at the bottom still in place, no time to get that out, though the slates were off, it made a useful platform to work off, it's sat on purlins and props, so it's totally fine....
More blockwork done, at this point we've completely given up on the roof over the top, the weather forecast is a week of dry sun, so we're going with that and hoping for the best.
I'd also done the first section of rafters and the valley boards so the roofers could make a start.....er...... tomorrow? I'm sure it'll be fine.
You can just see the old roof at the bottom still in place, no time to get that out, though the slates were off, it made a useful platform to work off, it's sat on purlins and props, so it's totally fine....
More blockwork done, at this point we've completely given up on the roof over the top, the weather forecast is a week of dry sun, so we're going with that and hoping for the best.
Roofers are in and the old roof is out:
It was all very rushed at this point onwards, so I don't have many pictures, but here's Jonny the Roofer admiring his handywork:
And inside after a bit of a tidy-up:
And here's the view from the garden, it's quite big!
I think this is the first week in November, the roof is on and weather-tight, sky lights are in, but no windows. The roof is over-hanging the end because there's external insulation, cladding and finishing to do before it can be cut to length as the roofer wants something solid under the ends before he hammers nails in. Fair enough.
Obviously Knobhead's scaffold is completely useless for working on the outside, so that's got to go, but he's not done screwing me over just yet.....
It was all very rushed at this point onwards, so I don't have many pictures, but here's Jonny the Roofer admiring his handywork:
And inside after a bit of a tidy-up:
And here's the view from the garden, it's quite big!
I think this is the first week in November, the roof is on and weather-tight, sky lights are in, but no windows. The roof is over-hanging the end because there's external insulation, cladding and finishing to do before it can be cut to length as the roofer wants something solid under the ends before he hammers nails in. Fair enough.
Obviously Knobhead's scaffold is completely useless for working on the outside, so that's got to go, but he's not done screwing me over just yet.....
Number 1 priority is finishing off the road-side so that scaffold can go and new scaffold can go up, so I conquered my fear of heights and shinned up the structure with a tape measure. And discovered that the scaffold floor is butted up against the wall where the eaves board and guttering must go.
On the one hand, I didn't explicitly ask Knobhead not to do that, but at the same time, it's reasonably obvious that it would be in the way there, so yeah. Asked him to fix it, it got fixed, went back up again to measure and was presented with this:
He's slid the bars away from the wall, undermining the safety of the structure and removed the last board so I can get to the eaves. The gap there is nearly 2' wide and to fit the eaves board and gutter I'd have to lie on my stomach lean into the void and stare at certain death while trying to hold a screw a screwdriver and a 12' long piece of timber. f
k. That.
At this point the only thing stopping me calling the HSE was the need to get this done ASAP and the stories of Scaffolders I've previously read on here. But fking hell.
Knobhead had to be dragged back to site and after much huffing and puffing, we had this and an afternoon later we had gutters:
I'm terrified of heights and going up and down this was horrific! So scary that when I ran out of gutter brackets rather than coming down to go to Screwfix I ordered one with my phone and sent my Father in Law to collect it and post it out the skylight window. Never again!
On the one hand, I didn't explicitly ask Knobhead not to do that, but at the same time, it's reasonably obvious that it would be in the way there, so yeah. Asked him to fix it, it got fixed, went back up again to measure and was presented with this:
He's slid the bars away from the wall, undermining the safety of the structure and removed the last board so I can get to the eaves. The gap there is nearly 2' wide and to fit the eaves board and gutter I'd have to lie on my stomach lean into the void and stare at certain death while trying to hold a screw a screwdriver and a 12' long piece of timber. f
k. That.At this point the only thing stopping me calling the HSE was the need to get this done ASAP and the stories of Scaffolders I've previously read on here. But f
king hell.Knobhead had to be dragged back to site and after much huffing and puffing, we had this and an afternoon later we had gutters:
I'm terrified of heights and going up and down this was horrific! So scary that when I ran out of gutter brackets rather than coming down to go to Screwfix I ordered one with my phone and sent my Father in Law to collect it and post it out the skylight window. Never again!
Anyway, scaffold down, teporary window in and it's starting to look a bit better:
The Nissan Micra is a mess as it's donated its engine for my Mini, in the spring a family of Robins nested under the bonnet, which was cool. All that wood has finally been sawn up and it currently heavily subsidising my gas bill!
It almost looks finished from the road side!
The Nissan Micra is a mess as it's donated its engine for my Mini, in the spring a family of Robins nested under the bonnet, which was cool. All that wood has finally been sawn up and it currently heavily subsidising my gas bill!
It almost looks finished from the road side!
It's cold now and I got totally spanked the previous winter by not having any loft insulation in place over February and March, so before cracking on there's some sealing up to do:
'Window' 1:
The raining in happened before this went in and I don't think I ever filled in the gap at the top.
Top of the new stairs 'insulated':
This worked really well!
The bathroom was plaster boarded to keep the warm air down:
Insulation was run above and the floor fitted:
The last of the brickwall was knocked down to it's new level and we've hit the levels perfectly to board over the top!
Then I cleared some of the workshop of insulation to make space for the cladding that was on it's way.....
'Window' 1:
The raining in happened before this went in and I don't think I ever filled in the gap at the top.
Top of the new stairs 'insulated':
This worked really well!
The bathroom was plaster boarded to keep the warm air down:
Insulation was run above and the floor fitted:
The last of the brickwall was knocked down to it's new level and we've hit the levels perfectly to board over the top!
Then I cleared some of the workshop of insulation to make space for the cladding that was on it's way.....
So now it's the start of December, we've finally seen the back of Knobhead and his pipes, though not before he's dropped a load on the drive and smashed holes into the tarmac. FFS.
Proper scaffold has arrived and so has my Dad so it's time for more graft in the cold and dark. At this point I think the various scaffold shenanigans have put us back about 4-6 weeks and left me pretty knackered, exhausted and in need of a good sleep. As we're out in the cold and dark all I can think is how much nicer it would have been doing all this a month earlier when it was warm. Oh well. Onwards.....
Insulation going on:
We'll deal with this later:
First wall insulated, even in the dark this scaffold looks so much better!
Corner post and detail set:
Air-gap:
Then we fired through a load of Cedral weatherboard. A bit fiddly, but fairly quick once we got going:
Proper scaffold has arrived and so has my Dad so it's time for more graft in the cold and dark. At this point I think the various scaffold shenanigans have put us back about 4-6 weeks and left me pretty knackered, exhausted and in need of a good sleep. As we're out in the cold and dark all I can think is how much nicer it would have been doing all this a month earlier when it was warm. Oh well. Onwards.....
Insulation going on:
We'll deal with this later:
First wall insulated, even in the dark this scaffold looks so much better!
Corner post and detail set:
Air-gap:
Then we fired through a load of Cedral weatherboard. A bit fiddly, but fairly quick once we got going:
You can just about see here, but everything is more complicated than it needs to be on this. We covered up the bathroom window because it's over-lapped by a ground-floor extension roof that's on the cards. And the new gable really wanted two windows one above the other, so we're also moving a window.
We've run a line off the top window, marked out the bottom, fitted a lintel and removed the outer course of bricks. I've drilled through to the inside in the top corners to mark it out, but the inner bricks are staying for now, we will fully clad the window and frame out so that it's all finished and the new window can be fitted from the inside whenever, without needing scaffold again:
Once that's done the drain-pipe is brought in behind the cladding to tidy it all up:
And we can start insulating the gable too:
We're into our stride now and this is fairly quick and we've soon done both levels:
Into the gable and all the timber in place ready for cladding:
At this point our roofer is complaining that it looks a mess when he drives past, so I let him trim all the lats and finish off before we clad the rest:
It's a few days before Christmas here, still 2019, we got quite a nice sunset that evening:
The cladding is going up quickly now, the windows are a bit fiddly, but we're not far off now:
Christmas eve and the last bits are in before I head out for dinner:
Ta da!
End-board thingys up and fixed:
I added some hooks so I can hang Christmas lights up there, I've still not got round to sorting that out.
All the detail is done and it by the New Year it looks like this:
So we're ready for the Scaffold to come down now and in another episode of Revenge of the Scaffolders, it's another 6 months before it's finally taken down! No idea what happened, but repeated promises to remove it come to nothing, then COVID hits and they turn up out of the blue one day in June to collect. Great!
We've run a line off the top window, marked out the bottom, fitted a lintel and removed the outer course of bricks. I've drilled through to the inside in the top corners to mark it out, but the inner bricks are staying for now, we will fully clad the window and frame out so that it's all finished and the new window can be fitted from the inside whenever, without needing scaffold again:
Once that's done the drain-pipe is brought in behind the cladding to tidy it all up:
And we can start insulating the gable too:
We're into our stride now and this is fairly quick and we've soon done both levels:
Into the gable and all the timber in place ready for cladding:
At this point our roofer is complaining that it looks a mess when he drives past, so I let him trim all the lats and finish off before we clad the rest:
It's a few days before Christmas here, still 2019, we got quite a nice sunset that evening:
The cladding is going up quickly now, the windows are a bit fiddly, but we're not far off now:
Christmas eve and the last bits are in before I head out for dinner:
Ta da!
End-board thingys up and fixed:
I added some hooks so I can hang Christmas lights up there, I've still not got round to sorting that out.
All the detail is done and it by the New Year it looks like this:
So we're ready for the Scaffold to come down now and in another episode of Revenge of the Scaffolders, it's another 6 months before it's finally taken down! No idea what happened, but repeated promises to remove it come to nothing, then COVID hits and they turn up out of the blue one day in June to collect. Great!
So outside is pretty much done, took a year from deciding to stop looking for builders and order the wood and steel for the floor to get all the structural stuff done and covered up. Just the inside to sort out, that can't take long right? 6 months, I told my wife, we'll be in by Summer. LOL.
At this point I really needed 6 months rest, but what I got was 'one last push', then COVID closed the schools, everything went mad, stuff got delayed and I settled into a slower pace and have never really recovered.
More soon.....
At this point I really needed 6 months rest, but what I got was 'one last push', then COVID closed the schools, everything went mad, stuff got delayed and I settled into a slower pace and have never really recovered.
More soon.....
Mark Benson said:
Aye, you said that in Aug 2020 
Always enjoy updates to this thread, thanks for keeping it going - I really do admire your attitude of getting in there and getting on with it.
Yeah, yeah, one of the reasons I've put off updating for so long is I didn't want to start, get busy and stop again, I'm going to get up to date this time, I absolutely promise.....Always enjoy updates to this thread, thanks for keeping it going - I really do admire your attitude of getting in there and getting on with it.
Thanks, I probably said this way way way back, but the plan was to let someone build this, just someone never materialised and once I got stuck in with the floor I didn't have time to find someone and then a random chat with my usual roofer led me to a plan and by the time I'd done the shell there was no way I was trusting someone to come in and then do all the bits I'd actually see everyday. I make my own mistakes in this house
Plus money, knowing what I've spent now I doubt we would have started if someone had provided us with an actual quote!
Gad-Westy said:
Fantastic work there Paul. I felt your pain though!
I drive past your place a lot (stalker alert) and had no idea all this was going on at the back.
Yeah, you told me roughly where you live ages ago, so I guessed you drive past a lot. I think from vague memory all this work would have been done before you moved, we're up to December 2019 now?I drive past your place a lot (stalker alert) and had no idea all this was going on at the back.
When you go past you'll be concentrating on the road because of the junction and the way it goes up the hill, but it is briefly visible if you're not looking where you're going!
paulrockliffe said:
Gad-Westy said:
Fantastic work there Paul. I felt your pain though!
I drive past your place a lot (stalker alert) and had no idea all this was going on at the back.
Yeah, you told me roughly where you live ages ago, so I guessed you drive past a lot. I think from vague memory all this work would have been done before you moved, we're up to December 2019 now?I drive past your place a lot (stalker alert) and had no idea all this was going on at the back.
When you go past you'll be concentrating on the road because of the junction and the way it goes up the hill, but it is briefly visible if you're not looking where you're going!
Inspiring stuff as always. Quite interesting that you ended up doing it yourself. I'm really struggling to find a good builder that doesn't have a two year wait. It has got me pondering just how many new skills I could learn. Our place is all stone though it seems like I'd really be jumping in at the deep end.
Oh and don't worry, I never look where I'm going!
Gad-Westy said:
Ahh, sorry, was reading your update as if you were talking about this year. I thought you'd been tidy!
Inspiring stuff as always. Quite interesting that you ended up doing it yourself. I'm really struggling to find a good builder that doesn't have a two year wait. It has got me pondering just how many new skills I could learn. Our place is all stone though it seems like I'd really be jumping in at the deep end.
Oh and don't worry, I never look where I'm going!
What are you planning to do, did I see plans for a single storey extension? I would guess you would build normally and then clad the new in stone, the complication would be tieing into the existing structure, I would defer that to my brother who actually knows about this stuff. That's been a big advantage, all the complicated stuff I could bounce to my brother, he did all the structural calcs so I could rework the main roof without taking it off and everywhere else I needed numbers for Building Control he could work them out for me.Inspiring stuff as always. Quite interesting that you ended up doing it yourself. I'm really struggling to find a good builder that doesn't have a two year wait. It has got me pondering just how many new skills I could learn. Our place is all stone though it seems like I'd really be jumping in at the deep end.
Oh and don't worry, I never look where I'm going!
I think building on top of your house is probably more deep-end than your house not being made out of square things, so that's no excuse really!
It's always a compromise between time, money and quality, perhaps it's worth waiting it out until demand falls and stuff gets cheaper?
To DIY it you need to be able to take time out of the equation I think, that's where the stress lies, then no matter how tough the going gets you can fall back on money and quality. I tell myself I've 'made' more money doing this than going to work and I know the quality is far higher than you could achieve via a builder, not just because you really care and the more time you invest, the better you want the end result to be, but also you have more thinking time to make better decisions and get the right compromises for the space and you can change your mind as often as you like.
We were adding an extra bedroom, we had three, needed four, but in 2020 my youngest moved herself into my oldest's room and they've been sharing bunk beds ever since. So we got a spare room without any of this effort! That won't last much longer, but it took away all the time pressure, which was great!
Then although it's not finished still, we've been able to use both rooms for the last couple of years, my wife worked up there from when COVID shut everything down, so the pressure has slowly dropped and I've not had to spend as much time on it as I was. I reckon maybe 40% of my time at weekends these days on average, then I have a week blitzing stuff every couple of months.
The hardest bit with time is that when you start you probably have a list of jobs you need to do already, that list only gets longer. Mine is huge now and has been an increasing distraction really. I end up doing stuff outside in the Summers because I want to too, which isn't ideal!
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