Here's my refurb thread
Discussion
Bought a 70s built house last year. Started drawing up plans for a replacement garage and the building control guy warned me at the time that after 40 years houses unfortunately need a lot of work, he wasn't kidding.
Luckily the interior was pretty much good to go. The outside had been neglected though.
It was a complete mess, every corner of it had something growing, hedges, bushes, trees, dead turf, you name it it was growing there.
I got quoted £5k to cut down to stumps, level out with new topsoil and turf. I decided to do it myself because of this and dug out all old turf and took out the stumps using a mattock to hammer through the roots. My total spend was £1k including 2 van hires, pretty good I thought considering almost £500 of that was the 'alledge' edging, weed control membrane and crushed marble border stones.
Here's when I started
Ready to go to the tip
Next I had 13 Tonne topsoil delivered and spread. The house is on a hill so the garden is sloping in both directions so it was levelled out to the best of my ability.
Here was how it looked while I was laying the turf.
And here it was just under two weeks after, approaching it's first cut.
Another small thing I did was replace the porch light, you can probably see why...
old one
New EcoLED replacement, which is very bright. The quality of this item is fantastic.
Next up was fitting Lindab guttering, 75 dia downpipe with 125 rad gutter. I only did one side of the house as the other will have the garage attached eventually.
Old brackets, some kind of weird home made hybrid bracket!
Rafter brackets up, you can see how much of a mess the facias were.
Broke out the concrete around the old downpipe and fitted the lindab one.
With the joiner now onboard things started moving a lot faster. All the old cladding was ripped out aswell as the facias/soffits. The cladding and soffits have been lined in Western Red cedar. Just plain old wood on the facias as they were always going to be painted.
Old stuff coming off
Here's how it stands now.
The facias were painted a RAL anthracite grey colour to match the new front door which is a Hormann TPS700 (waited 8 weeks for it!).
The 3 square pots at beside the front door are grade 304 stainless steel, one of my favourite features!! I deliberately ordered the door shorter so I could fit this grade 304 stainless steel tread below it. I got all 4 items made by a guy I found on ebay for about £300 which I thought was bloody cheap!
So that takes me to today....
I've done a few small jobs since that pic, re-pointed some spalling bricks in the front step, cut back the decking (it was covering a manhole cover, was built by previous owner) and re-clad it in leftover red cedar.
I had a 'roofing company' round today that attempted to fit dry verge. They made an absolute pigs ear of it, ruining 20 out of production tiles by cutting them far too short and then doing a runner after spilling paint all over the inside of my garage. Was absolutely gutted earlier today.
Since then I've had a proper roofer round who seems on the ball. Originally was looking for him to fix new tiles and do the dry verge, now I'm looking to strip everything back to the sarkin boards, new membrane, new tiles etc.
If you've read this far I applaud you!!
Luckily the interior was pretty much good to go. The outside had been neglected though.
It was a complete mess, every corner of it had something growing, hedges, bushes, trees, dead turf, you name it it was growing there.
I got quoted £5k to cut down to stumps, level out with new topsoil and turf. I decided to do it myself because of this and dug out all old turf and took out the stumps using a mattock to hammer through the roots. My total spend was £1k including 2 van hires, pretty good I thought considering almost £500 of that was the 'alledge' edging, weed control membrane and crushed marble border stones.
Here's when I started
Ready to go to the tip
Next I had 13 Tonne topsoil delivered and spread. The house is on a hill so the garden is sloping in both directions so it was levelled out to the best of my ability.
Here was how it looked while I was laying the turf.
And here it was just under two weeks after, approaching it's first cut.
Another small thing I did was replace the porch light, you can probably see why...
old one
New EcoLED replacement, which is very bright. The quality of this item is fantastic.
Next up was fitting Lindab guttering, 75 dia downpipe with 125 rad gutter. I only did one side of the house as the other will have the garage attached eventually.
Old brackets, some kind of weird home made hybrid bracket!
Rafter brackets up, you can see how much of a mess the facias were.
Broke out the concrete around the old downpipe and fitted the lindab one.
With the joiner now onboard things started moving a lot faster. All the old cladding was ripped out aswell as the facias/soffits. The cladding and soffits have been lined in Western Red cedar. Just plain old wood on the facias as they were always going to be painted.
Old stuff coming off
Here's how it stands now.
The facias were painted a RAL anthracite grey colour to match the new front door which is a Hormann TPS700 (waited 8 weeks for it!).
The 3 square pots at beside the front door are grade 304 stainless steel, one of my favourite features!! I deliberately ordered the door shorter so I could fit this grade 304 stainless steel tread below it. I got all 4 items made by a guy I found on ebay for about £300 which I thought was bloody cheap!
So that takes me to today....
I've done a few small jobs since that pic, re-pointed some spalling bricks in the front step, cut back the decking (it was covering a manhole cover, was built by previous owner) and re-clad it in leftover red cedar.
I had a 'roofing company' round today that attempted to fit dry verge. They made an absolute pigs ear of it, ruining 20 out of production tiles by cutting them far too short and then doing a runner after spilling paint all over the inside of my garage. Was absolutely gutted earlier today.
Since then I've had a proper roofer round who seems on the ball. Originally was looking for him to fix new tiles and do the dry verge, now I'm looking to strip everything back to the sarkin boards, new membrane, new tiles etc.
If you've read this far I applaud you!!
Edited by GP335i on Saturday 17th August 00:12
Doh, changed my username about 5 mins after posting incase there's any confusion. Not sure if the original post will update with it.
The guttering is made by a company called Lindab, it's thin wall galvanised steel. The joins have a clamp at the top of them, you feed both ends of the join into it and they're forced into an EPDM seal.
The guttering is made by a company called Lindab, it's thin wall galvanised steel. The joins have a clamp at the top of them, you feed both ends of the join into it and they're forced into an EPDM seal.
Craikeybaby said:
That looks really good! Does it stand out compared to the others on the street?
Yeah it definately stands out, there's not another like it in the street! It'll almost look out of place once the garage goes up and it's been re-rendered haha.That will change though as many of the older people who've lived here all their lives are starting to drop off.
oldgreg said:
The facias were painted a RAL anthracite grey colour to match the new front door which is a Hormann TPS700 (waited 8 weeks for it!).
Liking the door. We have a Hormann too with a stainless tread which finishes it off just right.oldgreg said:
The 3 square pots at beside the front door are grade 304 stainless steel, one of my favourite features!! I got all 4 items made by a guy I found on ebay for about £300 which I thought was bloody cheap!
Got a username for the ebay chap? Need some pots similar to yours making up, they are all silly prices round here.Chr1sch said:
Really really nice, love the cladding, if you dont mind me asking, how much did the cladding on the front cost?
We've just bought a 60@s house covered in UPVC cladding and its awful, this would be a massive improvement!
Sure, the cedar for the cladding and soffits came to about £1200, budget another £50 for a 5kg box of stainless steel nails. The joiner took £2.5k to fit it all but this included new facias all round (supplied by him), tower scaffold hire and fitting the front door. Google silvatimber for the wood, if its got to come any far distance though call up first and tell them to beef up the packaging, I had 3 or 4 deliveries with a lot of damaged boards!We've just bought a 60@s house covered in UPVC cladding and its awful, this would be a massive improvement!
Have to agree on the PVC, although long lasting its not my favourite material.
For me it was the style/colour options to be honest, I couldn't find another door I liked the look of. They are incredibly secure though, there is no external door handle and the hinged side has additional pins preventing it being forced open. The door skin in steel, it's fully insulated and the glass is triple glazed. If you get the chance to see one in the flesh do it, they are in my opinion a bargain for the quality compared to their competitors. Also, they are a bit cheaper if you order the Garador equivalent. They are the exact same, i did this and mine turned up stamped hormann and all the packaging was Hormann.
74merc said:
That is a lovely job! I've been eyeing up 70's houses locally, just for the purpose of doing a conversion such as this. I would paint the render white, although that would probably work best with grey window frames, which would be hard to justify replacing if the frames were sound.
We're just about to do this. Selling a house built in 1902 for one built in the early 70s. Its a total mess but with some serious planning we should end up with a stunning house.Heres an interesting site if you havent seen it already
www.backtofrontdesign.com
Just shows what can be done
74merc said:
That is a lovely job! I've been eyeing up 70's houses locally, just for the purpose of doing a conversion such as this. I would paint the render white, although that would probably work best with grey window frames, which would be hard to justify replacing if the frames were sound.
The Render isn't the best tbh, it's dry dash, blowing in places and they've took it down to ground level bridging the DPC. We don't have any problems because of this but it's on the list, looking at doing a wet dash with a fine grit instead of stones so it'll have a bit of texture. Then of course painted white.Next job is a new roof though before winter sets in.
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