House renovation and garage build

[Craikeybaby]

Dining room plaster drying by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The plaster seems to be drying well, the ceiling and other 2 walls are dry already (6 days after plastering) just these bits too go. Above the fireplace is where there was some brick work done, so I'm guessing that was more/less absorbent than the old plaster. As we're still planning to start painting on Friday it may be time to look at getting a dehumidifier, to make sure that the plaster has dried. It could also be useful for the garage, as I've noticed it's getting a bit damp in there. So any recommendations for a dehumidifier?

[paulrockliffe]

I got an Ebac CD35 from ebay for about £50, it seems pretty good and pulls plenty of water out of the air. My garage gets a bit wet as it leaks, has no DPC and needs new gutters, so I've had that running over the weekend and it feels noticeably dryer. I'd think that you wouldn't see much difference compared with keeping the heating on and opening the windows once a day to change the air personally, but it's not my specialist subject.

What's the state of that wall that was damp, is it an exterior cavity wall?

We had a similar issue, also in our dining room, that was picked up on our survey. Spent £800 getting the room tanked with a plastic membrane before we plastered and it's fixed the symptoms. What I've realised since is that the wall is obviously still wet, it just doesn't affect the decor of the room. We've also had issues in the living room, which I fixed myself by clearing the rubbish out of the cavity. Then the other side has gone the same and there's even more rubbish in the cavity that I'm slowly clearing.

The thing is, that £800 was a complete waste of money as it hasn't dried the wall, just masked the symptoms. It was also an easy fix by clearing the cavity, which I will do on that wall at some point.

Quite jealous of your brand new garage, I'm slowly getting mine back as I clear out more rubbish and as I uncover bits I've not seen in over 18 months I realise what a mess the floor is and how much the brickwork needs tidying up and how much work getting it to the standard it *needs* to be will be. Still, will be worth it when it's done.

[Craikeybaby]

Interesting.

I've managed to borrow a dehumidifier from work for a few days, so will put that on tonight, the problem with having the heating on is that we've had to take off the radiator, the windows have been open for the last week though, and the patio doors when we've been in.

One of the damp patches was at the corner of the neighbours house and the outside wall, I'm not sure if there is a cavity or not though. The other patch was on the wall to the kitchen.

[Craikeybaby]

We had the dehumidifier running all day yesterday and the walls look a bit drier, although above the fireplace is still damp. We've got it on again today, hopefully we'll be able to do the mist coat on Friday.

One area which we really need to sort out, but have overlooked is the hearth - I'm thinking slate, can anyone reccomend a good supplier? And how is it fitted - mortared in?

[Craikeybaby]

Mist coat done.

[Craikeybaby]

Dining room colour scheme by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Got the first coat of paint done on Monday, with some help from my Mum, it was good to have an extra pair of hands, although I was most impressed at my Dad managing to arrive just as the last brush had been washed.

The photo doesn't show just how blue the wall looks, but it is a bit "Gulf Racing" with the orange chair. The carpet has been ordered and will be fitted on the 19th, so we should have enough time to get the rest of the room done before then.

[Craikeybaby]

We have got to the point where we really need to work out what to do with the hearth/fireplace, we've been so focussed on the plastering/painting that we've neglected it.

As I see it we have three options, carpeting into the fireplace (ruled out due to lack of skirting board), tiling or a slate/stone hearth. Other ideas are welcome, but whatever we do it needs to be done in the next week or so!

I've had a look at Simpo Two's "how do you lay a hearth thread" and it doesn't look too difficult, assuming I can get hold of a correctly sized hearth in time. Any recommendations for suppliers?

The other option is tiling, which should be easier to source materials for, but I will have to raise and level the base, I'm not sure if a wooden frame with ply over the top, or shuttering across the front and creating a base of mortar would be the best bet.

[Craikeybaby]

I managed to source a slate hearth from eBay, which should be delivered on Monday.

[Craikeybaby]

Made a lot of progress over the weekend, but no pictures unfortunately.

Wall painted, skirting boards fitted and painted, sockets refitted, slate hearth installed, curtain rails hung and radiator reffited. Just got to fit the new light this evening and give the room a final clean before the carpet gets fitted tomorrow.

[Yazar]

2 questions, which paint did you use for the mist coat? is the cheapest contract emulsion watered down fine? Also I wasn't sure if a dehumidifier would be good or not, was worried may dry it too quick and crack the skim, was it recommended by your plasterer? (I'm skimming the house myslef, what could go wrong )

[Craikeybaby]

We used Dulux as that is what we have for doing the ceilings. A different plasterer suggested using the dehumidifier, although we waited a week before using dehumidifier.

My mate went on a plastering course before he started his renovation, he's done an OK job, but not up to the standard of the guy that did our dining room.

[pmanson]

Hi Craikey,

Just a quick question re. the garage door (i'm looking at a similar one).... are you able to open it a little about (say 6" or so?)

I need the ability to run a garden house through where the (new) garage will be, if I can't do this I'll need to get a new outside tap installed!

We now have the funds in place, so it's just a case of getting the plans confirmed and submitted!

[Craikeybaby]

I really need to do a proper update on this thread, but things have been so busy with (none house) stuff, wedding/honeymoon planning etc.

pmanson said:

Hi Craikey,

Just a quick question re. the garage door (i'm looking at a similar one).... are you able to open it a little about (say 6" or so?)

I need the ability to run a garden house through where the (new) garage will be, if I can't do this I'll need to get a new outside tap installed!

We now have the funds in place, so it's just a case of getting the plans confirmed and submitted!

Yes, a second press of the button stops the door in its current position, however the next press of the button returns it to the bottom, so it wouldn't be a permanent solution. If you're looking at a circa £1,500 door, an other outdoor tap isn't much in the grand scheme of things (I think ours was £40 fitted) and that sor of compromise would annoy me everytime I needed to use the hose.

[pmanson]

Craikeybaby said:

I really need to do a proper update on this thread, but things have been so busy with (none house) stuff, wedding/honeymoon planning etc.

pmanson said:

Hi Craikey,

Just a quick question re. the garage door (i'm looking at a similar one).... are you able to open it a little about (say 6" or so?)

I need the ability to run a garden house through where the (new) garage will be, if I can't do this I'll need to get a new outside tap installed!

We now have the funds in place, so it's just a case of getting the plans confirmed and submitted!

Yes, a second press of the button stops the door in its current position, however the next press of the button returns it to the bottom, so it wouldn't be a permanent solution. If you're looking at a circa £1,500 door, an other outdoor tap isn't much in the grand scheme of things (I think ours was £40 fitted) and that sor of compromise would annoy me everytime I needed to use the hose.

Hi, That's great. The garage will be about 6m from the house, so i'd need to get a cold water feed down to the garage. I'm only thinking about if/when I need to run a sprinkler stopping it will be I need.

The outside tap is on the side of the house hence either thinking about the expense of running a new feed to the garage or just being able to occasionally run the hosepipe through the garage itself.

[Craikeybaby]

pmanson said:

Craikeybaby said:

I really need to do a proper update on this thread, but things have been so busy with (none house) stuff, wedding/honeymoon planning etc.

pmanson said:

Hi Craikey,

Just a quick question re. the garage door (i'm looking at a similar one).... are you able to open it a little about (say 6" or so?)

I need the ability to run a garden house through where the (new) garage will be, if I can't do this I'll need to get a new outside tap installed!

We now have the funds in place, so it's just a case of getting the plans confirmed and submitted!

Yes, a second press of the button stops the door in its current position, however the next press of the button returns it to the bottom, so it wouldn't be a permanent solution. If you're looking at a circa £1,500 door, an other outdoor tap isn't much in the grand scheme of things (I think ours was £40 fitted) and that sor of compromise would annoy me everytime I needed to use the hose.

Hi, That's great. The garage will be about 6m from the house, so i'd need to get a cold water feed down to the garage. I'm only thinking about if/when I need to run a sprinkler stopping it will be I need.

The outside tap is on the side of the house hence either thinking about the expense of running a new feed to the garage or just being able to occasionally run the hosepipe through the garage itself.

I completely missed this before, have you come to a solution for this? I ended up running a water pipe along with the electrics to the garage, I haven't connected it yet, but thought it would be best to have water and data cables down there whilst the trench open.

[Craikeybaby]

Time for an update, as I have really been slacking!

First of all the dining room is finished!

Before:

Dining Room Before by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

After - it was finished just in time for Xmas, which was good as we were hosting Xmas dinner:

Dining room by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Dining room by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Christmas at 119 by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

We've still got some snagging to do, the main thing being finishing around the hearth:

Dining room by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

We also need to hang some pictures (still can't bear putting nails into the new plaster) and get some furniture for the alcoves. Since these pictures were taken we have fitted a nicer light fitting and curtains.

[Craikeybaby]

The next room on our list was the front bedroom, which will become the master bedroom. The first part of the year was taken up with Jen sorting out all of her stuff that was stored in there and there was a lot - we had really just been treating the room as a dumping ground, for all of the things that Jen's parents were trying to offload onto us now that we have our own place. Apparently it all needed sorting and couldn't just go in the skip, although eventually a lot of it did. I boarded more of the loft, as a lot went up there too, but mainly it was Jen sorting her stuff out, so I got to do some work on the cars in the garage and go out on my bike etc, it was good to have a few months without too much worrying about DIY!

Eventually, when the room was cleared we got a skip and dismantled the fitted wardrobes, like the back bedroom they were well fitted, but we got them down a lot quicker than previously:

Removing fitted wardrobes by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Wardrobes removed by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

My parents came to help us with the wallpaper stripping, so that was done fairly quickly too, with 4 people working on it. After finding damp in the last two rooms we had stripped we were relieved not to find any problems lurking behind the wallpaper, especially given our neighbour had said she had damp on the adjoining wall. There were a couple of patches of blown plaster and lots of holes around where the fitted wardrobe had been, but nothing serious.

Whilst we were waiting for the handy man to sort the skirting boards and the plasterer to start, we had an empty room, so decided to do something about the doors we had stripped in 2013.

The doors last appearance on this thread:

Filling holes in the door by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

2 years later, painting started:

Door painting by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Now painted and fitted (excuse the clutter):

Door #1 painted and fitted by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

The room has now been plastered, so while we are waiting for it to dry out, we are painting a couple more doors, after the success of the first.

Edited by Craikeybaby on Wednesday 17th June 22:32

[Craikeybaby]

The doors/front bedroom are the main project at the moment - our deadline for the front bedroom is bout 8 weeks time, which is the lead time on the bed we are going to order in the next few days.

The next project which we need to do some background work on is project veranda. This had been planned as a 2016 project, but our neighbour, who veranda joins on to ours, said she wanted to replace her veranda this year, so it makes sense to get them done at the same time.

This photo shows the current veranda:

Treated Lawn by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Ideally we'd like to replace it with something similar, keeping the character. So any suggestions as to what trade would be needed would be helpful. Builder/joiner?

Whilst the veranda is down it is going to make a lot of other jobs easier, replacing the upstairs windows, soffits, guttering and down pipes - are there any other jobs that would be good to do at this time?

Lastly, as the veranda supports are resting on the patio, it is also going to be the right time to replace the patio - this photo show it better:

Raised bed complete by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Ideally we want to replace the whole path up to the garage, to include a small patio under the garage window, which will be in the sun when the veranda is in the shade and vice versa:

Shed finished! by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

[Pheo]

Looking great. I like the current veranda so I would agree to keep something in character!

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks. The veranda was very welcome today - had the inlaws round for a BBQ and it rained all afternoon.

The jobs for this weekend are sanding/filling the doors, sanding the skirting boards and painting the mist coat in the front bedroom.

Plastered walls and sanded doors by Lewis Craik, on Flickr