Our Little Durham Restoration Project...

Our Little Durham Restoration Project...

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Discussion

Wetwipe

3,019 posts

212 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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I'd happily put wall mounted lanterns either side of the front door. If the side access is yours (which I think it is looks from the pics) then I'd also out a PIR controlled floodlight on the side wall

Craikeybaby

10,369 posts

224 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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I'm assuming there isn't enough room above, or it would be too hard to drill into the lintel, so a lantern either side would probably be my choice.

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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is that just in Lanchester by any chance?

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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Thanks, I was wondering about putting lights either side of the bay window possibly. I don't really want to put a light on the left of the door as the light will spill over into the side street. Single light in the middle of the brickwork between the bay and the door at about the same height as the top of the door?

The side access is mine, currently planning three lights down the side on timer and PIR, with a couple of flood lights at the rear to illuminate the rear of the garden.

It is in Lanchester, are you local?

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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Nice project. Bookmarked.

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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paulrockliffe said:
Thanks, I was wondering about putting lights either side of the bay window possibly. I don't really want to put a light on the left of the door as the light will spill over into the side street. Single light in the middle of the brickwork between the bay and the door at about the same height as the top of the door?

The side access is mine, currently planning three lights down the side on timer and PIR, with a couple of flood lights at the rear to illuminate the rear of the garden.

It is in Lanchester, are you local?
yes, i think I pass that house at least once or twice a day depending on whether I am picking the kids up or dropping them off at school..

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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Where abouts are you at? It will be my house you go past, there's none you'd confuse it with in the village I don't think.

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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paulrockliffe said:
Where abouts are you at? It will be my house you go past, there's none you'd confuse it with in the village I don't think.
just before the junction on my right after the row of terraced houses I am guessing?
I am just over the hill on the edge of Langley.

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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Yeah, that's it. Sounds like I bike past your house when I'm going to and from Durham, some good hills over that way. We were looking at a house on Hamsteels Lane too, but it sold before we started viewing stuff.

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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if i ever get my house renovation and extention (now sick of it) done you might hear me coming past in the GTR, sold all my bikes a few years back - kids etc.. the workshop/garage is currently full of building materials!

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Wednesday 15th May 2013
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Are you planning to apply any plasterboard to ceilings? I've a bit to do and contemplating buying one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140709399361?ssPageName=...

They're £100 to hire for a day! I need it for three jobs, so it's yours for £50 if you need it?

hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Thursday 16th May 2013
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would have been nice, but almost all my ceilings are done now, did them by myself with 2 pairs of step ladders and a bad back.. wink

AGumbo

516 posts

180 months

Thursday 16th May 2013
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Never mind the house, lovely as you are making it, can we see some pictures of the blacksmiths? Any equipment left?

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Thursday 16th May 2013
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That's a shame! Good to know there's someone with experience on hand for when I'm struggling with the boards on my own!

I can't really take too many useful pics off the blacksmiths at the moment. The garage is almost completely full of the wood that I've stripped from the house, the forge is full of tools, radiators, insulation and floor boards. The lean-to on the end is full of carpet and fire places.

There's not much evidence of it's history now unfortunately. You can see where the furness used to be and there's an old gas supply in one corner (wonderering if it's still connected to the mains and unmetered.....) but apart from that it's really just a good sized work space at the moment.

I have a few ideas for it's future, but I need to work get the house in a good state before I start on anything too extravagant in there. Once we've got moved in and the pressure is off I'll spend some time getting it into a more useful state. I need to work out rough plans so I can brick up some external doors that lead onto the side street (for security reasons) and replace the current doors and windows with some more modern ones.

If I can get the workshop cleared of stuff then I'll take some pictures for you.

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Sunday 19th May 2013
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Completely forgot to take pictures this weekend, so the blacksmiths will have to wait a week.

I didn't make much visual progress this weekend, but did get quite a bit done. Started to remove the kitchen, all the tiles came off pretty much perfectly so saved a few hundred quid of plastering there. Cupboards off the wall and stripped the base units of doors etc ready to take out when we lift the worktops off next weekend. The worktops are a normal cheapo chipboard construction, but they've got a really nice corian type cover fitted over them. Very unusual I think (?) but look very good, so we're keeping those.

We instructed an electrician in the week, so he came round to work out a plan with me. While he was here he disconnected my MCB, fitted a new single fuse board and wired a couple of temporary sockets next to the board so that I could strip out all the wiring, which I've done now. Removed light fittings and sockets etc ready for the new stuff going in. We've selected our face plates, so I'll be ordering those in the next few days once I've finalised the electrical spec. The singlefuse board will be kept as we are moving the MCB to the other side of the house, so this board will provide protection for the cable to the new board, so a neat solution. The electrician is back in during the week to prepare all the cable runs and wire up the blacksmiths, then aiming to have first-fix done around the start of June.

I've run all of the wires for the secondary BT sockets and yesterday an Octo-LNB (!) arrived for the satellite dish, so I've run 6 of the 8 feeds from the dish to the plant room. I think I have 10 possible exit points, though at some point I'll fit a larger tv tuner to my server so that might rise. I'll be constructing some sort of patch panel so that the 'live' points can be easily swapped about. It's inconceivable that I'll run out of inputs as some rooms have a couple of exits for choice of TV locations and some locations are 'just in case' rather than definite TV points. As back up I have a terrestrial TV multiplex going in to all points too, so I can't envisage any circumstances that I've not got covered. I ordered a load of custom outlets that arrived last week, so I put them all together to help me remember what wires need to go where, most have TV, Satellite and FM, a CAT6 outlet and then a twin phono connector.

Once I've finished the Satellite and TV cables I just need to finish off the alarm wiring and add a load of speaker cabling. I'm putting speakers in quite a few ceilings, with concealed amplification and a selector switch that'll allow the speakers to take their feed from either a local source (supplied by the twin phonos on my face plates) or from the server in the plant room which is running XBMC. Will allow music or radio etc all around the house and controlled by an XBMC remote on my phone and is a much cheaper option than SONOS etc.

I took delivery of a load of plasterboard, battens, sand and cement and a lintel on Saturday, which caused a bit of consternation as it was dropped on my drive while I had no one to help move it and the village was in the process of flooding! Fortunately we got it all in dry without any issues. As the floor boards were up I was able to learn that the air brick by the front door lets the water flow in off the garden if it rains a lot, so that's to sort out!

I've measured up for various bits of studwork that need doing, so going to order that this week as I'll have a good work-force over the bank holiday weekend to hopefully make a lot of progress. After that I've got a weekend off, followed by 8 days off work, so should hopefully get a long way towards being able to move in then, so long as I remember to order door frames so the plasterer can finish off.

AGumbo

516 posts

180 months

Monday 20th May 2013
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No problem, I had hoped you would have some of the original kit left, would still be interesting to see but understand you have a couple of other more pressing issues!


hedgefinder

3,418 posts

169 months

Monday 20th May 2013
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the flooding around here is becoming an issue for many, a lot of places never flooded in the last 100 years until that freak weather last "SUMMER", flash flooding now seems to happen every time we have a large downpour..

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Monday 20th May 2013
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Yeah, I was told that the flood last summer was caused by the storm drains being blocked and that they'd been cleared, but obviously there's still some issue as Front Street was under a foot of water and it wasn't all that wet was it?

There's a flood simulation exercise planned for July, with helicopters and everything, but I think I'll be in Manchester and miss it.

Lynch91

471 posts

138 months

Tuesday 21st May 2013
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This looks like a really good project so far. Just one thing I would say from your first post is that I would think twice about doing a loft conversation, as they are pretty expensive. But worst of all in the summer they get unbelievable hot in my experience, obviously though in the winter they are nice and warm!

paulrockliffe

Original Poster:

15,639 posts

226 months

Tuesday 21st May 2013
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Is that right? I was thinking with proper levels of insulation the heat is kept in in Winter and out in Summer?