My first house and rennovation / build thread

[fizz47]

PIC HEAVY

Hi all

So far have found a lot of useful information and helpful info from a lot of people on here so will post another build thread and hopefully keep you updated as I go along...

So after looking for a house for a little over 3 years and having kept increasing my budget we finallly purchased a house last month.

Built circa 1960 and had an extension put on in the 70s. House in question is in the Essex area within walking distance of a central line underground station. I purchased the house as a reposession and speaking to the neighbours and the EA no one had lived in the house for over 5 years. It's a 3 bed but has had an extension at the back which can be used as a 4th bedroom as it also has an attached shower room.


Here is the house as it stands -

I have never taken on a project like this and quite frankly am useless at DIY but will attempt to do what little bits I can. We dont plan to live in this house forever but do expect to be here for a good few years.

I will post a plan of the house in due course.

In a nutshell the plan is to -re-wire entire house, new plumbing and central heating system, new kitchen, fix leaking flat roog in garage, fit new floors, fit new shower room, bathroom and WC.

All the work is essentially internal. On the exterior there is room for a 3/4 car in and out driveway but dont have the budget to do that yet. Would also like to redo the entrance porch but again that will have to wait.

Am on a very tight budget so this is going to be a huge learning curve and am sure will make countless errors along the way. Right now am in the process of getting quotes for all the work.

[nadger]

Well, you can't make it any worse!
Seriously though, lots of potential! Good luck, will follow with interest. Bookmarked.

[KTF]

Starting with it in this condition is a bonus imo as you can strip every room back and start from scratch in one go rather than a room here, a room there, etc.

What sort of state is the 'do not use' toilet in

[fizz47]

KTF said:

Starting with it in this condition is a bonus imo as you can strip every room back and start from scratch in one go rather than a room here, a room there, etc.

What sort of state is the 'do not use' toilet in

Spot on about starting from scratch - The only problem is with doing the whole house in one go is its very easy to start adding items that technically are not a necessity but would like to have - for example - a few people have said 'well you are re-wiring the whole house so why not get the whole house cabled for networking and and built in speakers etc. While I would love to have things like this I have to put things into perspective especially in regards to my budget and have to remember I will be selling the house at some point and will these items really add value to my house?


On the first day we got the keys we took a plumber and electrician with us and surprisngly even after the house being dormant for 5 years or so the electrics worked first time including the fridge and freezer. Turned on the central heating and house was boiling warm within an hour. A couple of pipes around the place have minor leaks but will all be replaced anyway.

The downstairs WC and upstairs toilet are in working order and useable but were informed that the downstairs shower room with the toilet is a no go area.

However even the usuable toilets we are only currently using in extreme emergencies as they are not the nicest of places even after scrubbing for a good few hours....

[chockymonster]

If you're gutting the place and rewiring then adding the network cable and speaker wires are not a huge expense.
I didn't really have the budget to do mine but seeing as the room was being replastered and the ceiling was down it really did make sense to buy the cables, chase channels for speakers etc
You don't have to terminate them yet but having the option there is worthwhile.

As for the toilet, this is going to sound silly, but pour a can of full fat coke down the toilet and leave it overnight. Flush and scrub the next morning. I did this and haven't really touched coke since!

[paulrockliffe]

fizz47 said:

Spot on about starting from scratch - The only problem is with doing the whole house in one go is its very easy to start adding items that technically are not a necessity but would like to have - for example - a few people have said 'well you are re-wiring the whole house so why not get the whole house cabled for networking and and built in speakers etc. While I would love to have things like this I have to put things into perspective especially in regards to my budget and have to remember I will be selling the house at some point and will these items really add value to my house?


On the first day we got the keys we took a plumber and electrician with us and surprisngly even after the house being dormant for 5 years or so the electrics worked first time including the fridge and freezer. Turned on the central heating and house was boiling warm within an hour. A couple of pipes around the place have minor leaks but will all be replaced anyway.

The downstairs WC and upstairs toilet are in working order and useable but were informed that the downstairs shower room with the toilet is a no go area.

However even the usuable toilets we are only currently using in extreme emergencies as they are not the nicest of places even after scrubbing for a good few hours....

Looks a very similar sort of job to mine, except mine was in a much better state before we started.

If you have the time to do things yourself it's a doddle to sort out all the network cables, tv cables etc while you have the chance. You might as well do it now as you won't be able to do it later. We were rewiring, which meant replastering, which meant replacing woodwork. We also had a new bathroom to fit and kitchen. By the time we were doing all that it made sense to update everything else where possible, so new radiators, new floors and insulation between joists. We've also run network cables everywhere, a new alarm system, tv cables from the satellite dishes and aerial to a multiplex and I've set up an audio distribution system with ceiling speakers too. There were quite a few other things that didn't need doing, but made sense to get done now, so I have internet and tv in the workshop too. We were lucky that we got the house miles under what we were expecting to pay so have a good budget and we don't need to move in for a while yet, so plenty of time to do things how we want and to do things ourselves at the weekends.

It really is good sense to do as much as you can while the house is a mess if at all possible. Your point about not adding to resale might be correct, but you might be living there for 10 years or more, so you should renovate it for you primarily. I've done loads that won't increase the estate agents 'value', but you're selling to one person and they might value your work. Even if they don't, it'll make it more likely to sell quickly and closer to asking price than if you haven't done stuff.

Good luck, and keep the thread up to date!

[waterwonder]

A very timely thread.

I'm hopefully just about to embark on a similar project, hoping to exchange tomorrow. Also on a tight budget and based in Essex so i'll be looking out for any good deals you manage to get .

I'm debating whether to start a thread but all the best with yours i'll be following with interest.

[Matt..]

I am also going through the purchase of a property in a similar condition (though smaller). What do you class as a tight budget?

[scenario8]

waterwonder said:

I'm debating whether to start a thread but all the best with yours i'll be following with interest.

No need for debating. There's always room for another refurb thread.

[waterwonder]

scenario8 said:

waterwonder said:

I'm debating whether to start a thread but all the best with yours i'll be following with interest.

No need for debating. There's always room for another refurb thread.

Haha you might regret that. It's likely to be lots of questions over a long period of time. However I can pay in pictures.

Anyway the OP looks like he's got a good project on his hands and the list of jobs are very similar to mine so this is definitely bookmarked.

All the great refurb/self build threads mean this is fast becoming my go-to section of the forum.

[scenario8]

I only ask for another refurb thread in the hope that I see someone else making at least as much of a balls up over it as I am. It's a sort of therapy. Sadly, it seems to backfire with each new story.

[anonymous-user]

Good work on the purchase - plenty you can do to that place! If it hasn't been lived in for more than five years, and you can get the empty homes officer to write you a letter to that effect, then you only have to pay 5% VAT on supply and install. For supply only, you pay 20% but can claim the extra 15% back (as a generalisation, anything that needs screwing down, can be claimed from wooden floors to curtain poles) That's your first saving Have a look at the gov VAT website, specifically buildings and renovations.

[K50 DEL]

skintemma said:

Good work on the purchase - plenty you can do to that place! If it hasn't been lived in for more than five years, and you can get the empty homes officer to write you a letter to that effect, then you only have to pay 5% VAT on supply and install. For supply only, you pay 20% but can claim the extra 15% back (as a generalisation, anything that needs screwing down, can be claimed from wooden floors to curtain poles) That's your first saving Have a look at the gov VAT website, specifically buildings and renovations.

Do you know how much that little quirk of UK VAT regulations has saved you on your build Em?

[anonymous-user]

^ It's on my list of things to do. I thought I'd do it when I was feeling grumpy so it cheers me up. I suspect we'll be looking at about £20K to come back from the VAT office. It certainly all adds up. The fact that we've only had to pay 5% on the biggest stuff has really been a life saver, if it was 20, we'd probably be right in the sh*te now

[Craikeybaby]

Looks like a good project, quite similar to mine.

I would echo the comments about it not costing much extra to add network points etc, it is much more hassle to add them later. Are you going to live in the house while you are doing it up?

[fizz47]

Craikeybaby said:

Looks like a good project, quite similar to mine.

I would echo the comments about it not costing much extra to add network points etc, it is much more hassle to add them later. Are you going to live in the house while you are doing it up?

No - dont plan to move in until the majority of the work is finished. We are essentially asking for a plaster finish and will do the painting ourselves. Fortunatly we have family who live about 7 miles away and will stay with them during the work .

All the windows are aluminium and while in excellent condition they are surrounded by wooden frames which are going to take ages to sand and paint - not looking forward to that.

The whole house needs carpeting upstairs and downstairs the entire ground floor needs re- flooring as well. We would like to put engineered oak flooring down but again due to budget constraints we going to probably go down the laminate route.

The garden is entirely paved and eventually when funds allow I will re do the garden too but a long way off from that at the moment- at least I wont have to buy a lawn mower for the timebeing.

[fizz47]

Where is the best place to source 10 type 22 radiators and 3 heated chrome towel rails?

Also one plumber I have had a quote from has given me his numbers for all new pipework but I have to provide the boiler. Anyone know a reputable reasonable place to buy a boiler. The name that keeps getting mentioned to us is a Valiant 837.

[Craikeybaby]

fizz47 said:

No - dont plan to move in until the majority of the work is finished. We are essentially asking for a plaster finish and will do the painting ourselves. Fortunatly we have family who live about 7 miles away and will stay with them during the work .

All the windows are aluminium and while in excellent condition they are surrounded by wooden frames which are going to take ages to sand and paint - not looking forward to that.

The whole house needs carpeting upstairs and downstairs the entire ground floor needs re- flooring as well. We would like to put engineered oak flooring down but again due to budget constraints we going to probably go down the laminate route.

The garden is entirely paved and eventually when funds allow I will re do the garden too but a long way off from that at the moment- at least I wont have to buy a lawn mower for the timebeing.

Yup, very similar to ours, we did the big jobs, rewire, new boiler, kitchen and one bedroom before we moved in. The pace has slowed down a bit now as we save up, but doing it that way we are able to take our time and get it exactly how we want, rather than rushing through to get it done before we can move in.

[fizz47]

UPDATE - Wallpaper, Wasps, Dodgy mexican wasp killer and radiators

So took 1 day off from work and had the weekend to do some prepping before the builders get in- having said that still going through the process of quotes so still have a little time left.

Removing Wallpaper

Every room in the entire house has wallpaper so had to remove that from everywhere. Between two wall paper steamers and 5 of us we mangerd to pretty much strip everywhere. Probably had 15 large dustbin bags full of wallpaper.

We used a mixture of wall paper stripper solution and steamers and by the end of the weekend we had tried all sorts of methods but we found the most effective method was appplying the stripper solution to the walls with a roller. Wait 15 - 20 mins and then go over with a steamer going from top to bottom and using the stripper almost as an iron - the wallpaper sections would come off clean and in a full strip even if it was 3 or 4 layers thick.


Probably on one of the last wallpaper strips we realised that if you have 2 of you using a steamer each and going over the same section of wallpaper would make it come off even faster.

We had one 12 year old steamer which was pretty much constantly running the entire weekend and had no problems. We also had one brand new steamer which had built in safety features causing it to cut out every hour or so which became annoying.










Wasps

My loft access sits almost on top of the upstairs loo and always noticed a couple of dead wasps lying around. Since buying the house or even when viewing the house i've been too chicken st to look around my loft as everytime I open the loft hatch I am confronted by this and it appears to be getting bigger everday.






Finally I got a mexican / talliban looking fella (aka my brother) to go up and attempt to get rid of the the wasps. Before going up he said he wanted some sort of protection. With the likes of Hugo Boss or Armani not being at our immediate disposal for our design needs this is what we came up with as a wasp defending suit!





After emptying a can of wasp destroyer purchased from a local diy place we have ended up with this. Didnt stay long to find out waht was going on but in a few days will peak into the loft again and see how the wasps nest is doing.





Also managed to remove the radiators without major flooding- These are the ones from the ground floor. Can anyone advise if they have any scrap value?





Also have some of this parquet flooring which we believe is either mahogany or cherry. It's not in the best of condition though could easily be cleaned up however we were planning on throwing it away. Someone mentioned it may have some value as well- any one know about this sort of thing?

Edited by fizz47 on Tuesday 17th September 11:05

[Craikeybaby]

I'm not sure about the flooring or radiators (we refurbed ours), but also having spent the whole weekend stripping wallpaper I know how much of a bh it is. Have you had to do the ceilings too?