Marky's refurb thread. 1940 run down semi.
Discussion
Thanks for asking lads. Slow and steady is the order of the day at the moment. Still very much enjoying the ride. I could be busy every minute of the day but I don't want to sicken myself.
Craikey, I've been reading your thread with interest. I'll have a read once I've typed this out, as I'm intrigued to see if you got your damp patches sorted?
Dano, good luck with the project. Kitchen and bathroom are always the pain in the butt projects, as far as trying to live in the house at the same time. Always worth it when it's done though. I hope you get to keep the car. I've come up with a good solution to keep mine. I have a job interview for a new job on the 5th Feb
. More money but harder work which isn't ideal at the minute but the money will help with the house so if I get to keep the GT3, it's all good.
Right, a bit if a new year update then.
Main thing is the plans are done and our planning application is live. I'd love to post pics of the plans as we are opening the ground floor right up but still uncertain of how best to squeeze thing in.
Our emailed copies of the plans are in a PDF format so don't know if they'll upload and work on Photobucket? Any advice appreciated.
Ok, so the roofer finished the roof the week before Xmas. I had to go through a snagging list with him as he done a good job but a few details weren't quite spot on and the whole ethos to this refurb is ""Do it right, do it once". I'm putting my feet up once the house is done, so everything has to be blob on and last a few years.
Couple of pics -
Full re-roof in Welsh slate (keeping with original spec) on house and store. Garage ok. Fascias and black half-round guttering fitted all round.
Some lovely shades of slate up there, purples and greys. Looks great.
We didn't get the porch done as it's getting ripped down during the work.
You can see the old cement flashings here, which had failed badly. Used this pic earlier actually but anyway...
New roof on store now has proper lead flashings and 4 veluxes (below). 2 on rear face, 2 on front. The 2 on the front require planning due to the conservation order. The planning officer said it should be fine as we don't look onto anyone. He also said conservation veluxes are usually preferred. I said that 4 of those almost tripled the price of 4 normal ones and it would look odd from inside to have 2 conservation ones on the front and 2 standard ones on rear, as the cons. items have a strip down the centre. He agreed and said that as long as they were fitted well, standard should be fine all round.
Of course they could be rejected altogether yet, but we figured it would cost us to have them retrofitted after permission was granted, just as it would cost us to have them removed if they're rejected. We had to get the roof on asap due to water coming in so we've taken a punt and hope they get approval.
Store roof.
House roof.
So that was the first major thing to of the way in time for Xmas. The second was to get some heat into the ground floor. I stove fitter came up trumps and got finished by Xmas too.
Halfway there.
All done.
It's a Burley 5KW and has been a godsend over Xmas. We are just waiting for a multi-fuel grate so we can get some coals on there. Lovely job. The stove fitter is coming back in the spring to replace all our chimney pots as there are a couple of different types up there (6 pots on the stack) and it's playing havoc with my OCD. Hopefully go halfers with the new neighbours, as 3 are ours and 3 are theirs. We have another 3 on the other stack too.
New neighbours in, as mentioned above. Thank God! The woman next door who moved out was a solicitor and completely up her own backside. Too much to go into but we had a fall out when my roofers started and then one day I went around to apologise about the noise of the stove fitters and she slammed the door in my face. She could have made things very tricky for us had she wanted and it had got to the stage where I was dreading doing anything noisy.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. I'll add a bit more soon. I've been constantly busy but a lot of it is just mundane things, like stripping things and tip runs. I try and do as many tip runs as possible as skips are £120 a pop, so even if I spend a few hours and £10 in diesel doing 7 or 8 runs we save £110. So far we've only had one skip, so not bad. My car is getting a battering mind. It's an Alfa too so not built for that sort of thing , but I'll throw it away after the house is finished.
Craikey, I've been reading your thread with interest. I'll have a read once I've typed this out, as I'm intrigued to see if you got your damp patches sorted?
Dano, good luck with the project. Kitchen and bathroom are always the pain in the butt projects, as far as trying to live in the house at the same time. Always worth it when it's done though. I hope you get to keep the car. I've come up with a good solution to keep mine. I have a job interview for a new job on the 5th Feb
. More money but harder work which isn't ideal at the minute but the money will help with the house so if I get to keep the GT3, it's all good.Right, a bit if a new year update then.
Main thing is the plans are done and our planning application is live. I'd love to post pics of the plans as we are opening the ground floor right up but still uncertain of how best to squeeze thing in.
Our emailed copies of the plans are in a PDF format so don't know if they'll upload and work on Photobucket? Any advice appreciated.
Ok, so the roofer finished the roof the week before Xmas. I had to go through a snagging list with him as he done a good job but a few details weren't quite spot on and the whole ethos to this refurb is ""Do it right, do it once". I'm putting my feet up once the house is done, so everything has to be blob on and last a few years.
Couple of pics -
Full re-roof in Welsh slate (keeping with original spec) on house and store. Garage ok. Fascias and black half-round guttering fitted all round.
Some lovely shades of slate up there, purples and greys. Looks great.
We didn't get the porch done as it's getting ripped down during the work.
You can see the old cement flashings here, which had failed badly. Used this pic earlier actually but anyway...
New roof on store now has proper lead flashings and 4 veluxes (below). 2 on rear face, 2 on front. The 2 on the front require planning due to the conservation order. The planning officer said it should be fine as we don't look onto anyone. He also said conservation veluxes are usually preferred. I said that 4 of those almost tripled the price of 4 normal ones and it would look odd from inside to have 2 conservation ones on the front and 2 standard ones on rear, as the cons. items have a strip down the centre. He agreed and said that as long as they were fitted well, standard should be fine all round.
Of course they could be rejected altogether yet, but we figured it would cost us to have them retrofitted after permission was granted, just as it would cost us to have them removed if they're rejected. We had to get the roof on asap due to water coming in so we've taken a punt and hope they get approval.
Store roof.
House roof.
So that was the first major thing to of the way in time for Xmas. The second was to get some heat into the ground floor. I stove fitter came up trumps and got finished by Xmas too.
Halfway there.
All done.
It's a Burley 5KW and has been a godsend over Xmas. We are just waiting for a multi-fuel grate so we can get some coals on there. Lovely job. The stove fitter is coming back in the spring to replace all our chimney pots as there are a couple of different types up there (6 pots on the stack) and it's playing havoc with my OCD. Hopefully go halfers with the new neighbours, as 3 are ours and 3 are theirs. We have another 3 on the other stack too.
New neighbours in, as mentioned above. Thank God! The woman next door who moved out was a solicitor and completely up her own backside. Too much to go into but we had a fall out when my roofers started and then one day I went around to apologise about the noise of the stove fitters and she slammed the door in my face. She could have made things very tricky for us had she wanted and it had got to the stage where I was dreading doing anything noisy.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. I'll add a bit more soon. I've been constantly busy but a lot of it is just mundane things, like stripping things and tip runs. I try and do as many tip runs as possible as skips are £120 a pop, so even if I spend a few hours and £10 in diesel doing 7 or 8 runs we save £110. So far we've only had one skip, so not bad. My car is getting a battering mind. It's an Alfa too so not built for that sort of thing
, but I'll throw it away after the house is finished. Edited by marky911 on Friday 24th January 23:13
Just thought I'd add a couple more pics of what we are greeted with in the morning.
The moon out the front, just before sunrise. It's so bright! The picture doesn't do it justice.
Then out of the kitchen window (will become a seating area in the open plan kitchen/diner, with bi-folds) you get the sunrise.
I could never get sick of the views. Also the noises are great. In the morning you go out and hear the Cockerel cock-a-doodling and at night you have the owl hooting.
Best thing we've ever done is to get out of town. It's this element of it that makes the state we are living in much more bearable, as even though the house is a bit grim, the setting is a great place to come home to.
Also I had to mention that the other night I went to let the dog out at about 11pm. Just as I switched the outside light on, a fox came around the side of the porch, stopped for a second and stared at me, then ran off. Brilliant. I could have bent down and touched it if the window wasn't there, it was that close.
The moon out the front, just before sunrise. It's so bright! The picture doesn't do it justice.
Then out of the kitchen window (will become a seating area in the open plan kitchen/diner, with bi-folds) you get the sunrise.
I could never get sick of the views. Also the noises are great. In the morning you go out and hear the Cockerel cock-a-doodling and at night you have the owl hooting.
Best thing we've ever done is to get out of town. It's this element of it that makes the state we are living in much more bearable, as even though the house is a bit grim, the setting is a great place to come home to.
Also I had to mention that the other night I went to let the dog out at about 11pm. Just as I switched the outside light on, a fox came around the side of the porch, stopped for a second and stared at me, then ran off. Brilliant. I could have bent down and touched it if the window wasn't there, it was that close.
Edited by marky911 on Friday 24th January 23:30
Sorry chaps, missed your posts.
Yep Craikey I've learnt to leave much more time for tidying up now. I used to work until I dropped at night, but now I knock off a bit sooner to get cleared up. Much better for when you start again the next day.
HR - Get it done. A great way to get a house exactly to your spec. Location was everything for us. We could have had a lovely house with double garage etc on a housing estate for what we will spend on this, but the fact we are so happy to have gotten out of a town, keeps us enthusiastic and upbeat when things go wrong.
Yep Craikey I've learnt to leave much more time for tidying up now. I used to work until I dropped at night, but now I knock off a bit sooner to get cleared up. Much better for when you start again the next day.
HR - Get it done. A great way to get a house exactly to your spec. Location was everything for us. We could have had a lovely house with double garage etc on a housing estate for what we will spend on this, but the fact we are so happy to have gotten out of a town, keeps us enthusiastic and upbeat when things go wrong.
Ok, bit of an update but we are still very much in the quiet stage between planning application and planning consent.
The parish council have objected to most of our exterior improvements. Joy. All we can hope for is that the planner is sensible. He seems to be and is a pleasant lad. At the end of the day what he says goes, so it's no use getting wound up.
The main worry is the veluxes in the front face of the store roof (facing the road). We knew these were a risk but had them fitted and applied retrospectively. This may come back to bite us, but hey-ho.
I'm still trying to convert our PDF files of plans into an image file so I can post on here, but I can't figure it out. I'll be honest I haven't had much time to faff on.
Right, I'll get things up to date here. It's mainly minor work, some of it dating back to xmas, nothing exciting, it's mainly for my own records.
I did start a separate thread for this next item, but I'll put it here too.
I removed the rear wall in the bathroom which ran down the side of the bath. Behind it was the hot water tank cupboard which was accessed from the bedroom. There are a few pictures earlier in the thread of the cupboard itself.
Starting -
Done -
It doesn't look much but the space is exactly a baths size, hence we can move the bath further back and move the loo into the same room. We'll then keep half of the old room the loo was in and use it as a separate shower cubicle (accessed from the bathroom obviously) meaning no overhead thing in the new bath.
I spotted some evidence of woodworm in the garage roof beams. Literally 3 beams. Some of which were bolted against another beam yet that one had no holes in at all. Fussy little beggars.
So I removed all of the garage loft insulation to enable me to sweep out the roof area and treat everything with woodworm killer. There was some insulation up there alright. Managed to get it in one car load to the tip somehow. I'll wait until all the electrics are sorted and then renew it all.
I'd like to re-jig the beams up there as there is quite a bit of storage space but the joists get in the way a bit.
All cleared out. Loads of wood to spray though. Long job!
Inevitably I came through the ceiling. I knew at the start of the day I would at some point, what with crawling into corners and moving the sprayer and lighting around. Not to mention how slippy the spray stuff made everything! Anyway, it snapped off in a big neat piece, so it's back up no problem.
My next-door neighbour kindly removed all the ivy from our houses. Much better and it means the mice no longer have a climbing frame up to our loft.
Other than that, I've just been stripping the walls throughout the house and gradually chipping away at removing the cement skirtings.
Hallway stairs and landing.
Found some old tiles under the hallway carpet. Was going to smash them up but they are exactly the height of the other untiled floors, so I'll just leave them as a base for new flooring. I've had my damp meter on them and the floor is bone dry so I'll not tempt fate and rip them up.
I've also found a company to repair the asphalt floors and piece in any sections when the walls come down, downstairs. This was a major thing for me as I just didn't know what to do with them. They'll pour molten asphalt into the channel left by the cement skirtings, level any highspots on the floors and fill any major defects. To do it perfectly would involve new asphalt floors being laid, but there are no issues with the floors with regard to damp our anything, just the dips and troughs.
I can then Ardit the floor or ply it, to gloss over any minor undulations that are left.
So that's sort of it. I always seem to be busy but there'll be no big changes now until the building work starts, which will be April I'd imagine.
The wife has been planning the open plan area using some iPad app and it's quite good. Doesn't look like we'll be able to fit an island/breakfast bar and a dining table in there. I'm erring towards losing the dining table, as I think the island/brekkie bar is more modern and the kitchen will be contemporary rather than traditional.
Any opinions on this welcome, especially from people who have gone with one or the other.
I'll post some pics of now and how it will be, later on.
Anyway, apologies for the boring update, like I say it's very much so I have all of our progress in one place.
Thanks.
The parish council have objected to most of our exterior improvements. Joy. All we can hope for is that the planner is sensible. He seems to be and is a pleasant lad. At the end of the day what he says goes, so it's no use getting wound up.
The main worry is the veluxes in the front face of the store roof (facing the road). We knew these were a risk but had them fitted and applied retrospectively. This may come back to bite us, but hey-ho.
I'm still trying to convert our PDF files of plans into an image file so I can post on here, but I can't figure it out. I'll be honest I haven't had much time to faff on.
Right, I'll get things up to date here. It's mainly minor work, some of it dating back to xmas, nothing exciting, it's mainly for my own records.
I did start a separate thread for this next item, but I'll put it here too.
I removed the rear wall in the bathroom which ran down the side of the bath. Behind it was the hot water tank cupboard which was accessed from the bedroom. There are a few pictures earlier in the thread of the cupboard itself.
Starting -
Done -
It doesn't look much but the space is exactly a baths size, hence we can move the bath further back and move the loo into the same room. We'll then keep half of the old room the loo was in and use it as a separate shower cubicle (accessed from the bathroom obviously) meaning no overhead thing in the new bath.
I spotted some evidence of woodworm in the garage roof beams. Literally 3 beams. Some of which were bolted against another beam yet that one had no holes in at all. Fussy little beggars.
So I removed all of the garage loft insulation to enable me to sweep out the roof area and treat everything with woodworm killer. There was some insulation up there alright. Managed to get it in one car load to the tip somehow. I'll wait until all the electrics are sorted and then renew it all.
I'd like to re-jig the beams up there as there is quite a bit of storage space but the joists get in the way a bit.
All cleared out. Loads of wood to spray though. Long job!
Inevitably I came through the ceiling. I knew at the start of the day I would at some point, what with crawling into corners and moving the sprayer and lighting around. Not to mention how slippy the spray stuff made everything! Anyway, it snapped off in a big neat piece, so it's back up no problem.
My next-door neighbour kindly removed all the ivy from our houses. Much better and it means the mice no longer have a climbing frame up to our loft.
Other than that, I've just been stripping the walls throughout the house and gradually chipping away at removing the cement skirtings.
Hallway stairs and landing.
Found some old tiles under the hallway carpet. Was going to smash them up but they are exactly the height of the other untiled floors, so I'll just leave them as a base for new flooring. I've had my damp meter on them and the floor is bone dry so I'll not tempt fate and rip them up.
I've also found a company to repair the asphalt floors and piece in any sections when the walls come down, downstairs. This was a major thing for me as I just didn't know what to do with them. They'll pour molten asphalt into the channel left by the cement skirtings, level any highspots on the floors and fill any major defects. To do it perfectly would involve new asphalt floors being laid, but there are no issues with the floors with regard to damp our anything, just the dips and troughs.
I can then Ardit the floor or ply it, to gloss over any minor undulations that are left.
So that's sort of it. I always seem to be busy but there'll be no big changes now until the building work starts, which will be April I'd imagine.
The wife has been planning the open plan area using some iPad app and it's quite good. Doesn't look like we'll be able to fit an island/breakfast bar and a dining table in there. I'm erring towards losing the dining table, as I think the island/brekkie bar is more modern and the kitchen will be contemporary rather than traditional.
Any opinions on this welcome, especially from people who have gone with one or the other.
I'll post some pics of now and how it will be, later on.
Anyway, apologies for the boring update, like I say it's very much so I have all of our progress in one place.
Thanks.
Woohoo! Planning permission granted.
We had to attend a planning committee meeting on Wednesday night. Due to the parish council objecting, it had to go beyond the senior planner.
We had 5 minutes to say why we should be allowed the items we want and the parish council had 5 mins to speak against. They didn't turn up though. They are obviously happy to whinge from the comfort of their own homes but won't waste a gallon of petrol to attend the meeting.
Anyway, everything passed apart from the exterior rendering which we agreed to knock off a few weeks ago and re-submit the plans. Not great but we never thought we'd get that anyway, being one half of a semi and in a conservation area.
We even got our black front door and garage doors approved. I thought I'd have had to haggle and concede on those to keep our veluxes. We will now be the first house in the village facing the road that doesn't have a white front door. Shock horror! I can imagine the discussion down at the parish council meeting.
Anyway, I've finally got the plans onto an upload-able format, so lets see if these work. Any feedback for the layout welcomed.
Current -
Proposed Elevations -
New layout -
Current floor plan, zoomed in -
Proposed floor plan, zoomed in -
The cupboard under the stairs was going to be a ground floor WC but it will be right in the seating area, beside the bi-folds so we've taken it out. I don't think many people would like to pop to the loo when everyone else is sitting outside the door. We were going to house the boiler in there but that is now going in my garage, nearer the oil tank.
So that cupboard won't be there.
Our structural engineer has just returned the calcs for the steels so we can now obtain accurate quotes for the work.
Like I say any advice opinion welcome on the layout. Especially the open plan kitchen seating area.
I've been plodding on with the mundane stuff like stripping. I also found an almost new oil tank for £200. That knocked £1100 off the price we'd been quoted for a new (albeit larger) one.
Going to lay the base for it over the next few weekends along with erecting new fences to secure it. Obviously leaving the 650mm gap or whatever it is.
Tank -
Tank was going to go down side of garage but after a bit of measuring I should be able to get a Brian James trailer down there in years to come, when I eventually get back into track days. So I've stealthily decided to put the tank at the bottom corner of the back garden.
Finally, we know someone who works for Myson Radiators. I never even realised they were based up North. So we ordered 12 new rads and got 80% discount. So that's over £4k's worth for £900. Result.
All double convectors since we were getting them so cheap.
We have to take the floors up in the store (where kitchen is going) for building regs, so we are going underfloor in there as the wall space will be non-existent due to kitchen cabinets.
Rads -
So that's where we are at the minute. I'm still chipping away at the cement skirtings and stripping the remainder of junk. Especially in the gardens as they are going to just sprout from now.
Thanks.
We had to attend a planning committee meeting on Wednesday night. Due to the parish council objecting, it had to go beyond the senior planner.
We had 5 minutes to say why we should be allowed the items we want and the parish council had 5 mins to speak against. They didn't turn up though. They are obviously happy to whinge from the comfort of their own homes but won't waste a gallon of petrol to attend the meeting.
Anyway, everything passed apart from the exterior rendering which we agreed to knock off a few weeks ago and re-submit the plans. Not great but we never thought we'd get that anyway, being one half of a semi and in a conservation area.
We even got our black front door and garage doors approved. I thought I'd have had to haggle and concede on those to keep our veluxes. We will now be the first house in the village facing the road that doesn't have a white front door. Shock horror! I can imagine the discussion down at the parish council meeting.
Anyway, I've finally got the plans onto an upload-able format, so lets see if these work. Any feedback for the layout welcomed.
Current -
Proposed Elevations -
New layout -
Current floor plan, zoomed in -
Proposed floor plan, zoomed in -
The cupboard under the stairs was going to be a ground floor WC but it will be right in the seating area, beside the bi-folds so we've taken it out. I don't think many people would like to pop to the loo when everyone else is sitting outside the door. We were going to house the boiler in there but that is now going in my garage, nearer the oil tank.
So that cupboard won't be there.
Our structural engineer has just returned the calcs for the steels so we can now obtain accurate quotes for the work.
Like I say any advice opinion welcome on the layout. Especially the open plan kitchen seating area.
I've been plodding on with the mundane stuff like stripping. I also found an almost new oil tank for £200. That knocked £1100 off the price we'd been quoted for a new (albeit larger) one.
Going to lay the base for it over the next few weekends along with erecting new fences to secure it. Obviously leaving the 650mm gap or whatever it is.
Tank -
Tank was going to go down side of garage but after a bit of measuring I should be able to get a Brian James trailer down there in years to come, when I eventually get back into track days. So I've stealthily decided to put the tank at the bottom corner of the back garden.
Finally, we know someone who works for Myson Radiators. I never even realised they were based up North. So we ordered 12 new rads and got 80% discount. So that's over £4k's worth for £900. Result.
All double convectors since we were getting them so cheap.
We have to take the floors up in the store (where kitchen is going) for building regs, so we are going underfloor in there as the wall space will be non-existent due to kitchen cabinets.
Rads -
So that's where we are at the minute. I'm still chipping away at the cement skirtings and stripping the remainder of junk. Especially in the gardens as they are going to just sprout from now.
Thanks.
Edited by marky911 on Friday 21st March 16:45
Prizam said:
What UFH did you go for ?
We haven't bought it yet but our contact at Myson has sorted everything out for their product. At the moment I just have a list of codes etc, but I'll post details of the components once I collect it. We only need a conservatory pack, as it's just for the kitchen, so it is a small manifold, etc. We'll then programme it to come on earlier than the rads in the rest of the house, due to it being a different type of heat.Martin_M said:
I love this sort of thing - even reading about a project of this size makes me nervous but if I had the money I'd love to buy an old buddy's place and do it all up...if I had the money...and the expertise!
Keep the pics coming - you're doing a great job!
Thanks Martin, well I have no money or expertise. Keep the pics coming - you're doing a great job!
I can do the ripping out and manual labour stuff but that's about it. I'm not going to say we have no money but our budget is definitely limited. I'd say if you get the chance though, do it.It's a fine line between pushing yourself and biting off more than you can chew, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
As I've said we are about to start getting quotes for the bulk of the work now and it all has to be done at the same time as everything ties in with everything else.
Basically if the figures we get in are more than the amount we have, my car may have to go. I'll finally have my double garage but have nothing to put in it. The irony...
rovermorris999 said:
Well done with the PP. In my experience, the people on Parish Councils are usually the last people you'd want on them but I suppose someone has to do it.
Ha! You're right there. The old guard just object to everything in this village, I was warned when we moved in. Basically before the conservation order went on the village years ago, the old residents all added extensions left, right and centre. There's one guy who has an extension on the front of his old house, facing the road, yet he's objecting to my two small velux windows. Unreal.All sorted now though, so that's a line drawn under quite an important thing for us. We can crack on now.
Apparently I need to watch the film Hot Fuzz, as it's about a Parish council, etc. I have it here off a lad at work.
Ok, update time, as much for myself as I've said before, so sorry if it's boring. All advice and opinions welcome though.
Loads done and as I write this we are in the middle of the building work. 2 weeks in to 4 weeks work but that is only to rejig the layout, get the heating installed and full rewire. We'll also get the whole house skimmed and the bathroom finished before moving back in, but once in we'll still have all the decor, the kitchen, all doors, flooring, skirtings, lighting and so on left to do.
So first thing (sort of) completed was the fencing. I say sort of as the gates need ordering but more on that later (parish council again!). Also had a few other problems along the way!
My good mate Craig is the one with the know-how for fences so he gave up many a weekend in the spring to fence around the whole property with me helping obviously.
Started with the rear first as it borders the farmers field and the bulls were due in a few weeks after we started the fence, hence it had to be secure. Then worked our way around the back lane which is access for the farmer.
Dismantle old fence -
New one going up. It's low at this end as I want to keep view, although neighbour issues may mean a change of that anyway. -
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Done apart from soil boards. This end of garden will be levelled later. -
Don't know what this guy wants. -
The fence goes in a hexagonal profile around back corner of garage and down the lane to front main road. We fitted all posts and got the rails on. Then the farmer knocked and said it looked too tight for his trailer so don't go any further. I was 100% on my boundary but tractors and trailers have got a lot bigger over the last 50 years. I said "Bring the tractor and trailer down and try" It just fitted but the mudguard of the trailer actually went under the fence rail! If it was latted it wouldn't go. His driving was inch perfect too, he couldn't have done anymore.
Anyway, long story short farmer said he's a tenant farmer and he'd get onto the land owners (a big wealthy establishment up here) and they'd get their solicitors onto it.
I was going to ask for dimensions for the fence and lane but just though life's too short, hence I pitched the two corner posts in a foot and a half. I'd rather be known as being helpful rather than being an awkward git plus it's a couple of feet of garden I'll never use anyway.
Original then revised post positions can be seen here before the rails were cut and reattached -
Literally half a ton of scrap metal in the form of old truck leaf springs that had been propping up the old fence. Not even half of it here -
Next was down past the garage. Area was totally overgrown. This pic is after my wife cleared most of it. -
More supplies -
Posts up -
Next was onto the front garden fence -
Old fence removed -
Posts in -
Back and side latted -
Capping on and gate built -
Front done. -
Not entirely happy with the base of the lats as they step down the bank so I may re-do them next year. No time now though.
I had my builders knock up some gateposts in a nice brick that's as near as match for the house that you can get these days. I didn't have them on my approved plans though and before I could even apply for retrospective planning the parish council made a complain to the county council so I had a visit from the planning enforcement officer. I've been told I need retrospective permission due to a material change from timber to brick. The planning officer is all for the posts but has warned me that because the parish council complained they are bound to object to my plans, which will mean me having to attend a planning committee meeting in a few months. Great eh.
The pictures below are before and after. It proves that the parish council are not about conservation at all, only spite and awkwardness. All in my view of course. -
So we have just submitted an application last week and we'll know the outcome in 3 or 4 months. If we lose we will have to pull the posts down. With that in mind we have held off from ordering the nice timber gates we want. We may need to fit timber posts back in then buy the gates.
Apologies for the long post. More to follow.
Loads done and as I write this we are in the middle of the building work. 2 weeks in to 4 weeks work but that is only to rejig the layout, get the heating installed and full rewire. We'll also get the whole house skimmed and the bathroom finished before moving back in, but once in we'll still have all the decor, the kitchen, all doors, flooring, skirtings, lighting and so on left to do.
So first thing (sort of) completed was the fencing. I say sort of as the gates need ordering but more on that later (parish council again!). Also had a few other problems along the way!
My good mate Craig is the one with the know-how for fences so he gave up many a weekend in the spring to fence around the whole property with me helping obviously.
Started with the rear first as it borders the farmers field and the bulls were due in a few weeks after we started the fence, hence it had to be secure. Then worked our way around the back lane which is access for the farmer.
Dismantle old fence -
New one going up. It's low at this end as I want to keep view, although neighbour issues may mean a change of that anyway. -
[/URL]Done apart from soil boards. This end of garden will be levelled later. -
Don't know what this guy wants. -
The fence goes in a hexagonal profile around back corner of garage and down the lane to front main road. We fitted all posts and got the rails on. Then the farmer knocked and said it looked too tight for his trailer so don't go any further. I was 100% on my boundary but tractors and trailers have got a lot bigger over the last 50 years. I said "Bring the tractor and trailer down and try" It just fitted but the mudguard of the trailer actually went under the fence rail! If it was latted it wouldn't go. His driving was inch perfect too, he couldn't have done anymore.
Anyway, long story short farmer said he's a tenant farmer and he'd get onto the land owners (a big wealthy establishment up here) and they'd get their solicitors onto it.
I was going to ask for dimensions for the fence and lane but just though life's too short, hence I pitched the two corner posts in a foot and a half. I'd rather be known as being helpful rather than being an awkward git plus it's a couple of feet of garden I'll never use anyway.
Original then revised post positions can be seen here before the rails were cut and reattached -
Literally half a ton of scrap metal in the form of old truck leaf springs that had been propping up the old fence. Not even half of it here -
Next was down past the garage. Area was totally overgrown. This pic is after my wife cleared most of it. -
More supplies -
Posts up -
Next was onto the front garden fence -
Old fence removed -
Posts in -
Back and side latted -
Capping on and gate built -
Front done. -
Not entirely happy with the base of the lats as they step down the bank so I may re-do them next year. No time now though.
I had my builders knock up some gateposts in a nice brick that's as near as match for the house that you can get these days. I didn't have them on my approved plans though and before I could even apply for retrospective planning the parish council made a complain to the county council so I had a visit from the planning enforcement officer. I've been told I need retrospective permission due to a material change from timber to brick. The planning officer is all for the posts but has warned me that because the parish council complained they are bound to object to my plans, which will mean me having to attend a planning committee meeting in a few months. Great eh.
The pictures below are before and after. It proves that the parish council are not about conservation at all, only spite and awkwardness. All in my view of course.
-
So we have just submitted an application last week and we'll know the outcome in 3 or 4 months. If we lose we will have to pull the posts down. With that in mind we have held off from ordering the nice timber gates we want. We may need to fit timber posts back in then buy the gates.
Apologies for the long post. More to follow.
Edited by marky911 on Sunday 13th July 22:11
I had wanted to keep side of garage clear for track day trailer or camper van parking in the future (I would get it levelled with new driveway), but I finally agreed with the wife that it wouldn't be great sitting in the garden looking at the shed and oil tank.
So I dug the area out to level it off with dwarf retaining wall. Thought there wasn't much there but by god it took all of a red hot Sunday to dig it -
Start -
Done -
What came out -
Piece of drainpipe in before base goes down to enable easy routing of oil supply pipe down to path where it is dug out and continued on into garage. -
Base done complete with retaining wall. It's stepped out for shed to be built later. I wanted to leave maximum soil in for fencepost support wherever possible. -
So I dug the area out to level it off with dwarf retaining wall. Thought there wasn't much there but by god it took all of a red hot Sunday to dig it -
Start -
Done -
What came out -
Piece of drainpipe in before base goes down to enable easy routing of oil supply pipe down to path where it is dug out and continued on into garage. -
Base done complete with retaining wall. It's stepped out for shed to be built later. I wanted to leave maximum soil in for fencepost support wherever possible. -
Ok, so there has been loads of other stuff going on like stripping and clearing but I'll get us up to date now by going onto the building work. Quite a lot to sort out and I'm on nightshift at the minute so I basically grab a few hours sleep during the day, wake up at 3pm and go up to house, get my brain battered by tradesmen needing to know stuff, then go and do a 12 hour nightshift.
I must add though that the tradesmen I'm using are excellent. They really are top notch and are cracking on a fair old rate.
I cleared the garage out ready for oil line to be plumbed around wall and boiler and high pressure tank to be fitted in bottom corner. -
Boiler and tank in -
Separate room housing loo has gone. New stud wall to house shower cubicle. Sink will move. Bathroom will still be a compromise but this house was never going to be about the upstairs space. -
Old doorway from bedroom that used to be into the boiler cupboard now blocked up with stud including alcove for bottles or candles or whatever crazy crap the wife usually has in there. -
Landing used to have full height walls on each side of staircase which cut off the landing and made it feel very dingy -
Now taken down to open up space and make it brighter. There is also a nib on the other side which has been removed as it pointlessly narrowed the bedroom access by 4 inches -
Also the same wall on the ground floor was the first wall to come down after an RSJ went in. Opens up the dingy staircase at the bottom -
So above is hallway to dining room wall. Then the dining room to kitchen wall came down. -
All internal walls in store brought down, window into garage blocked up and small window to rear garden blocked up as fridge/pantry unit will go along this wall in new kitchen. -
Door at other end of old kitchen which leads into living room bricked up. -
Cheers.
I must add though that the tradesmen I'm using are excellent. They really are top notch and are cracking on a fair old rate.
I cleared the garage out ready for oil line to be plumbed around wall and boiler and high pressure tank to be fitted in bottom corner. -
Boiler and tank in -
Separate room housing loo has gone. New stud wall to house shower cubicle. Sink will move. Bathroom will still be a compromise but this house was never going to be about the upstairs space.
-
Old doorway from bedroom that used to be into the boiler cupboard now blocked up with stud including alcove for bottles or candles or whatever crazy crap the wife usually has in there.
-
Landing used to have full height walls on each side of staircase which cut off the landing and made it feel very dingy -
Now taken down to open up space and make it brighter. There is also a nib on the other side which has been removed as it pointlessly narrowed the bedroom access by 4 inches -
Also the same wall on the ground floor was the first wall to come down after an RSJ went in. Opens up the dingy staircase at the bottom -
So above is hallway to dining room wall. Then the dining room to kitchen wall came down. -
All internal walls in store brought down, window into garage blocked up and small window to rear garden blocked up as fridge/pantry unit will go along this wall in new kitchen. -
Door at other end of old kitchen which leads into living room bricked up. -
Cheers.
You should of done what some have done in my village. Get yourself on the parish council which is usually pretty easy when a vacancy appears as there usually aren't enough busy-bodies willing. After a decent length of time and after making some acquaintances get your planning through and then then resign a while after. I know of two people who have done this. Though usually if you are within the county planning guidelines there's little they can really do other than make a noise and delay things. Unless they're in the same lodge as the planning department of course!
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