Our first house DIY refurb! ( -Photo heavy! )
Discussion
Hi guys,
Thought Id add a journal of our 3 year house refurb so far.
It's our first project together.
Its taken a long time as we've saved to get everything and have done the work ourselves.
We are now just due our first baby (due 21st Jan). We have done a lot of work upstairs - but I have no pics here.
Original garden:
Ripping out and levelling garden and sorting out the old fence. My OT gets stuck in properly:
Cutting the back off the house and fitting the doors (in a day!)
Inside you can see the 2 x rooms that we knocked in to 1:
Decking started:
Garden and decking mainly finished:
etc!
Garage then needed rebuilding, cutting in half and studding out to turn the back in to an office (with French Doors) and the house needed rendering and painting:
...flooring inside the office:
Then more work!
Then painted....
This is the "Old" Kitchen Layout from when we moved in. 2 x Rooms - Small dining room (used as a reading room) and a galley kitchen:
Rough kitchen set up going in (and an exhausted Girlfreind, bless!)
Boiler removed (now in front half of garage). Stud and cabling added for TV wall:
Worktops fitted, underfloor heating and Floor tiled but covered to protect.
(Lens on camera and distortion makes it look small!) and still work in progress!
(TV is on wall where the old Boiler was - much neater now!)
Previously we removed the single doors from the hall in to the kitchen (bricking up the old door in to the dining room where the kitchen now is), and from the hall in to the lounge - in favour of adding 2 x pairs of double solid-wood/glass french doors, with metal lintles:
This was the original lounge - complete with sofa that was left in the house when we moved in! (Decorated by Elton John again perhaps?):
Stripping out the lounge and adding the new fire place etc:
...and 3 years later these are the pics I have to hand now.
Comments welcome!
G.
Thought Id add a journal of our 3 year house refurb so far.
It's our first project together.
Its taken a long time as we've saved to get everything and have done the work ourselves.
We are now just due our first baby (due 21st Jan). We have done a lot of work upstairs - but I have no pics here.
Original garden:
Ripping out and levelling garden and sorting out the old fence. My OT gets stuck in properly:
Cutting the back off the house and fitting the doors (in a day!)
Inside you can see the 2 x rooms that we knocked in to 1:
Decking started:
Garden and decking mainly finished:
etc!
Garage then needed rebuilding, cutting in half and studding out to turn the back in to an office (with French Doors) and the house needed rendering and painting:
...flooring inside the office:
Then more work!
Then painted....
This is the "Old" Kitchen Layout from when we moved in. 2 x Rooms - Small dining room (used as a reading room) and a galley kitchen:
Rough kitchen set up going in (and an exhausted Girlfreind, bless!)
Boiler removed (now in front half of garage). Stud and cabling added for TV wall:
Worktops fitted, underfloor heating and Floor tiled but covered to protect.
(Lens on camera and distortion makes it look small!) and still work in progress!
(TV is on wall where the old Boiler was - much neater now!)
Previously we removed the single doors from the hall in to the kitchen (bricking up the old door in to the dining room where the kitchen now is), and from the hall in to the lounge - in favour of adding 2 x pairs of double solid-wood/glass french doors, with metal lintles:
This was the original lounge - complete with sofa that was left in the house when we moved in! (Decorated by Elton John again perhaps?):
Stripping out the lounge and adding the new fire place etc:
...and 3 years later these are the pics I have to hand now.
Comments welcome!
G.
Edited by Gallen on Thursday 6th January 18:17
Yep we took our time! LOL :-) hehe!
The garden was originally on a slope, hence scraping back towards the house.
Fence took another day with 2 of us doing it, digging post holes etc.
Whole cost of garden including decking and materials, tool hire etc prob somewhere around £1200 - £1500.
We turfed the lawn. Could have been seeded but my OT's uncle bought us the turf as a present!
Actually doing the decking, including frame etc took another 2 x weekends.
shirt said:
impressive, i wish mine were finished!
how many days did you have the digger for and what was the hire cost? i am going to have to start on the garden soon and not sure if i can be arsed doing it or paying a landscaper.
Garden landscaping and adding a wooden perimitter took an easter weekend (3 days actually). This included getting rid of the rubbish (all that hardcore went in the back of my old veggie-oil burning Laguna and took a few trips I can tell you!). I cant remember the cost of the digger but as it was bank hols, we got an extra day free! Not more than £150 - £200 from memory, including rotovator.how many days did you have the digger for and what was the hire cost? i am going to have to start on the garden soon and not sure if i can be arsed doing it or paying a landscaper.
The garden was originally on a slope, hence scraping back towards the house.
Fence took another day with 2 of us doing it, digging post holes etc.
Whole cost of garden including decking and materials, tool hire etc prob somewhere around £1200 - £1500.
We turfed the lawn. Could have been seeded but my OT's uncle bought us the turf as a present!
Actually doing the decking, including frame etc took another 2 x weekends.
Edited by Gallen on Thursday 6th January 18:14
That looks really nice i must say.
I like your gas fire, any info? want something like that myself but had to plump for an electric on the wall plasma thing due to not having the money for a proper fire. Will do something similar to yours when funds allow though.
I thought my oh got stuck in, that was until i saw these pics
It is nice to have the help there though, and its nice when they actually want to help, i have seen too many women literally just complain and moan about when its going to be done so people like me and you are very lucky! For my oh her biggest job was breaking up old floor tiles, oh that and doing 5 coats of sealer on 65 sqm of limestone
I like your gas fire, any info? want something like that myself but had to plump for an electric on the wall plasma thing due to not having the money for a proper fire. Will do something similar to yours when funds allow though.
I thought my oh got stuck in, that was until i saw these pics
It is nice to have the help there though, and its nice when they actually want to help, i have seen too many women literally just complain and moan about when its going to be done so people like me and you are very lucky! For my oh her biggest job was breaking up old floor tiles, oh that and doing 5 coats of sealer on 65 sqm of limestone Is that a studio edge fire?
I have just had a studio edge 3 fitted, & am also mounting the TV on the wall above. How have you hidden the cables from the TV through the wall?
I'm about to fit mine & i'm worried that the heat from the collector may melt the cables, even thogh they wont be touching it.
I have just had a studio edge 3 fitted, & am also mounting the TV on the wall above. How have you hidden the cables from the TV through the wall?
I'm about to fit mine & i'm worried that the heat from the collector may melt the cables, even thogh they wont be touching it.
Thanks for comments so far :-)
Yes we are lucky to have OH's like that and admit she runs rings around me! :-)
Correct - The fire is a Gazco Studio Edge (2 I think?). Does kick out a little heat but I would say it's primarily decorative! :-) nice to have real flames without the mess though!
The wires are chased in to the wall. Initially it wasn't the plan to have the TV there but plans changed! I had to chase in to the newly plastered wall - didn't want to but just got on with it. I then secured the wires (HDMI, RF's and Cat 5 using plastic raw plugs, plaster board screws and home made plastic brackets, before cable shielding and filling over. You can't see even if you look. The electrics are in a separate run and are on a hard wired fused-spur. (my girlfriend is a designer for an Automation company so just told me what went where! LOL. (if u need any advice just ask).
No probs with heat on the TV - it seems fine so far. We did consider this before fitting - but no matter what, heat doesn't seem to rise there :-)
G.
Yes we are lucky to have OH's like that and admit she runs rings around me! :-)
Correct - The fire is a Gazco Studio Edge (2 I think?). Does kick out a little heat but I would say it's primarily decorative! :-) nice to have real flames without the mess though!
The wires are chased in to the wall. Initially it wasn't the plan to have the TV there but plans changed! I had to chase in to the newly plastered wall - didn't want to but just got on with it. I then secured the wires (HDMI, RF's and Cat 5 using plastic raw plugs, plaster board screws and home made plastic brackets, before cable shielding and filling over. You can't see even if you look. The electrics are in a separate run and are on a hard wired fused-spur. (my girlfriend is a designer for an Automation company so just told me what went where! LOL. (if u need any advice just ask).
No probs with heat on the TV - it seems fine so far. We did consider this before fitting - but no matter what, heat doesn't seem to rise there :-)
G.
Slagathore said:
Nice job!
I like that kitchen.
What are the worktops?
Thank you. Not finished yet but coming on!I like that kitchen.
What are the worktops?
The worktops are quartz composite. It's called Blizzard. After shopping around for a month, We got it from a firm called Granite4you. I can not recommend them highly enough. All cut, polished and fitted on site in 1 day. Poor guys were outside in heavy snow doing it the Saturday before Christmas. It was fitted, they asked me' to check I was happy (I was! - very!) and they went! Basically they don't take a penny until all fitted and you're happy... They phoned up a few days later to check again, and then I paid! Fantastic company and product.
:-)
Gallen said:
Slagathore said:
Nice job!
I like that kitchen.
What are the worktops?
Thank you. Not finished yet but coming on!I like that kitchen.
What are the worktops?
The worktops are quartz composite. It's called Blizzard. After shopping around for a month, We got it from a firm called Granite4you. I can not recommend them highly enough. All cut, polished and fitted on site in 1 day. Poor guys were outside in heavy snow doing it the Saturday before Christmas. It was fitted, they asked me' to check I was happy (I was! - very!) and they went! Basically they don't take a penny until all fitted and you're happy... They phoned up a few days later to check again, and then I paid! Fantastic company and product.
:-)
The black units and white worktops work really well together.
Gallen said:
Thanks for comments so far :-)
Yes we are lucky to have OH's like that and admit she runs rings around me! :-)
Correct - The fire is a Gazco Studio Edge (2 I think?). Does kick out a little heat but I would say it's primarily decorative! :-) nice to have real flames without the mess though!
The wires are chased in to the wall. Initially it wasn't the plan to have the TV there but plans changed! I had to chase in to the newly plastered wall - didn't want to but just got on with it. I then secured the wires (HDMI, RF's and Cat 5 using plastic raw plugs, plaster board screws and home made plastic brackets, before cable shielding and filling over. You can't see even if you look. The electrics are in a separate run and are on a hard wired fused-spur. (my girlfriend is a designer for an Automation company so just told me what went where! LOL. (if u need any advice just ask).
No probs with heat on the TV - it seems fine so far. We did consider this before fitting - but no matter what, heat doesn't seem to rise there :-)
G.
Thanks for the reply, i agree with the fire being decorative, iirc, ours consumes 13.7KW of gas to produce 3.7KW of heat!Yes we are lucky to have OH's like that and admit she runs rings around me! :-)
Correct - The fire is a Gazco Studio Edge (2 I think?). Does kick out a little heat but I would say it's primarily decorative! :-) nice to have real flames without the mess though!
The wires are chased in to the wall. Initially it wasn't the plan to have the TV there but plans changed! I had to chase in to the newly plastered wall - didn't want to but just got on with it. I then secured the wires (HDMI, RF's and Cat 5 using plastic raw plugs, plaster board screws and home made plastic brackets, before cable shielding and filling over. You can't see even if you look. The electrics are in a separate run and are on a hard wired fused-spur. (my girlfriend is a designer for an Automation company so just told me what went where! LOL. (if u need any advice just ask).
No probs with heat on the TV - it seems fine so far. We did consider this before fitting - but no matter what, heat doesn't seem to rise there :-)
G.
I'm sure it would be more cost effective to burn fifty pound notes!
House is looking great, you must be pleased with the results.
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