Georgian House Renovation Up North - 5 Years and Counting
Discussion
So in a change from the inside, after the wedding, we decided that we’d have a break from renovating the house (sort of) and spend a bit of time sorting the garden once the wedding marquee had gone.
There was method to the madness as we figured we could do a ‘few’ bits in the garden and it could be maturing of its own accord while we turned our attention to the inside again.
If we’d waited until we’d finished the house to start the garden, we’d be five years further on with a very underdeveloped looking garden.
Not to mention we needed somewhere to escape the rubble and dust with a glass of wine...
This is how the garden looked on move in.
This is how it was post wedding at the back.
So what did we do after this?
Well, erm quite a lot...
There was method to the madness as we figured we could do a ‘few’ bits in the garden and it could be maturing of its own accord while we turned our attention to the inside again.
If we’d waited until we’d finished the house to start the garden, we’d be five years further on with a very underdeveloped looking garden.
Not to mention we needed somewhere to escape the rubble and dust with a glass of wine...
This is how the garden looked on move in.
This is how it was post wedding at the back.
So what did we do after this?
Well, erm quite a lot...
The garden wall was knocked up by our neighbour before we got the house and therefore matched his modern bricks but was incongruous to our old heap, I arrived home one day to find the wife had got her hands on a massive tub of masonry paint and painted it white.
If you overlooked the feeling of being in a giant victorian lavatory, it was something of an improvement...
...and speaking of lavatories, as I had a ton of bricks lying around after the outside loo collapsed, I laid a brick path to get from one end of the garden to the other as there were plans afoot for bigger beds, veg plots and wildflower gardens, etc.
I didn’t want a straight path as I’m more of a do things by eye sort of person, the wife also didn’t want a neat end on end brick path (phew!) and specified herringbone and left me alone to sort it out.
You can see to the side, with some spare victorian barley twist edging, we made a bed for to plant a few bits and pieces in. The bedraggled thing you can see is the white wedding hydrangea the florist gave us as a gift and then managed to kill whilst looking after it over our honeymoon
All of this was met with approval and about this time our first addition to the family in the form of Buddy (the half Staffy/half Labrador rescue dog) joined the party.
More evidence of the victorian-bog-horror
If you overlooked the feeling of being in a giant victorian lavatory, it was something of an improvement...
...and speaking of lavatories, as I had a ton of bricks lying around after the outside loo collapsed, I laid a brick path to get from one end of the garden to the other as there were plans afoot for bigger beds, veg plots and wildflower gardens, etc.
I didn’t want a straight path as I’m more of a do things by eye sort of person, the wife also didn’t want a neat end on end brick path (phew!) and specified herringbone and left me alone to sort it out.
You can see to the side, with some spare victorian barley twist edging, we made a bed for to plant a few bits and pieces in. The bedraggled thing you can see is the white wedding hydrangea the florist gave us as a gift and then managed to kill whilst looking after it over our honeymoon
All of this was met with approval and about this time our first addition to the family in the form of Buddy (the half Staffy/half Labrador rescue dog) joined the party.
More evidence of the victorian-bog-horror
Edited by stewjohnst on Sunday 11th February 21:23
Edited by stewjohnst on Sunday 11th February 21:24
The path lasted like that for about six months and the fact I'd used the old bricks meant it quickly looked like it had been there for years.
We’d decided the path should go somewhere and as the end of the garden gets the sun for the longest time, we thought we’d do some feature up there.
I toyed with a fire pit up there and random paving from bits I had lying about...
The phrase you are searching for is “That looks s
t”.
I also reached this conclusion but used the fire pit anyway to deal with removal of some recent tree felling as a result of finding Honey Fungus over the wall and having a log burner put in to replace the old open fire.
It being summer and the wood being free, I used the above fire to bake the moisture out of most of the wood that I didn’t burn and ended up with a decent amount of dry stuff to chuck in the stove.
We’d decided the path should go somewhere and as the end of the garden gets the sun for the longest time, we thought we’d do some feature up there.
I toyed with a fire pit up there and random paving from bits I had lying about...
The phrase you are searching for is “That looks s
t”.I also reached this conclusion but used the fire pit anyway to deal with removal of some recent tree felling as a result of finding Honey Fungus over the wall and having a log burner put in to replace the old open fire.
It being summer and the wood being free, I used the above fire to bake the moisture out of most of the wood that I didn’t burn and ended up with a decent amount of dry stuff to chuck in the stove.
I did think about building a corner bench out of cinder block against the wall and then rendering it, my theory being it would heat up through the day as stone and retain heat into later at night (solar gain and all that jazz) but as with the fire pit the idea just didn’t seem right for what we (*cough* the wife - I am merely a labourer in the garden) wanted.
A pity as I’d even gone to the trouble of buying and transporting said blocks...
A pity as I’d even gone to the trouble of buying and transporting said blocks...
Breeze blocks are usually cheap but these ended up costing us another £500 thanks to the wife’s inability to drive...
She came through the gate one day and instead of getting out to put the dog away or wait for me to leash him (Buddy and I were outside as she came home) she tried to drive in, then panicked as he ran to see her and instead of applying the brakes, swerved at all of 3mph into and along a pile of said breeze blocks.
Naturally, she apportioned blame appropriately - stating it was my fault because ‘those breeze blocks have been there ages!’
Honeymoon period clearly over, through tears of laughter, I pointed out if they’d been there ages she should have known better than to drive into them and went back about my business
One thing I had moved from the front were a couple of sleepers we’d used as a bench at the wedding to make up a bed to better make a feature of the random drop in levels of our garden.
She came through the gate one day and instead of getting out to put the dog away or wait for me to leash him (Buddy and I were outside as she came home) she tried to drive in, then panicked as he ran to see her and instead of applying the brakes, swerved at all of 3mph into and along a pile of said breeze blocks.
Naturally, she apportioned blame appropriately - stating it was my fault because ‘those breeze blocks have been there ages!’
Honeymoon period clearly over, through tears of laughter, I pointed out if they’d been there ages she should have known better than to drive into them and went back about my business
One thing I had moved from the front were a couple of sleepers we’d used as a bench at the wedding to make up a bed to better make a feature of the random drop in levels of our garden.
We finally landed on a solution to the top of the garden in the form of a wildflower meadow and a couple of the benches and bits and bobs from the wedding.
It was down to me to dig over the earth, shift the weeds and big rocks. Stupidly, I chucked the rocks over the wall which stored up a job for years later, this year as it happened, when I actually cleared over the wall and had to carry all those rocks somewhere else as they were once again in my way.
It never ceases to amaze me that wherever you go and put something and think it is out of the way, one day you’ll end up tripping over it again.
Shifting all the earth in the wheelbarrow made me realise the path wasn’t quite wide enough so another brick was added.
The stepping stones were added to the raked over area - I added the stones and Sarah, although quite far gone pregnancy wise insisted on being involved raking tramping in the seeds.
With the benches in place, at least one four legged individual was happy with the results
It was down to me to dig over the earth, shift the weeds and big rocks. Stupidly, I chucked the rocks over the wall which stored up a job for years later, this year as it happened, when I actually cleared over the wall and had to carry all those rocks somewhere else as they were once again in my way.
It never ceases to amaze me that wherever you go and put something and think it is out of the way, one day you’ll end up tripping over it again.
Shifting all the earth in the wheelbarrow made me realise the path wasn’t quite wide enough so another brick was added.
The stepping stones were added to the raked over area - I added the stones and Sarah, although quite far gone pregnancy wise insisted on being involved raking tramping in the seeds.
With the benches in place, at least one four legged individual was happy with the results
Prior to getting Buddy, we also had a cat, Amber, and if I’m honest for a moment, part of me agreeing to having a dog was always as insurance for the worst case scenario that sadly came to pass.
Amber was Sarah’s mother’s cat and after her mum died of cancer, Amber was the last major thing Sarah had that connected her to her mum.
The home phone rang which was odd for us on a Saturday morning and I answered it, it was the local vet calling to say the postman had found Amber lying by the side of the main road still alive but obviously having been hit by a car (it’s a 30mph road but as it’s a mile long and arrow straight, only about half the people do the limit, despite all the houses, driveways, kids nursery, etc).
He took her to the vets and they found us from her chip but they were ringing to say we could come see her but she was already dead.
This was not the news I wanted to break to my 8 month pregnant wife but she took it as well as could be expected, didn’t go into labour or anything but was clearly very upset.
After the trip to the vets, where I must have got something in my eye, I’ve never been so glad we had a ‘spare’ pet as Buddy did what dogs do best and curled up in a ball with Sarah to comfort her.
In the meantime I sorted the logistics of getting the cat cremated (I couldn’t really bury a whole cat unless I wanted to run the risk of Buddy digging her up all Pet Cemetery style) and we decided to chuck half her off Whitby cliffs which is where Sarah’s mothers ashes went and to put the rest under a new tree in the garden.
A week or so after getting Amber cremated, a short trip to Whitby ensued.
I don’t know if you’ve ever chucked anything off a cliff before, but it’s often quite windy at the cliff face...I will know this for next time but standing downwind of an ashes caster isn’t advised and as a result I inadvertently went a bit Keith Richards and probably snorted a good 2-5% of the now deceased moggy.
Amber was Sarah’s mother’s cat and after her mum died of cancer, Amber was the last major thing Sarah had that connected her to her mum.
The home phone rang which was odd for us on a Saturday morning and I answered it, it was the local vet calling to say the postman had found Amber lying by the side of the main road still alive but obviously having been hit by a car (it’s a 30mph road but as it’s a mile long and arrow straight, only about half the people do the limit, despite all the houses, driveways, kids nursery, etc).
He took her to the vets and they found us from her chip but they were ringing to say we could come see her but she was already dead.
This was not the news I wanted to break to my 8 month pregnant wife but she took it as well as could be expected, didn’t go into labour or anything but was clearly very upset.
After the trip to the vets, where I must have got something in my eye, I’ve never been so glad we had a ‘spare’ pet as Buddy did what dogs do best and curled up in a ball with Sarah to comfort her.
In the meantime I sorted the logistics of getting the cat cremated (I couldn’t really bury a whole cat unless I wanted to run the risk of Buddy digging her up all Pet Cemetery style) and we decided to chuck half her off Whitby cliffs which is where Sarah’s mothers ashes went and to put the rest under a new tree in the garden.
A week or so after getting Amber cremated, a short trip to Whitby ensued.
I don’t know if you’ve ever chucked anything off a cliff before, but it’s often quite windy at the cliff face...I will know this for next time but standing downwind of an ashes caster isn’t advised and as a result I inadvertently went a bit Keith Richards and probably snorted a good 2-5% of the now deceased moggy.
Edited by stewjohnst on Sunday 11th February 21:52
Sorry to hear.
We have a trip to the vets pencilled in on Saturday to have one of our cats PTS. Wife has had him for over 18 years but he's on his last legs. His kidneys have gone and he's lost control of his bladder. Definitely the right thing to do but going to be hard, especially on my wife who is 7 months pregnant.
We have a trip to the vets pencilled in on Saturday to have one of our cats PTS. Wife has had him for over 18 years but he's on his last legs. His kidneys have gone and he's lost control of his bladder. Definitely the right thing to do but going to be hard, especially on my wife who is 7 months pregnant.
Can’t be a nice choice to make. The wife will be fine though, in two months time you’ll have plenty else on your hands to take your mind off the cat.
It’s not a great thing for my pets but none of mine have ever gone the distance, they all end up being taken out one way or another by external forces.
We had a goldfish as kids until the cat ate it but then some tosser with an air rifle shot and killed the cat, then we got another cat and that one vanished, then we got a rabbit and something got in the hutch and ate that...but I digress, back to the renovation stuff.
We selected a tree to fertilise with the half the cat dust that didn’t go up my nostrils or off the cliffs and I dug a hole to plant it in. Rather than have it in the border, the missus wanted to be able to see it from the kitchen window so it ended up semi-randomly plonked in part of the lawn.
It didn’t seem quite right so we used it as an excuse to lay a path around the garden to break things up a bit.
You’ll notice too that the sleeper bed has gone and there’s gravel there now. We did that as we didn’t have a good outside space to put a table and as we had too much white gravel, we just went for this and plonked a table on there for now.
We didn’t actually have enough bricks and although of the garden and public walls in the neighbourhood are made from the same old colliery bricks but I can’t very well go pinching my neighbours walls can I?
As ever, luck came my way - Just off the main road there was some wasteland I’d had my eye on that had some of our HBW bricks scattered around amongst trees and rubbish and the building next to it was clearing the trees to extend the building and add a car park.
As the trees were all cleared away and stump ground out it was obvious as I kept passing there were a lot of bricks to be had. I jumped out of these and had a word with the foreman about what they were going to do with the bricks and old slabs of stone, etc.
The conversation went along the following lines...
“What you gong to do with all that lot?”
“Dig it up, truck it out”
“What would you do if you came back tomorrow and it wasn’t there?”
“One less truckload for me isn’t it?”
“No further questions”
I got up bright and early the next day and after about six or seven trips in the BMW, I’d collected this lot...iirc about 186 red bricks, 50 or so glazed white bricks and a stack of stone slabs.
I’d also found time to quickly knock up a fence to block the back of the garden off to contain the dog and impending child - and before anyone asks about how would a hedgehog or other furry fiend get around the fence, they could go down the other side of the garage if they were that desperate to eat/st in my garden
Rest of the path leading up to that new sleeper bed with plants in it now...
It’s not a great thing for my pets but none of mine have ever gone the distance, they all end up being taken out one way or another by external forces.
We had a goldfish as kids until the cat ate it but then some tosser with an air rifle shot and killed the cat, then we got another cat and that one vanished, then we got a rabbit and something got in the hutch and ate that...but I digress, back to the renovation stuff.
We selected a tree to fertilise with the half the cat dust that didn’t go up my nostrils or off the cliffs and I dug a hole to plant it in. Rather than have it in the border, the missus wanted to be able to see it from the kitchen window so it ended up semi-randomly plonked in part of the lawn.
It didn’t seem quite right so we used it as an excuse to lay a path around the garden to break things up a bit.
You’ll notice too that the sleeper bed has gone and there’s gravel there now. We did that as we didn’t have a good outside space to put a table and as we had too much white gravel, we just went for this and plonked a table on there for now.
We didn’t actually have enough bricks and although of the garden and public walls in the neighbourhood are made from the same old colliery bricks but I can’t very well go pinching my neighbours walls can I?
As ever, luck came my way - Just off the main road there was some wasteland I’d had my eye on that had some of our HBW bricks scattered around amongst trees and rubbish and the building next to it was clearing the trees to extend the building and add a car park.
As the trees were all cleared away and stump ground out it was obvious as I kept passing there were a lot of bricks to be had. I jumped out of these and had a word with the foreman about what they were going to do with the bricks and old slabs of stone, etc.
The conversation went along the following lines...
“What you gong to do with all that lot?”
“Dig it up, truck it out”
“What would you do if you came back tomorrow and it wasn’t there?”
“One less truckload for me isn’t it?”
“No further questions”
I got up bright and early the next day and after about six or seven trips in the BMW, I’d collected this lot...iirc about 186 red bricks, 50 or so glazed white bricks and a stack of stone slabs.
I’d also found time to quickly knock up a fence to block the back of the garden off to contain the dog and impending child - and before anyone asks about how would a hedgehog or other furry fiend get around the fence, they could go down the other side of the garage if they were that desperate to eat/s
t in my garden Rest of the path leading up to that new sleeper bed with plants in it now...
Gooose said:
How have you found the internal lime plaster mate? I’m looking to have mine done soon but I’m having kittens thinking about the standard of finish I will end up with, I want it flat and square as much as possible but I don’t know if it’s a reality or not!?
Our plasterer was great so the walls are very flat and true. The top coat of lime is a fine grain rather than the polished sheen you get with gypsum but five years on it still looks good.With wife starting to spend stupid amounts of money at garden centres, I thought it appropriate to knock up some proper compost and leaf mould bins so we didn’t have to rely quite so much on bought in stuff (plus it gave me somewhere to legitimately have a wazz outside instead of traipsing into the house when having a bbq - ‘I’m just feeding the compost, it’s good for it love!’).
I popped down to the local fencing place and got a few posts and some tongue and groove and cracked on with making something a bit more usable than the existing solution of a few palettes with a rotting table top leant against it.
I’ll confess, I made one bin and the leaf mould area but to this day haven’t finished the second bin (and yes, I know composting really should run on a 3 bin system but plans are afoot to rejig the garden again as I type).
I then decided to level the ground and lay something down to stop weeds and quite so much mud.
The beauty of this house is I have all sorts lying about, I decided to edge the compost are with these Fireclay glazed bricks I had spare.
I didn’t have a tamper to level the ground so relied on an old ikea shelf and some jumping up and down...
Then laid the weed matting, edged the area, popped in a breeze block path for the wheelbarrow and threw down some gravel to make it look nice.
Et voila, (ignore the pile of crap stuck out of the compost bin, the wife doesn’t really ‘get’ the fine art of composting )
I popped down to the local fencing place and got a few posts and some tongue and groove and cracked on with making something a bit more usable than the existing solution of a few palettes with a rotting table top leant against it.
I’ll confess, I made one bin and the leaf mould area but to this day haven’t finished the second bin (and yes, I know composting really should run on a 3 bin system but plans are afoot to rejig the garden again as I type).
I then decided to level the ground and lay something down to stop weeds and quite so much mud.
The beauty of this house is I have all sorts lying about, I decided to edge the compost are with these Fireclay glazed bricks I had spare.
I didn’t have a tamper to level the ground so relied on an old ikea shelf and some jumping up and down...
Then laid the weed matting, edged the area, popped in a breeze block path for the wheelbarrow and threw down some gravel to make it look nice.
Et voila, (ignore the pile of crap stuck out of the compost bin, the wife doesn’t really ‘get’ the fine art of composting
)Edited by stewjohnst on Saturday 24th February 22:12
Also whacked up some veg beds and as I’m a male do and mend sort of bod, I made my own log roll from, well, erm logs from a couple of willow trees.
and if you were wondering where the white gravel from the compost came from - it was here...
We’d tried an outside table on there but there was just too much of a slope so we decided that area would be good for a kids play area.
Although now they’ve grown up in the garden with all its changing levels and hazards, at the time we thought we ought make them somewhere a bit safer to play and that they could use even if it had been raining.
I ended up getting some of those recycled tyre/rubberised mats and set about laying them out...
The fact I was still relying on a plank of wood from IKEA to try and flatten/level the ground and the fact I was trying to compensate for quite a fall meant it was becoming one of those pain in the arse jobs that just vampire up your time.
It also wasn’t helped by the tiles not being identical with up to 5mm difference in a ‘square’ so laying them as I’d planned was causing a headache to fit cleanly and hold a square angle, making laying it true a ball ache.
With two young sprogs, time to fix this stuff was scarce so it went for the bks to it option and decided to make a deck for that area and lay the tiles on that.
and if you were wondering where the white gravel from the compost came from - it was here...
We’d tried an outside table on there but there was just too much of a slope so we decided that area would be good for a kids play area.
Although now they’ve grown up in the garden with all its changing levels and hazards, at the time we thought we ought make them somewhere a bit safer to play and that they could use even if it had been raining.
I ended up getting some of those recycled tyre/rubberised mats and set about laying them out...
The fact I was still relying on a plank of wood from IKEA to try and flatten/level the ground and the fact I was trying to compensate for quite a fall meant it was becoming one of those pain in the arse jobs that just vampire up your time.
It also wasn’t helped by the tiles not being identical with up to 5mm difference in a ‘square’ so laying them as I’d planned was causing a headache to fit cleanly and hold a square angle, making laying it true a ball ache.
With two young sprogs, time to fix this stuff was scarce so it went for the b
ks to it option and decided to make a deck for that area and lay the tiles on that.I went for the no cut option and just ordered some 4 metre lengths to make the decking.
I waited in all day (always stuff to do here) and I thought the delivery driver was a now show until I went round the front to get something out of the car and found this...on finding the main gate locked, I guess he couldn’t be bothered to come through the foot gate and ring the bell.
The next day was sunny so I cracked on making the deck frame.
Then flipped it over onto the actual location by myself.
Happy with the size and the fall, I stuck weed mat down and shored up the supports. It isn’t just sat on bricks, there are a good few anchor posts that go into the ground at least a foot.
As I was going to put the tiles on top, there was no point spending loads of the deck top. I used sheets of external OSB board. It won’t last forever but so far has lasted a couple of years and it will be going when we start the extension to the kitchen next year anyway.
Lots of help from the dog as you can see.
I gave the square tiling one last try - but they weren’t ‘square’ so it wasn’t working.
So I opted to cut them the edge ones and go for an offset laying that actually looks a lot better to my eyes.
I was cutting them with a bread knife as per instruction but that was hard to get a straight edge as the tiles are as tough as the old tyres they’re made from.
In the end I opted for a face mask and the mitre saw, much faster.
Garden was beginning to look pretty mature now.
From this
To this
I waited in all day (always stuff to do here) and I thought the delivery driver was a now show until I went round the front to get something out of the car and found this...on finding the main gate locked, I guess he couldn’t be bothered to come through the foot gate and ring the bell.
The next day was sunny so I cracked on making the deck frame.
Then flipped it over onto the actual location by myself.
Happy with the size and the fall, I stuck weed mat down and shored up the supports. It isn’t just sat on bricks, there are a good few anchor posts that go into the ground at least a foot.
As I was going to put the tiles on top, there was no point spending loads of the deck top. I used sheets of external OSB board. It won’t last forever but so far has lasted a couple of years and it will be going when we start the extension to the kitchen next year anyway.
Lots of help from the dog as you can see.
I gave the square tiling one last try - but they weren’t ‘square’ so it wasn’t working.
So I opted to cut them the edge ones and go for an offset laying that actually looks a lot better to my eyes.
I was cutting them with a bread knife as per instruction but that was hard to get a straight edge as the tiles are as tough as the old tyres they’re made from.
In the end I opted for a face mask and the mitre saw, much faster.
Garden was beginning to look pretty mature now.
From this
To this
Turns out I never went back to the Dining room in this thread...so here goes.
I must confess to feeling aggrieved at the surveyor from when I bough t the house.
Sure, he listed woodworm, damp, falling down roof, potential asbestos, possible settlement, shot pointing, etc but not once did he warn me about the most destructive thing I would encounter...a wife
When I moved in, the dining room was functional but not impressive, a wood floor, a terrible light fitting and a cheapo fire surround (in place of some grand original slate one no doubt).
I had a table spare and some chairs from my previous house so whacked them in, I also placed a totally pointless house warming gift of two candles I'd received from a friend on the mantlepiece. I also chucked up a mirror I'd found in a chazza shop for £2 because there was a nail in the wall and I thought it a good idea to check for bits of building debris in my hair before leaving for work on morning.
I'd found myself on an auction site late one night (not ebay) looking for I can't remember what and ended up accidentally winning the giant old wooden dresser you see for a tenner because one of the legs had fallen off. I stupidly didn't factor the size of the thing or the fact it was in Wessex so I ended up having to hire a van and go collect it.
In one of those nice flukes that sometimes happen, when I popped into the hire office, I bumped into an old banger rally comrade from a Ramshackle Rally years ago (The Grimsby Trawlers) and after we'd relived tales of bump starting our 'Samurai' Shogun by ramming it with their 'trawler' as horrified Austrian petrol station patrons looked on, we parted ways and I set off for Wessex to collect my auction wins.
There was an auction running when I got there so I grabbed a bacon butty and settled in for a day of unnecessary bidding (I had a van, why not fill it?) naturally that meant I bought a ton of other bits and pieces including the battered old chaise in the photo for £100 and a bunch of other stuff too that ended up dotted around the house.
Anyway, this is how it looked after I'd unloaded the impromptu van load.
Mmm, stylish (obviously the plan was to have it reupholstered at some time in the future.)
I promptly considered this room done and I don't think I actually went in there for anything for months as most of my meals were bodged together and eaten hungrily in the knackered kitchen before returning to smash some other bit of the house up.
I must confess to feeling aggrieved at the surveyor from when I bough t the house.
Sure, he listed woodworm, damp, falling down roof, potential asbestos, possible settlement, shot pointing, etc but not once did he warn me about the most destructive thing I would encounter...a wife
When I moved in, the dining room was functional but not impressive, a wood floor, a terrible light fitting and a cheapo fire surround (in place of some grand original slate one no doubt).
I had a table spare and some chairs from my previous house so whacked them in, I also placed a totally pointless house warming gift of two candles I'd received from a friend on the mantlepiece. I also chucked up a mirror I'd found in a chazza shop for £2 because there was a nail in the wall and I thought it a good idea to check for bits of building debris in my hair before leaving for work on morning.
I'd found myself on an auction site late one night (not ebay) looking for I can't remember what and ended up accidentally winning the giant old wooden dresser you see for a tenner because one of the legs had fallen off. I stupidly didn't factor the size of the thing or the fact it was in Wessex so I ended up having to hire a van and go collect it.
In one of those nice flukes that sometimes happen, when I popped into the hire office, I bumped into an old banger rally comrade from a Ramshackle Rally years ago (The Grimsby Trawlers) and after we'd relived tales of bump starting our 'Samurai' Shogun by ramming it with their 'trawler' as horrified Austrian petrol station patrons looked on, we parted ways and I set off for Wessex to collect my auction wins.
There was an auction running when I got there so I grabbed a bacon butty and settled in for a day of unnecessary bidding (I had a van, why not fill it?) naturally that meant I bought a ton of other bits and pieces including the battered old chaise in the photo for £100 and a bunch of other stuff too that ended up dotted around the house.
Anyway, this is how it looked after I'd unloaded the impromptu van load.
Mmm, stylish
(obviously the plan was to have it reupholstered at some time in the future.)I promptly considered this room done and I don't think I actually went in there for anything for months as most of my meals were bodged together and eaten hungrily in the knackered kitchen before returning to smash some other bit of the house up.
Alas, enter the woman!
It was decreed the fire surround and room as a whole was 'too plain' for the room and something must be done about it. Not for the last time in this room, it meant things like this started to happen...
We had stupidly won another auction for a rather nice if a little too small dining table with a gadrooned (yes that's a word) edging and ball and claw feet.
As a result the chairs were deemed too modern and promptly sold on the bay to be replaced with some weird wicker things that she presumably found in a skip (I forget now). She had also found a more 'interesting' fireplace at the local house clearance charity shop for £30 and had further haggled a £5 discount by giving them our old fire surround in part ex (I have no idea how she comes up with these deals) so a new fire surround was installed for £25.
She also painted the wall to make more of a feature of it, and unleashed her inner Llewelyn-Bowen and some rattle cans on the wicker chairs. Not to my taste but I am largely ambivalent to the colour of anything and said nothing.
Weirdly, after driving out to Mirfield to try and find a new light fitting we liked for the dining room, we left empty handed and on the home dropped in at an Oxfam clearance shop and picked up a second hand light you see in the photo there about a fiver. Not great but better than it was
Fast forward two years and I came home to an eerily familiar sight...
It was decreed the fire surround and room as a whole was 'too plain' for the room and something must be done about it. Not for the last time in this room, it meant things like this started to happen...
We had stupidly won another auction for a rather nice if a little too small dining table with a gadrooned (yes that's a word) edging and ball and claw feet.
As a result the chairs were deemed too modern and promptly sold on the bay to be replaced with some weird wicker things that she presumably found in a skip (I forget now). She had also found a more 'interesting' fireplace at the local house clearance charity shop for £30 and had further haggled a £5 discount by giving them our old fire surround in part ex (I have no idea how she comes up with these deals) so a new fire surround was installed for £25.
She also painted the wall to make more of a feature of it, and unleashed her inner Llewelyn-Bowen and some rattle cans on the wicker chairs. Not to my taste but I am largely ambivalent to the colour of anything and said nothing.
Weirdly, after driving out to Mirfield to try and find a new light fitting we liked for the dining room, we left empty handed and on the home dropped in at an Oxfam clearance shop and picked up a second hand light you see in the photo there about a fiver. Not great but better than it was
Fast forward two years and I came home to an eerily familiar sight...
By now, the wedding and honeymoon were long gone and child number one was here, thankfully so were some funds and experience to do things properly.
I stripped all the wallpaper back and resisted the urge to knock all the plaster off.
Depressingly, after stripping the paper, you could see where an original probably more majestic fireplace was once mounted.
I also found an old part of the servants wire bell system hidden behind the skirting board.
The walls were lined with lining paper and painted to a more neutral tone.
The wife spent ages trawling ebay, auction sites and reclamation places trying to find a suitable style of fire surround and had no joy. The none day realised the fireplace in the top room might fit. It was a modern mdf one but had the lines of a decent, if plain, Georgian fireplace.
It seemed to fit okay and once I'd got the inside measurements, we had a look for a fireplace to go with it. We found one nearby in Leeds for £25 collection only, so the PHEV was pressed into use as a transporter and the fireplace duly collected. Back home, we tried them together for fit/look.
The half of PH that abhor the concept of leasing will be aghast the old fireplace was returned to the charity shop we paid £25 for it two years earlier, in effect meaning we had leased the fireplace for £12.50 a year
We decided we didn't want to use the marble hearth from the top room and wanted to try to reuse the existing hearth that you can see under it in the photo. Naturally, more work for me as I tried to see if there was anything of value under the layer of concrete.
I stripped all the wallpaper back and resisted the urge to knock all the plaster off.
Depressingly, after stripping the paper, you could see where an original probably more majestic fireplace was once mounted.
I also found an old part of the servants wire bell system hidden behind the skirting board.
The walls were lined with lining paper and painted to a more neutral tone.
The wife spent ages trawling ebay, auction sites and reclamation places trying to find a suitable style of fire surround and had no joy. The none day realised the fireplace in the top room might fit. It was a modern mdf one but had the lines of a decent, if plain, Georgian fireplace.
It seemed to fit okay and once I'd got the inside measurements, we had a look for a fireplace to go with it. We found one nearby in Leeds for £25 collection only, so the PHEV was pressed into use as a transporter and the fireplace duly collected. Back home, we tried them together for fit/look.
The half of PH that abhor the concept of leasing will be aghast the old fireplace was returned to the charity shop we paid £25 for it two years earlier, in effect meaning we had leased the fireplace for £12.50 a year
We decided we didn't want to use the marble hearth from the top room and wanted to try to reuse the existing hearth that you can see under it in the photo. Naturally, more work for me as I tried to see if there was anything of value under the layer of concrete.
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