The ridiculous Edwardian...
Discussion
I have been debating on whether to post a refurb thread as some of the ones on here are quite intimidating to say the least (Harry/AJR/Schmeeky!) 
However been on this site for a while (who knew 194 months was 16 years
) and the majority of folks (like in life) are generally good eggs who support each other, so here goes.
We moved from a 4 bed 2000 Barratt cardboard house (good solid house actually and happy for 17 years - it was our first house purchase) to a place nearer work because the commute was getting tedious in the extreme. We decided we wanted something with a bit of character to it so purchased a 5 bed, 1906 built house we fondly refer to as 'the ridiculous Edwardian' as there are only 2 of us with 5 cats, so why the heck would anyone need that space? (FYI it's only mad cat person status when you get to 7 ok.).
The house has had a new roof and been re-plastered and rewired. Some of these things are good, some not so good. It didn't look much from the agents photos and we nearly didn't go in. Because of the work already done, it's not going to be the crazy and amazing back to brick transformation of some threads but more of a sympathetic updating. Here are some of the photos we took when we came to see the place.
Horrible 1990's upvc front door
Original encaustic tiled hall and original stairs
Living room
Sitting room
Dining room
Kitchen
Master bedroom
Second bedroom
3rd bedroom
|https://thumbsnap.com/sY12LDZe[/url]
4th bedroom
5th bedroom
Bathroom
As you can see the decor is a bit tired. It's also not entirely to our taste. However the spaces are lovely, there are lots of original features, the view from the top room is amazing and the potential is huge.
However been on this site for a while (who knew 194 months was 16 years
) and the majority of folks (like in life) are generally good eggs who support each other, so here goes.We moved from a 4 bed 2000 Barratt cardboard house (good solid house actually and happy for 17 years - it was our first house purchase) to a place nearer work because the commute was getting tedious in the extreme. We decided we wanted something with a bit of character to it so purchased a 5 bed, 1906 built house we fondly refer to as 'the ridiculous Edwardian' as there are only 2 of us with 5 cats, so why the heck would anyone need that space? (FYI it's only mad cat person status when you get to 7 ok.
).The house has had a new roof and been re-plastered and rewired. Some of these things are good, some not so good. It didn't look much from the agents photos and we nearly didn't go in. Because of the work already done, it's not going to be the crazy and amazing back to brick transformation of some threads but more of a sympathetic updating. Here are some of the photos we took when we came to see the place.
Horrible 1990's upvc front door
Original encaustic tiled hall and original stairs
Living room
Sitting room
Dining room
Kitchen
Master bedroom
Second bedroom
3rd bedroom
|https://thumbsnap.com/sY12LDZe[/url]4th bedroom
5th bedroom
Bathroom
As you can see the decor is a bit tired. It's also not entirely to our taste. However the spaces are lovely, there are lots of original features, the view from the top room is amazing and the potential is huge.
Thank you for your kind words 
The house is a bit odd in that when it was built, they put it on a long thin strip of land in the middle of a larger plot. Nothing was built either side until about 30 years later. Some were built across the road earlier and about the same time. We started doing the research on the house because we wanted to be sympathetic to its era and roots. We thought it was Victorian at first but the build date and some of the styling takes it firmly into Edwardian (even though we are in the provinces). It was a time of huge expansion in our town and the original owner was a brewers agent. It looks like that was a good job to have as on the 1911 census he had a wife, 5 kids and a live in servant.
As we have 3 downstairs reception rooms we thought we could have the living room and dining rooms in the same place as the other owner. What to do with the third though?
I know, says the OH, a library!
Ok, it started off as a library but has become a lot more. Here is the original room again..
The fireplace didn't look good at all. Turns out it was a 1930s upgrade to a back boiler system that had stayed.
The other thing to note is that when they re plastered, they didn't remove the mirror but plastered up to it.
so we were left with the hole you can see above. They also did this with the alarm PIRs. As you can also see from the pic, the electrician didn't own a spirit level or a tape measure. We have kept the mirror as it did not go with the fireplace at all but appeared to be from a larger structure and probably is original to the house.
We decided to pull the fireplace out and replace it with something a bit more sympathetic. Decided on a gas fire as we are in the middle of the town and log burners are just a whole heap of 's
t waiting to happen' in cities I think.
The house is a bit odd in that when it was built, they put it on a long thin strip of land in the middle of a larger plot. Nothing was built either side until about 30 years later. Some were built across the road earlier and about the same time. We started doing the research on the house because we wanted to be sympathetic to its era and roots. We thought it was Victorian at first but the build date and some of the styling takes it firmly into Edwardian (even though we are in the provinces
). It was a time of huge expansion in our town and the original owner was a brewers agent. It looks like that was a good job to have as on the 1911 census he had a wife, 5 kids and a live in servant.As we have 3 downstairs reception rooms we thought we could have the living room and dining rooms in the same place as the other owner. What to do with the third though?
I know, says the OH, a library!Ok, it started off as a library but has become a lot more. Here is the original room again..
The fireplace didn't look good at all. Turns out it was a 1930s upgrade to a back boiler system that had stayed.
The other thing to note is that when they re plastered, they didn't remove the mirror but plastered up to it.
so we were left with the hole you can see above. They also did this with the alarm PIRs. As you can also see from the pic, the electrician didn't own a spirit level or a tape measure. We have kept the mirror as it did not go with the fireplace at all but appeared to be from a larger structure and probably is original to the house.We decided to pull the fireplace out and replace it with something a bit more sympathetic. Decided on a gas fire as we are in the middle of the town and log burners are just a whole heap of 's
t waiting to happen' in cities I think.Edited by Ace-T on Friday 22 March 19:19
The original fireplace we found
Removing the back boiler pipes
Filling it all in again
Making it neat
Of course I cannot now find all the inbetween photos so I will just cut to the chase. We wanted this room to be as ridiculous as the house felt to us (in a good way!) so it became an edwardian gentlemens club room, complete with grand piano.
(Apologies for the slightly crap photo, I have been experimenting with the panorama picture thingy on my phone).
It has been quite an interesting room to furnish as it is not very normal The fireplace was a bargain as the walnut surround was ex display and the fire and tiles had been lounging in the store room for about 3 years and they wanted rid. The big display case is oak and we think 1930ish and was £150 from British Heart Foundation. The chaise is green velvet and from early 1900 at the latest.
The piano is walnut veneer and from 1930, the pictures are all by one artist called David Roberts and 5 of them were a fiver each on ebay. The curtains are chocolate silk (blanket interlined) and fit the windows and patio doors perfectly - another ebay bargain. My sister gave me the light as she was redecorating and was going to chuck it. It has turned out to be a cosy and fun room with lots of stuff to entertain oneself with on a winters eve as you sip your brandy.
Removing the back boiler pipes
Filling it all in again
Making it neat
Of course I cannot now find all the inbetween photos so I will just cut to the chase. We wanted this room to be as ridiculous as the house felt to us (in a good way!) so it became an edwardian gentlemens club room, complete with grand piano.
(Apologies for the slightly crap photo, I have been experimenting with the panorama picture thingy on my phone).
It has been quite an interesting room to furnish as it is not very normal
The fireplace was a bargain as the walnut surround was ex display and the fire and tiles had been lounging in the store room for about 3 years and they wanted rid. The big display case is oak and we think 1930ish and was £150 from British Heart Foundation. The chaise is green velvet and from early 1900 at the latest. The piano is walnut veneer and from 1930, the pictures are all by one artist called David Roberts and 5 of them were a fiver each on ebay. The curtains are chocolate silk (blanket interlined) and fit the windows and patio doors perfectly - another ebay bargain. My sister gave me the light as she was redecorating and was going to chuck it. It has turned out to be a cosy and fun room with lots of stuff to entertain oneself with on a winters eve as you sip your brandy.
Edited by Ace-T on Friday 22 March 19:59
Bookmarked! And that varnished wood panelling is very Edwardian, and dated. We painted ours, and it looks a million times better. Not easily reversible, though...
Can't wait to see what you do with this place. Huge potential. Love the features, especially the stair panelling and hallway tiles.
Get yourself on www.houzz.co.uk, and start building ideabooks. Cannot tell you how useful that site is:
https://www.houzz.co.uk/photos/trinity-road-tradit...
Can't wait to see what you do with this place. Huge potential. Love the features, especially the stair panelling and hallway tiles.
Get yourself on www.houzz.co.uk, and start building ideabooks. Cannot tell you how useful that site is:
https://www.houzz.co.uk/photos/trinity-road-tradit...
Edited by Harry Flashman on Saturday 23 March 19:14
DonkeyApple said:
That’s a superb room. Any self respecting Edwardian gentleman would be proud to blow his brains out with his service revolver after being discovered pilfering the petty cash at the local orphanage in such a room.
Why, thank you kind sir!C70GT said:
What a stunning transformation. Everything in that room in the before photo is just so wrong. Everything in the after photo is just so right.
Thank you, I do feel it is quite a marmite room though. I am fairly sure outside of film sets no one under the age of 85 who doesn't own a stately home has a room like this. Although there were some contenders recently in the Real Estate Nightmares thread. TR4man said:
Love the last photo - I can almost imagine Dr Watson sitting in one of the armchairs and Sherlock standing by the fireplace filling his pipe!
I am a bit of a Holmes and Watson geek. I have about 14 different editions of the books including the 1890s onwards bound versions of the Strand magazine. I got the phrenology skull because they have one in the Elementary set and these are on the fireplace 
C Lee Farquar said:
That does look like a good room to relax in, assuming you haven't had to resort to the revolver.
So much better than a pseudo multiplex cinema room.
So much better than a pseudo multiplex cinema room.
We may just have one of those too (room not revolver 
). More on that later...Harry Flashman said:
Bookmarked! And that varnished wood panelling is very Edwardian, and dated. We painted ours, and it looks a million times better. Not easily reversible, though...
Can't wait to see what you do with this place. Huge potential. Love the features, especially the stair panelling and hallway tiles.
Get yourself on www.houzz.co.uk, and start building ideabooks. Cannot tell you how useful that site is:
Thanks Harry, we are looking at painting the paneling after having lived with the dark wood for a while. We have done 2 other rooms and have received the benefit of wisdom from Houzz on them already and happily cyberstalked your house for style ideas and discussions too! Can't wait to see what you do with this place. Huge potential. Love the features, especially the stair panelling and hallway tiles.
Get yourself on www.houzz.co.uk, and start building ideabooks. Cannot tell you how useful that site is:
So on to the next room. The same size and layout of space as the library, just one floor up in the second bedroom.
We chose this to be the study because it is a nice big room and we spend waaaaaaaay too longposting crap on Pistonheads
playing computer games er... working, yes thats it, working.
The room when we bought it had an individual decor to say the least. The black wallpaper was hung horizontally and sucked the light out of the room completely. Added to which the dark grey on the chimney wall and the slightly lighter grey everywhere else meant the room was dingy at best. A north facing window completed the effect.
The random bits of black wallpaper were the last owners designery touches. They liked them, we didn't so they had to all go.
However the fireplace is about as difficult a thing to design around that I had ever experienced. Turquoise (original) tiles in a rusty red, black, green, orange, grey marble surround. We painted at least 5 different colours beside it and non of them worked (even lime green - we were desperate!) The OH then suggested we just take a bucket of Johnstones trade matt white to the whole room to neutralise everything first. So we stripped the wallpaper and painted everything a bright white.
This allowed us to take a step back to see the space. it also made the turquiose pop out so we decided to add colour back in through furnishings and pictures and keep the white walls. Whilst the floorboards were painted white, the office chairs were wrecking them so we decided to put flooring in to protect the original boards. a mid grey worked with what we now had. Funnily enough that meant the room was a negative of what it was.
This needed to be a very modern room (no Brobdingnagian desks here unfortunately
) Extraordinarily fortuitously we got hold of a teal velvet sofa that complemented the tiles. That and our existing desks and pictures were put back into the room, arranged, rearranged and arranged again 
It's now a bright comfortable study with working areas and a separate comfortable seating area for taking a break (or more likely reading a dull report :
)
We chose this to be the study because it is a nice big room and we spend waaaaaaaay too long
The room when we bought it had an individual decor to say the least. The black wallpaper was hung horizontally and sucked the light out of the room completely. Added to which the dark grey on the chimney wall and the slightly lighter grey everywhere else meant the room was dingy at best. A north facing window completed the effect.
The random bits of black wallpaper were the last owners designery touches. They liked them, we didn't so they had to all go.
However the fireplace is about as difficult a thing to design around that I had ever experienced. Turquoise (original) tiles in a rusty red, black, green, orange, grey marble surround. We painted at least 5 different colours beside it and non of them worked (even lime green - we were desperate!
) The OH then suggested we just take a bucket of Johnstones trade matt white to the whole room to neutralise everything first. So we stripped the wallpaper and painted everything a bright white.This allowed us to take a step back to see the space. it also made the turquiose pop out so we decided to add colour back in through furnishings and pictures and keep the white walls. Whilst the floorboards were painted white, the office chairs were wrecking them so we decided to put flooring in to protect the original boards. a mid grey worked with what we now had. Funnily enough that meant the room was a negative of what it was.
This needed to be a very modern room (no Brobdingnagian desks here unfortunately
) Extraordinarily fortuitously we got hold of a teal velvet sofa that complemented the tiles. That and our existing desks and pictures were put back into the room, arranged, rearranged and arranged again It's now a bright comfortable study with working areas and a separate comfortable seating area for taking a break (or more likely reading a dull report :
)Edited by Ace-T on Saturday 23 March 22:17
Balmoral said:
It's a lovely old house, I've been round a few times. Library needs a column pedestal and an aspidistra, one day I will turn up with them (along with the usual sherry and fruit cake).
I have an aspidistra in there! In an Edwardian pot no less And you and your OH are always welcome Balmoral (with or without sherry and cake
)We have just been discussing today how we decorate the hall and come to the conclusion that we need to replace that awful door before we do anything.
The choices we have are
1. Restore the original (it's in the shed)
2. Get a replacement hardwood door
3. Get a replacement composite.
Bearing in mind one of your previous careers Balmoral
, we may have to bribe you with dinner and drinks so you can advise us on what to choose. Edited by Ace-T on Sunday 24th March 21:43
There are some rooms that we have done a quick and dirty update on to make them less 'previous owner' and more 'livable'.
The bathroom as you may recall was this:
Bathroom
The awful pale avocado suite was front and centre due to the navy blue wall. Just a strange choice of colour really. Now ripping out the bathroom and installing one I want is a wee bit out of my price range at the moment, so I consulted with the lovely folks on Houzz and got the idea of distracting from the pale avocado with something much more green. It really won't be to everyones taste, but we like it and it does the 'livable' task quite well.
Firstly a bucket of white bathroom paint was bought to cover up the pale grey and navy blue wall. I thought B&Q would do the job. Well, it did, eventually. But only on the pale grey. Three coats in to the job and the blue still was showing. The pale grey took 4 coats to hide. So I decided to do a crazy thing and wallpaper the bathroom. One bamboo print wallpaper later and it looks like this:
Will take another photo tomorrow as we have done a few more bits too.
The other room due a quick update was the master bedroom.
Master bedroom
Most of the decor was ok. That wallpaper however was not conducive to a relaxing time before bed. Especially as they had put it on the opposite wall too!
Stripping off the crazy purple paper was very therapeutic. Popping on some pale blue subtle damask even more so.
Next room we tackled was the dining room. I will keep you in suspense and post that tomorrow. Night night all!
The bathroom as you may recall was this:
Bathroom
The awful pale avocado suite was front and centre due to the navy blue wall. Just a strange choice of colour really. Now ripping out the bathroom and installing one I want is a wee bit out of my price range at the moment, so I consulted with the lovely folks on Houzz and got the idea of distracting from the pale avocado with something much more green. It really won't be to everyones taste, but we like it and it does the 'livable' task quite well.
Firstly a bucket of white bathroom paint was bought to cover up the pale grey and navy blue wall. I thought B&Q would do the job. Well, it did, eventually. But only on the pale grey. Three coats in to the job and the blue still was showing. The pale grey took 4 coats to hide.
So I decided to do a crazy thing and wallpaper the bathroom. One bamboo print wallpaper later and it looks like this:Will take another photo tomorrow as we have done a few more bits too.
The other room due a quick update was the master bedroom.
Master bedroom
Most of the decor was ok. That wallpaper however was not conducive to a relaxing time before bed. Especially as they had put it on the opposite wall too!
Stripping off the crazy purple paper was very therapeutic. Popping on some pale blue subtle damask even more so.
Next room we tackled was the dining room. I will keep you in suspense and post that tomorrow.
Night night all!Sorry I'm late to the party!
I'm loving that there are so many great refurbishment projects on here at the moment, they are fascinating!
Do you know in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey, the bit where the thrown bone suddenly jump cuts to a spaceship? Said to be one of the best bits of editing in a film.. It was the same effect as with your jump from empty fireplace gap to epic Edwardian library! It really is a fabulous space..
The house has just so much potential - loving the original stairs and tiles in the hall, and the two top bedrooms look like fun spaces!
Looking forwards to the next developments.
I'm loving that there are so many great refurbishment projects on here at the moment, they are fascinating!
Do you know in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey, the bit where the thrown bone suddenly jump cuts to a spaceship? Said to be one of the best bits of editing in a film.. It was the same effect as with your jump from empty fireplace gap to epic Edwardian library! It really is a fabulous space..
The house has just so much potential - loving the original stairs and tiles in the hall, and the two top bedrooms look like fun spaces!
Looking forwards to the next developments.
Edited by Schmeeky on Tuesday 4th June 13:24
Ace-T said:
The bathroom as you may recall was this:
Bathroom
The awful pale avocado suite was front and centre due to the navy blue wall..... .....ripping out the bathroom and installing one I want is a wee bit out of my price range at the moment, so I consulted with the lovely folks on Houzz and got the idea of distracting from the pale avocado with something much more green.......
One bamboo print wallpaper later and it looks like this:
That is am amazing transformation. Loving the thread.Bathroom
The awful pale avocado suite was front and centre due to the navy blue wall..... .....ripping out the bathroom and installing one I want is a wee bit out of my price range at the moment, so I consulted with the lovely folks on Houzz and got the idea of distracting from the pale avocado with something much more green.......
One bamboo print wallpaper later and it looks like this:
Daniel
Gosh, where has the time gone! Last update in March and it's now June. Thanks Daniel and Schmeeky for your kind comments.
So where had we got to. ah yes... the dining room. This was one of the most underused places in the house: several reasons for this. Firstly, it just felt cold and unwelcoming. This was the estate agents photo:
The colours they had picked for this room were fighting with the light, it is an East facing room so gets wonderful morning light. The red made the chimney breast visually intrude and the fire surround was way too big and I kept catching it with my upper arm. I had a semi permanent horizontal bruise there before we took it down.
Happily, a neighbour wanted it so it didn't get wasted and chucked. . The other utterly hideous thing about the room was the light fitting. We called it the blood dripping octopus, it was so hideous even our electrician laughed his socks off when he saw it.
With our furniture and the fireplace surround (and blood dripping octopus) removed.:
We had to work on a scheme that took into account the checkerboard floor. Removing them would be a massive job and as they flow through to the hall, it would rack up the cost. Plus we have not figured out what to do with the hall yet.
We wanted a bright light room that was pleasant to sit in for breakfast and dinner and make the most of the light the room gets in the morning. This crazy wallpaper (which I still love) was considered, but the lovely and helpful folks on the Houzz forum dissuaded us (and rightly so!)
Through a lot of research into colour and reading the fantastic F&B book How to Decorate (not as patronising and pretentious as it sounds! We chose an F&B colour called Breakfast Room Green and a lovely foliage and birds wallpaper from Sanderson. Judas had the inspired idea of paneling the lower part of the room which was a bit more faithful to the era the house was built.
All the skirting, doors and cupboards had to be sanded so I could cover the delightful orange pine stain. Sanding is soooo not my favourite job.
Undercoating all that came next.
Next Job was to cut and fix all the paneling. The purchase of a table saw and a birthday present from my brother of a laser level (I am a lucky girl) was the saving grace on this one!
We decided to do the skirting in the same colour as the panels, with the doors and cupboards in a complimentary white called James White (advice from F&B book). Using a white that is complimentary to the main colour gives a softness that was quite noticeable and we were really pleased we went with the advice. Paneling all done, then popping a dado rail on completed the bottom half of the wall. All now painted and ready for wallpapering
So where had we got to. ah yes... the dining room. This was one of the most underused places in the house: several reasons for this. Firstly, it just felt cold and unwelcoming. This was the estate agents photo:
The colours they had picked for this room were fighting with the light, it is an East facing room so gets wonderful morning light. The red made the chimney breast visually intrude and the fire surround was way too big and I kept catching it with my upper arm. I had a semi permanent horizontal bruise there before we took it down.
Happily, a neighbour wanted it so it didn't get wasted and chucked. . The other utterly hideous thing about the room was the light fitting. We called it the blood dripping octopus, it was so hideous even our electrician laughed his socks off when he saw it.With our furniture and the fireplace surround (and blood dripping octopus) removed.:
We had to work on a scheme that took into account the checkerboard floor. Removing them would be a massive job and as they flow through to the hall, it would rack up the cost. Plus we have not figured out what to do with the hall yet.
We wanted a bright light room that was pleasant to sit in for breakfast and dinner and make the most of the light the room gets in the morning. This crazy wallpaper (which I still love) was considered, but the lovely and helpful folks on the Houzz forum dissuaded us (and rightly so!)
Through a lot of research into colour and reading the fantastic F&B book How to Decorate (not as patronising and pretentious as it sounds!
We chose an F&B colour called Breakfast Room Green and a lovely foliage and birds wallpaper from Sanderson. Judas had the inspired idea of paneling the lower part of the room which was a bit more faithful to the era the house was built.All the skirting, doors and cupboards had to be sanded so I could cover the delightful orange pine stain. Sanding is soooo not my favourite job.
Undercoating all that came next.
Next Job was to cut and fix all the paneling. The purchase of a table saw and a birthday present from my brother of a laser level (I am a lucky girl
) was the saving grace on this one!We decided to do the skirting in the same colour as the panels, with the doors and cupboards in a complimentary white called James White (advice from F&B book). Using a white that is complimentary to the main colour gives a softness that was quite noticeable and we were really pleased we went with the advice. Paneling all done, then popping a dado rail on completed the bottom half of the wall. All now painted and ready for wallpapering
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