My house renovation

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Now that we've made a bit of progress I thought I'd put up a thread, no idea if anyone will be interested but at least it organises the photos!

Offer was accepted in the summer and we moved early October. We knew what we were getting ourselves in for, the house was bought off plan by the couple who were living there and hadn't been touched since they bought it, so it was a project!

The only photos on the listing:









The reason no interior shots were offered became obvious when we went inside - the elderly couple had big health problems, so the inside was setup almost like a mini hospital:

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When we moved in it was a relief to see that it had been emptied:

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We decided to get a few garden bits sorted, mainly because the back fence onto the road was falling down, so keen to get a new one up:










We also had to get rid of the huge tree by the patio:

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The Mrs did a top job of making the place pretty homely, even if only for a short time before we had to pack things away for work to start:

Edited by UTH on Monday 18th January 10:00

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Before we bought the place, a tree had fallen on the roof! Thankfully it was all repaired at the time, but the tree stump and ripped pavement outside the front of the house took months to finally sort out:

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Work on the house gets underway with overboarding the ceilings and getting spotlights fitted downstairs.

The master bedroom becomes the storage room for some of the materials:





Holes drilled and plastering done:

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Typical Iphone flipping some photos around!

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This weekend just gone was very productive, finally time to remove the kitchen and a couple of walls:

















So that's half the kitchen out and the internal pantry/cupboard walls down to give us the larger room.

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Sunday saw us remove this wall to give us a nice open plan room for the new kitchen and reception type area:







Only issue was a radiator falling off the 'mini wall' and is leaking slightly, so we're keeping the heating off until Wednesday when the two rads will be removed and we can remove the rest of that wall.

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Currently still some wallpaper to be removed from a few areas as well as the loose plaster:

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Pulling together some ideas for various bits:

Under the stairs:



Front door, something like this:



Ground floor flooring (with UFH) will look pretty much like this:

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That brings us up to today.
More walls to strop, skirting to remove, fireplace to take out, but we're getting there. Hopefully the ground floor flooring will be sorted mid-end Feb, then we can get the kitchen in.

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8-P said:

Looks like a good project - have you had an asbestos survey?

I did, yeah. Came back positive for all the ceilings, hence over-boarding then plastering rather than huge £££ removing it all.

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Rory1984 said:

Looking good - about to start something similar with enty or artex and likely asbestos too. Did you do anything different when cutting out for the spots?

Want to do tje same in our new kitchen but concerned about drilling through.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

I think the guys used something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=asbestos+drill+kit...

Apparently the risks with this stuff is pretty minimal, as we didn't really 'disturb' very much of it at all, so with some care, masks etc, you should be fine doing similar.

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Bit more destruction today:

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James-06gep said:

Following with interest!

Side note.. I hope the master bedroom is downstairs? That Half a ton of multi finish in that little footprint upstairs would make me very nervous..

That is the master bedroom!

It’s all been used so no longer there though.

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Joyrider1 said:

Always like to see these threads, particularly as this house is similar in style to mine - When we moved into ours it had been completely bodged over the years, so we went through a similar renovation - Think we were a bit naive when we bought the place, thinking it only needed a bit of decorating .....thread is here (from page 3) if you're interested: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Oh brilliant thank you, will have a read.

Luckily we knew it all needed doing from the moment we stepped foot inside. That said, despite constantly reminding the Mrs that it was going to be a lot of work, we've had plenty of the arguments one might expect!

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Joyrider1 said:

Always like to see these threads, particularly as this house is similar in style to mine - When we moved into ours it had been completely bodged over the years, so we went through a similar renovation - Think we were a bit naive when we bought the place, thinking it only needed a bit of decorating .....thread is here (renovation pics from page 2) if you're interested: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Gonna have a good look through that thread at lunch....dare I ask how much insulation cost? That's something I haven't even considered yet, but I think it needs doing as I imagine ours is pretty much like yours.

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SunsetZed said:

Looks like you're doing an excellent job, can't believe you didn't start by chucking that Stamford Bridge sign though...

Haha, I must admit after yesterday's Lampard news, tempted to take it down!

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Update:

We'll be moving out tomorrow for a few weeks to allow for the flooring and staircase to be done, before moving back in. The last few weeks we've been focussing on doing everything we possibly can for the place to be ready for the pros to come in, and sitting here right now it's cold, bare and basically like living in a squat. Very excited for the next few weeks, already can't wait to move back in with real progress being made: