First-time house renovation

Dualcyclone

I like this thread!

I'm also a first time buyer, and have had to completely renovate my house.

Unfortunately for me, I've owned it since June 2007, and am still not moved in - I'm pretty much doing it all myself (with the help of my dad); but in a pretty ad-hoc way.

I've taken loads of pics this year, didnt when I started unfortunately, so have roughly 2/3'rds of the current project recorded for prosperity.

It surprises me how many of us seem to have had exactly the same choices when renovating! Like knocking through the airing cupboard to make the adjacent room larger!

The reason mine has taken longer than the original 3 month timescale is due to the amount of issues with the house after I started taking it apart; and also deciding to do the things I was going to put off until a later date when I received a pay rise!

The biggest job for me has to be repairing all the joists; they had all warped and twisted, making the floor extremely uneven. That took months of my time making sure they were relatively flat enough for a new floor.

I'm in the decorating and fitting stage nearly now - except I decided to put a big 8' wide patio door between the house and a lean-to conservatory I have at the latter end of summer. I've been trying to varnish the doors to install, but because its been so cold, its been 3 days since I gave the first coat and they still havent dried! I've had to turn on my central heating to max to try and warm the house, and put a tarpaulin across the hole in the back of my house to keep the warmth in.

Same issues with paint, one coat in this weather is taking a day to dry. I hope this week I'll be able to finish varnishing my doors and install them so my house keeps some warmth!

Glad I found this thread anyway, it will keep me sane while I sit here knowing I have a house I can't live in, and endure my parents for a few months more :rolleyes:

latecomer

Wow lots of stuff going on!

Welcome to the newcomers, great to see and hear about everyone else's projects.

I'm supposed to be on holiday today but as the hall floor is oiled all over there isn't really anything else I can do. plus I'm pretty shattered after 3 x 12-13 hour days!

We spent the weekend sanding the floors in the front room (going to be our living room) and then at about 10pm on saturday OH suggests that we should do the hall too seeing as we have the equipment until monday and we can always oil the floors afterwards. Makes perfect sense so we spend sunday doing the hall. Found out the hard way that halls are far more difficult that rooms. The narrow section to the front door has the boards running across so we couldn't get the drum sander in. We did use it go across the boards once to get the worst of it off and then I did my best with the edger (disc sander) but the results were not great. In the end I didn't like the finish as there were joins all down the middle so I went over it by hand. Only took me about 2 hours........ but the result was a vast improvement. Queried the guy in the hire shop about how best to do it and was very pleased to hear that they charge extra for halls because they are a pain in the rear!

Took the equipment back to the hire shop and the guy asked whether I was the person who wanted to pay by cash (which I wasn't) so I asked if there was a discount for cash and was told he would take the vat off. So I walked down to the bank (about 200 yards) and saved about £22

After I got back I hoovered everywhere and then cleaned out between the boards with scraper and then hoovered again. Then started brushing on the oil and immediately discovered that there was still dirt between the boards which was picked up by the brush. :mad:
So I stopped and then went over the entire floor again with a stiff brush and removed as much dirt as I could. Finally got started again about 3pm and did the front room and 80% of the hall. Left just enough space to walk round.

It was mostly dry this morning (had the heating on all night) but still a little damp in places. Took the executive decision to put bedding into the current living room (its got a door to the outside) just in case its still not dry when we get home but as I've also left the heating on it should be fine. Then I oiled the remainder of the hall on my way out so if the first bit isn't dry we are sleeping on the sofas

didn't get a chance to do anything else but I've got to say that I'm quite pleased with the way it looks. I've got pictures of before, during and after which I will get online at some point....

Would we do it again? Without a doubt although if by then we have kids we would probably need to get more done by trades just to make it quicker. We are making a home rather than doing it for the money. That said, hopefully we are adding value too. :beer:

latecomer

Just had a quick peak at the blogs

@BB - painting looks great, I'm sure the Xmas guests will be very impressed. Chester look lovely too although he's definitely got that "I'm the boss" look about him!

@TomsMum - Really like the colour of your tiles. Really nice job too

TomsMom

latecomer wrote: »

@TomsMum - Really like the colour of your tiles. Really nice job too

And Neil's coming back to grout tonight with a bit of luck, if he gets away from his other job early enough. :j It always looks better when the grouting's done as a lot of you already know.

He doesn't want payment, although he is having some of our office furniture and we've bought him some stabiliser plate thingy for towing his caravan. It's good to have something to haggle with Will have to think of something else when we want the kitchen and bathroom fitted and tiled - I suppose a toblerone and a bag of Cadbury's chocolate eclairs wont quite cut the mustard :rotfl:

latecomer

Tell you what, there isn't much I wouldn't do (DIY or labouring - keep it clean folks!) for a Toblerone and some Cadbury's Eclairs

Shimmyhill

BB1984 wrote: »

Oh I forgot to say congrats also to Shimmy - well done for moving in! It's hard to keep up the momentum sometimes, but equally I think living in the house makes it easier to make decisions about layouts, colours, etc, as you get a better feel for the place. (You'll have to put up with the dust though - it gets everywhere no matter how hard you try to keep things clean!)

BB

Thanks

We couldn't get the girls room painted in time so have been doing that today - paint is done bar where we had to fill in the magical fireplace, just waiting for the plaster to go off !!

Really hectic at the moment, trying to live in a place while you do it up is hard work - will be better when the girls are in their room so at least we can unpack lots of stuff and then work on the 3rd bedroom (or storage pit as it is at mo !!)

The kitchen is half in, we have a working cooker but no sink at the moment - hoping to go in tonight or tomorrow. Tracy has put the tree up tonight so she is happy

Ohhh the doorbell, sink may be going in shortly then !!!

latecomer

andrew-b wrote: »

i'll settle for the eclairs and you can have the toblerone.

Deal! :beer:


I oiled the front room again last night after then got up early to do the majority of the hall again. Hopefully it will have dried by the time I get home and then I can do the rest of the hall.

Got to say that although I suspect I've put the oil on too sparily (how thinly is thin?) it still looks great. Hopefully it stays that way after its dried. I am half tempted to put on another thin coat but the instructions state 2 coats only so might just leave it and see how it goes.

I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend when we can get moved in and get a christmas tree.

matt_boro

wow what a great thread!!

just spent the last 2 hours reading it from start to finish, and reading the blogs too.

first things first... thats a gorgeous cat.

anyway, I think I will be frequenting this thread a bit more in the coming months, as I am about to put an offer in on my first house (in need of renovation, of course! :T)

Had several trips to the property with various builders and tradesman. And it seems the to do list is going to look something like the following...

1. rewire
2. central heating installation
3. stripping of about 10 layers of wallpaper and skimming of several walls
3. new bathroom
4. knock through toilet and bathroom dividing wall
5. new kitchen
6. new bay window double glazing
7. knock through 2 reception rooms
8. replacement of a few roof tiles

And probably numerous other things that will only become apparent as we get underway!

Daunting? Yes.
Exciting? Definitely!

Excuse me if this is nosy for my first post, but what sort of budget did you all set for your work? And how did you come to the figure?
Happy renovating! :beer:

Matt

matt_boro

i would say the price already reflects the work required.

i was in two minds about whether to go for a renovation project or not. Basically, I have £30k capital to put into it, and didnt want to pay much more than £500pcm on the mortgage.

This meant I could get somewhere for about £120k that needed no work doing and pay 25% deposit... or get somewhere for about £75k, pay 10% deposit and use the rest of the cash for the renovation.

It looks like im going for the latter... so fingers crossed the remaining £20k (ish) will get most of the work done!

Matt

latecomer

Welcome matt_boro - always glad to see another new [STRIKE]lunatic[/STRIKE] house renovator.

Budgets - we budgeted about £30,000 but was to include a loft conversion, doing as much of the work as possible ourselves. original plan was altered to also perhaps extend out the side of the house but no idea on whether its feasible, permissible or affordable
All good fun

~andrew_b - I love hearing about mishaps like that as it makes me realise its not just me that does them :beer:

Think we are going to have a weekend off with the possible exception of some moving furniture into the front room. Although that might depend getting an extra pair of hands to help move the sofas. Also I've done something to my back while oiling the floors so that might hold us up.

And as I've typed this I've just had an offer of a hand to shift the furniture. Good timing indeed