First-time house renovation

suisidevw

Last day at work today so probably won't be online till the 27th of so when my parents leave. Really excited about having them and my brother up to stay and got a fun time lined up for them.

Also, last night had our first roaring fire, bit of wood, bit of coal and it was awesome! I WILL get some pics soon.

Have a great one all

pawpurrs

Thanks for the welcome guys......... yes the project is all a bit bewildering at the moment, not helped as its a listed building so you need permission to fart........ LOL...... Very excited about the new kitchen, but I should be waiting really untill more of the ceiling work is done but hey ho..... will be ripping out over xmas so that will be fun, not having a kitchen for weeks! Am going to tile the floor, then, and put in under tile heating.... Hacked off some wood on a boxed in beam the other night hoping that it wasnt a steel, and it isnt so I have uncovered my first beam YAY! Got a stable door for the kitchen, but the kitchen fitter wants £250 to put it up, which we cant afford, apparently they are a !!!!!! to put up, YIKES......... we will have to give it a go....... Decided to vault the two bedrooms, which will be a hell of a job. Still waiting on the central heating quotes.......The plumbers all came over two weeks ago.........
Taking out and boarding up a window in the kitchen, we have a lodger in the shed, dont ask, that is a brickie that is supposed to be doing it........but he started and hasnt returned........

keith969

Well I finally bit the bullet and ordered one of these:

http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Dru-44-stove.html

Also ordered the chimney liner and associated bits, and had the local builder round to measure up and give me a quote for installing it... its going to be done in early January, so looking forward to warmer evenings!

pawpurrs

Looks like a neat little stove. Cant wait to get my woodie installed again, love them!

lisal0u

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope you all had a fantastic day yesterday! We had a brilliant day and I cooked my first Christmas dinner, it was yummy if I do say so myself!

We are now in the house :j It was hard work but Im soooo happy! We have till the 3rd to move the last few bits out of the flat and get it cleaned. The back bedroom here at the house is full of all our stuff. Its a good job Im not back at work till the 4th as its going to take forever to sort out.

I will get som piccys up when I have tidied up a bit!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
xxxx

jasper12

Another newbie here who would like to join in!

We moved into our new (old!) cottage in October but have done very little yet due to
1. OH working all the hours
2. 4yr old and 7mth old children taking up all my time!
We do have a plan but think it is going to take a long time....pehaps xmas 2012

Basically, it is 2 old farm cottages circa 1900 merged to 1. 3 bedrooms originally but 2 have been knocked together to form 1 very large room. Think it was last upgraded in 1975 and it shows!

So far we have done mainly cosmetic things such as re[;ace old carpets and generally scrub the place. We have just had our DG put in, thank goodness as has not been above freezing for the last 3wks! DG is lovely and we have the most amazing lovely deep windowsills - although they are currently filled with boxes!

We are not sure about the CH as at the moment it is via an old rayburn (1959 oil fired) however, our oil tank has def seen better days - old metal rusty one. It has no oil in it at the moment (we are using the open fire in the lounge and oil filled heaters in the bedrooms.) and the guy we had to look at the system advised us against filling it as it didn't meet sepa regs (should be a bunded tank).....Not much spare money so not sure what to do for the best.

Don't really fancy the running of the rayburn so tempted to hang fire (oops no pun intended) and look at getting a biomass system/wood fired system fitted. The only good point is that we have lots of hot water from the fire....in fact, so much that we have to run it off most nights as it starts to gurgle in the tank - seems criminal when we have cold radiaters! Currently spending soooo much money on coal and wood each month as we try to source a cheap supply.

Bathroom is not too bad - the suite is useable, however the automatic washing machine is plumbed in there so that will have to be shifted. Walls are stripped and tiles are sitting in the hall waiting for OH to get started on fitting them (thanks topps tiles and tesco!) -also will have underfloor heating.

Need a new kitchen although the one at the moment is functional....taking our time to choose one, currently leaning towards an IKEA one but shall wait and see. Perhaps pay a visit to howdens to see their choices - need new interior doors so with pawpurrs mentioning them having a 20% discounts on doors and us knowing they have the kind of cottagey doors we are looking for then....although snowed in at the moment so that may have to wait a bit

Anyway, will stop wittering on...must go have lunch then think a snowman making session is calling me!

Look forward to getting to know you all :T

TomsMom

Hi Jasper12 and welcome to the thread. Not many around at the moment, anyone would think it's Christmas . I'm here because I'm bored and it's so quiet but I'm half way through doing a long overdue update on my blog as our renovation is all but finished.

Sounds like you've got quite a project on your hands so you'll want to keep a record of it, and show us all what you're up to, so I hope you're going to do a blog (almost a must here, you'll get nagged otherwise :rotfl: ).

I'd be interested to know, as your property was originally two cottages, do you still have two doors or has one of the doors been successfully integrated into the new single dwelling? I've seen some property shows where the two doors were left in case the house was to be converted back into two sometime in the future, and some where the conversion was so successful it looks as though it was always one house. I'm just nosey basically!

I don't know anything about Rayburns and oil tanks so can't offer anything that might help.

Enjoy making your snowman, we don't have any snow here, I'll go back to my blogging and pop back later with a link when I've finished.

Shimmyhill

Hello all, hope you all had a great Christmas and have a good New Year !

No action in our project for ages but i have some time off early Jan and will be starting some of those jobs i have been putting off !!

TomsMom

Hello again everyone! Have you all had a lovely Christmas? Ours has been so quiet that I decided it was time to sort the photos out and get the before and after pictures on the blog.

It's taken me the best part of two days but at last I've done it. There wont be much more to add except for maybe when we get the last of the floor coverings down, and I need to look into some blinds for the Velux windows in the sun room, it was blinding in there during the summer. I'm not sure I can match the blinds on the windows so it needs a bit of looking into.

So here is the link to the last couple of pages on the blog. Hopefully it will spur you on if you are flagging and wondering when it will all end.

pawpurrs

hope you all had a Good xmas.
We went away and visted and it was lovely.
Have ripped out the kitchen today and am cream crackered now, all the old dirty horrible units are out and have stripped the tiles off the floor, and the walls and the skirtings, as well as blocking up an old crickle window, so a good days work. Now living in chaos as well as having no sink etc to wash up, new kitchen going in in about three weeks, but we have to lay the tiles, plaster the walls, decorate do some plumbing etc before then. DH has to work tomorrow and the rest of the week, so fitting stuff in in evenings and weekends. Waiting to Get our Tesco vouchers to pay for the underfloor heating and tiles. Hope they come soon, am off to the Farrow and ball shop for paint tomorrow as well as the DIY shops.........