First-time house renovation

Doozergirl

stolt wrote: »

that posh remote controls the cooker hood, although it isnt connected up yet so cant try it out!:( ive just added your email address to the blog so you can have a read when you have a spare 15mins...:D

Thank you for inviting me too, I finally got in there! I cannot believe you have the elica star, I am so jealous! There were two being sold ex-display on ebay last week on ebay and H still wouldn't let me have them!

Who knows - one for the house, one for me. I'll keep trying, but H says it won't pass building regs in the development because it doesn't extract. Not an issue for an existing house of course! What fabulous taste you have.:D can't wait to see the rest of your blog now, just wanted to rant about the hood!

stolt

Doozergirl wrote: »

Thank you for inviting me too, I finally got in there! I cannot believe you have the elica star, I am so jealous! There were two being sold ex-display on ebay last week on ebay and H still wouldn't let me have them!

Who knows - one for the house, one for me. I'll keep trying, but H says it won't pass building regs in the development because it doesn't extract. Not an issue for an existing house of course! What fabulous taste you have.:D can't wait to see the rest of your blog now, just wanted to rant about the hood!

thats alright doozergirl, i was PM typeractive and i see your message on there so i thought i'd try yours again. Yes my missus has wanted that from the start and i wasnt keen paying thta sort of money for a cooker hood but it fits in really well havent had a chance to test it lit up yet as the electrician has to disconnect the exsisting kitchen before this one can be connected up : (

I nearly bought one as a ex display from a shop in london that was on ebay and i noticed there were a couple of sellers on ebay from portugal that always have them for sale....

As for how practical it is, hmm i'll leave that open to debate but it looks good:D

andrew-b

yeah yeah i know i haven't quite finished the bathroom but i've started on the next room!

Spent all afternoon stripping woodchip off the hall ceiling...and urm i'm only like a 1/3rd of the way through. It's only a small hall too!! Spraying with warm solution of washing up liquid from a handheld garden spray a few times really seems to help but even so it's slow progress!

As i feared , the plaster underneath isn't great condition. It looks like someone has previously removed ceiling tiles as it's been made good all over in an almost regular pattern. There's also a crack at a plasterboard join with a slight difference in levels of about 2-3mm. Also the coving isnt in great condition so considering losing that altogether or replacing or lots of making good. Ideally i'd get the plasterer in to skim the ceiling but i'm not sure budget will allow it. Other options are lining paper (cheap but i'd need help doing it) or maybe a smoothover product. It's not just that room that has woodchip ceiling though..the bedrooms and lounge have it in too. Spare bedroom i've left the woodchip up ..the main bedroom i want to remove it and the lounge is big so may have to wait.

For now we're just concerned with bedroom and hall as the lounge is being left for the time being. The walls in hall and bedroom i'm intending to line with lining paper (again because i can't afford plaster skim!) so if i do remove the coving i can fairly easily hide any damage to the tops of the walls. Currently there's an anaglypta paper in the bedroom that we want rid.

So what do others think about plaster coving..to have or not have? So far we've replaced it in the kitchen, kept it in spare room but removed from bathroom..so i'm not overly concerned about every room being the same.

TomsMom

andrew-b wrote: »

yeah yeah i know i haven't quite finished the bathroom but i've started on the next room!

Naughty! Says she who is known for getting so far through a project then abandoning it (not house related though!)

Spent all afternoon stripping woodchip off the hall ceiling...and urm i'm only like a 1/3rd of the way through. It's only a small hall too!! Spraying with warm solution of washing up liquid from a handheld garden spray a few times really seems to help but even so it's slow progress!

In our previous house, d-i-l made a great job of stripping woodchip off the walls with a wallpaper steamer, once she got going she said it wasn't too bad. I know a lot of people don't like woodchip but I personally don't have a serious problem with it. We've not had to get it off a ceiling though! We did replace some ceiling paper in the old house, replaced it with a very small stipple type pattern, one of those hardly noticeable ones as I don't like big anaglypta patterns.

So what do others think about plaster coving..to have or not have? So far we've replaced it in the kitchen, kept it in spare room but removed from bathroom..so i'm not overly concerned about every room being the same.

For me, it depends on the house. The old house was Victorian and had some beautiful original coving in the lounge and hall. The kitchen had a more modern type and it didn't look right. The bedrooms had none because the ceilings curved downwards on the one wall so was lower than the other three and it wouldn't have been possible to put it up there. In the current house, as you know we had every room replastered and because of all the extensions it's more of a modern design. I didn't feel the need for coving and I'm happy with the way it is. But I really think it's personal choice if you're not trying to renovate a period house. Whatever you're happy with is right for you.

andrew-b

Thanks TM. Yep i'm no magnus magnuson..have a habit of starting the next project before i've finished the last! Idea is to have a continuous stream of jobs so i keep up the momentum going so whilst i'm waiting for paint to dry elsewhere i have something else to do.

In the past i've used a borrowed steamer but i'd be a bit wary using it on plasterboarded ceilings in case i blow the plaster (probably quite a high chance with all the repaired bits for steam to get into).

With the coving when we did the kitchen the previous covings were covered in a textured paint which was impossible to remove. At the time we didn't give it much thought and as every other room had coving i ripped it down and we replaced when having the ceiling artexed (urm yes i know artex!! - though it does actually look quite good). Looking at the plasterer's invoice (nov 2006) he charged about £40 plus VAT for the coving for the kitchen so i guess the hall and bedroom would be a similar amount each as they charge per metre.

I assume the coving isn't original (built around 1955) as both in the bathroom and kitchen the wall /ceiling behind the coving were painted..in yellow to match the rest of walls and ceiling . I can't quite imagine buying a house with yellow in every room - least magnolia you get these days in new houses isn't quite as bright!! Every join of the coving has been done badly and from experience of making good in the spare room i know it takes alot of effort to make it better. Replacement myself wouldnt be simple as there's lots of non-90degree angles involved. So i think i'm probably going to lose the coving altogether as in the long run i think it will save time over making good (easier to make good a flat wall or ceiling than a curve).

Hopefully can try finish removing the woodchip in the hall this afternoon. The plan is to do the bedroom ceiling next then i can deal with them both at once. Only really started doing the hall to see how i got on as it was a smaller area and not full of furniture.

Anyway here's the clickable "before" photos of the hall (forgot to take one towards with bathroom door and radiator wall between bedroom and airing cupboard though):













Will post some more when the woodchip is off!

Doozergirl

I don't think you need the coving. Would the house have been built with it? It doesn't really look like it's crying out to have it. Save yourself some money

andrew-b

Thanks DG ..we've decided to go with ripping the coving down and not replace.

Woodchip in the hall is now all gone and we now have this:

TomsMom

Blimey Andy, you don't hang about do you!!!!!!!! Well done, that couldn't have been easy.

typeractive

Andrew, I like the layout / arrangement of your hallway. It has a nice cosy feel about it to me.

andrew-b

TomsMom wrote: »

Blimey Andy, you don't hang about do you!!!!!!!! Well done, that couldn't have been easy.

If i hadn't have been stopped by the neighbour ringing the doorbell and not letting me escape for ages i would have got the coving down too! Having the radio on really helped pass the time.

Clearing up took a while as there were the little chips of wood everywhere and couldn't just vacuum up.

Was going to remove the woodchip in the bedroom next but it needs a bit of a clearout so i'm going to get the hall finished first rather than bite off more than i can chew.

Still you should be seeing quite a bit of progress from me in the coming weeks ...though i don't want to overdo it so need to pace myself a bit!