First-time house renovation

Doozergirl

Love your blog - we had a fireplace a bit like your lounge one
http://www.photobox.co.uk/my/photo?album_id=49851631&photo_id=1748419208

that was halfway through that room - we blocked up a doorway, reskimmed most walls, replaced the tile-ness in the fireplace with a proper open fire, recycled the surround which is lovely actually and the sample of wallpaper on my (now broken) coffee table now covers the whole of the fireplace wall. There's still so much to do but it's nice to have a couple of properly operating rooms!

TomsMom

Here's my house reno blog if anyone is interested.

We've been there all day today, gas man came and fitted the boiler and we've got the water back on now. He has to come back Monday to finish off and the builders and electrician are due too.

Will update the blog when I've got some more pictures.

Know how you feel BB1984, we're knackered too. I'm amazed at what OH has managed as he is half way through an 8 month period of chemo at the moment!

P.S. I do find it strange that to get to the beginning of the blog you have go to the link to older posts and go back a few pages and work upwards (as it were). But then again, I suppose once you're up to date then the newest posts are the ones you see.

paddy's_mum

We've got "the pinks" in our renovation too! Pink paint on the walls, swirly pink carpet ... but we've also got a whole load of the trendy look of the decade before that - waiting room green! Combines really well with the bright orange GLOSS paint on the bathroom walls that is going to be the very devil to get off!

Happy RubbleDust Day, everyone

BB1984

Doozergirl - your house looks lovely!

TomsMom - thanks for sharing your blog, I love having a nose at other peoples' houses...! You've written loads, I must add to mine. I can't believe you're taking all this on whilst your OH is having chemo - you guys are obviously mad!

Paddy's Mum - the orange and green sounds lovely - can't believe you want to change it!!
We have one bedroom that's painted bright orange. It's ridiculous, because it's got quite a small window that faces onto next door's wall, so it's dark anyway - and then it's painted orange...! It's like a cave!

BB

ps RE the incinerator - we had it going yesterday when it was raining, so that dampened down the smoke and also we figured that noone would have their washing out!

latecomer

Looks like you are making progress!

I spend the majority of saturday under the bedroom flooring putting in insulation between the beams. Not a difficult job but not that pleasant due to the insulation being itchy etc. Had a proper breathing mask on which makes a huge difference and I highly recommend if you are using any paint strippers or other chemicals. We got our from B&Q for about £30 and its great for when I was using nitromorse and spraying wood treatment in the loft.

Anyway I borrowed the MIL's damp meter (she's into DIY) and found that there is some bad areas in our bedroom, not around the chimney as I expected (due to the leak) but further along which coincides with a drainpipe on the outside which I suspect must be the source. I'm going to have to get up there and have a good look at the joins etc.

TomsMom

I've just caught up with your blog BB1984, good progress being made, well done. Like the new flower bed too.

Quite a lot has happened at our house this week too, I've updated my blog (apparently I can't put the link in my signature).

We've saved a lot of money this week with OH doing the woodworm treatment that was supposedly necessary - details in blog for Thursday, 8 October, but it certainly makes you wonder just how trustworthy these timber specialist firms are!

latecomer

I stripped out all the insulation in half of our loft and sprayed all the exposed timbers after getting a quote for £1000 to do it. not the most pleasant of jobs but worth it to save £1000!

Phirefly

BB I checked out your blog and about fell off my chair - you look the spit of me with a dustmask on!! We renovated my Mum's house in 2001, and theres some snaps somewhere of me sanding walls that are very uncanny - I'll dig them out over the weekend along with some before and after shots of my Mum's place too for a bit of inspiration for you.

Keep us all posted!

paddy's_mum

TomsMom - I'm intrigued by the notion of diy woodworm treatment. Care to give us any more information? What product did your hubby use? Facemask or respirator? Was it a hateful job to do? Messy?

Anyone got any views of the wisdom (or not as the case may be!) of tackling loft timbers themselves whether as a treatment of existing woodworm or as a preventative measure?

TomsMom

paddy's_mum wrote: »

TomsMom - I'm intrigued by the notion of diy woodworm treatment. Care to give us any more information? What product did your hubby use? Facemask or respirator? Was it a hateful job to do? Messy?

Anyone got any views of the wisdom (or not as the case may be!) of tackling loft timbers themselves whether as a treatment of existing woodworm or as a preventative measure?

Hi paddy's mum

OH used Barrettine Universal Treatment for the treatment of wood rotting fungi and woodboring insect. It was the clear, low-odour formulation and said Premier on the can. It was a 5L can and cost £24.99 from our local independent DIY store.

It's used straight from the can, no mixing, and he used a garden/spray type unit which he got from Woolys, about 1.5L-2L size, but any type of sprayer would do.

He used a respirator which I would imagine is essential. A face mask would not be sufficient because the fumes are very potent (even though it said low odour). I went into the house to give him a telephone message and beat a hasty retreat after about 30 seconds because of the fumes, they affected me immediately and made me quite nauseous so it's very important not to breathe the fumes in.

It took about 2 hours maximum to spray roof timbers and all rafters and joists in the loft and bedrooms on the first floor plus the lounge ceiling.

It was a bit messy because of overspray, when spraying a mist falls so you'd need to completely clear the rooms of everything. The can says it takes up to 3 days to completely dry. It could be done with a brush and that method wouldn't make such a mess but it would take much longer. OH left the windows wide open from about 5pm until midnight and then put them on vent overnight. Next day there was no smell and we were able to work in the house again.

Not sure if you read my blog about this but this is what I wrote about why he did it himself:

Our structural survey mentioned slight infestation by woodboring insect. A specialist timber firm came out and reported as to what treatment they would carry out and the cost would be £653 altogether. The builders could find no evidence of any infestation once everything was stripped out so Paul phoned the timber surveyor to ask exactly what he found. Considering the surveyor was in his car at the time, and it's some six weeks since he visited the property, he surprised us by remembering the details without having the file with him. However, he did proceed to give Paul a lesson on the lifecycle of woodworm but didn't tell him what he found or where. Oh dear, how cynical are we? Was there really any infestation to start with or is this how these people earn their living when they give free surveys?

Just to err on the side of caution, Paul purchased a 5 litre can of woodworm/fungal treatment and just happened to have a sprayer in the shed and was in possession of a respirator so spent a couple of hours spraying all the exposed timbers (which is virtually everywhere) and we now feel safe in the knowledge that any potential problems have been dealt with at a cost of £25, saving us a wonderful £628 to be spent on other essentials.

So if you have had a report done and it pinpoints where any problems are then it would make sense to only treat those places where a problem was found, or if the house is to be gutted like ours then spraying everything would be a good idea as a precaution.

Hope that helps.

By the way paddy's mum, I left a message on your thread about the gas hob being near a window. Did you ever find out about how far away from an opening window a gas hob needs to be? Ours is quite close and am now wondering if we can have gas, I'm thinking we might need to go for induction.