Daydream thread... without the rose-tinted specs

phoebe1989seb

Better_Days wrote: »

Wow phoebe1989seb very impressive - has yours got arched windows or oblong windows?

Our has the rectangular (oblong ) ones BD

I think it needs an overhaul though as despite its size and supposed output, it doesn't seem to be that efficient to me.......that's another job to add to the list then

I'm not a lover of most rads either LIR, but I do like the cast iron, old school type which is what we put into our Southsea house. Last house it was an expense we didn't want to make, but here we've already started so *in for a penny* and all that

Not wanting to lead anyone astray again, lol, but for the kitchen - where we were going to put UFH but I chickened out for some reason - we got the Gothic style ones from Holloways of Ludlow. Although their pewter paint finish was a tad disappointing tbh and I plan to redo them myself........

Whilst we love our Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau, I was a bit of a Goth in a former life many moons ago and used to collect religious pictures, icons etc which we filled our dining room with in Southsea, so we have a few nods to Gothic styling in the kitchen here.....planters, occasional table, radiators

We also don't have foundations here and the PO (or his predecessor) had put in yucky concrete floors throughout most of the ground floor. We'd really like to take them up in the rooms we've yet to [STRIKE]finish[/STRIKE] start and replace with breathable limecrete, but as we've now decided to sell, we're going to risk laying an oak floor (just got to decide whether engineered or solid) over the top......:p

lostinrates

I like the look of cast rads...if one has to have them but I don't like Lodi g the wall space tbh.

I hate rads under windows ( because I like fabric and 'proper' curtains, so the benefit of the placing is lost) and they can really beggar up furniture layout.

Here our house is a bit of a warren. We have slightly pokey rooms ( the house is watching my type and is going to take offence now I'm certain) and down stairs, no corridors, so each room has at least two doors. Others have more, or multiple windows, and there is barely space for things like book shelves, the Biedermeier. In what's now or dining room but will be a winter sitting room or music room, the walls are totally plasters with our dining room furniture ( which Is fairly intimidating) and then some...um....billy book shelves. The dining room furniture is going to have to squeeze into the long narrow room at the back of the house ( and we'll need a long narrow dining table....my least favourite way to dine!) and that will leave NO wall space for rads that I can see In there.

if I have to have rads I have to, but I'm not giving in til the end.


With our cast rad I got the cheapest the house of radiators in bath sold ( which I also thought was the nicest ) and bought nicer legs for it. It looks better than those twice the price I think.:), but the feet that came with that model were awful.

If I upgrade rads in the kitchen at one end I'll be going for a bench radiator. Its too sensible an idea not to, the bench ones them selves are ok, but I'd probably go for cast in similar dimensions Nd have a bench built over it. . Other end I think I'll just box in. I don't want to see it. Cast would be as much of an eye sore frankly, its a blank wll I wanted there. . Painted to match wall, or done like Alfie's, which Is the prettiest radiator solution I have ever seen. Yep, like Alfie's I think.

MrsAtobe

Davesnave wrote: »

Gosh, Mrs A, you took me back by posting that place, not that we ever looked at anything even half as grand. It was during the early days of our quest, when I discovered Monmouthshire was so close to Bath by motorway that we could contemplate living there and still work some of our usual sales haunts.

We looked at two properties: one of them half of a mill in the little St Brides valley between Penhow and the Harry Potterish Junction 23a, which no one seems to know about! It was idyllic, but I could still hear the M4. :mad:

The other one was odd. It was ag-tied and neither the widowed owner nor the agent wanted us to buy it! They did everything possible to put us off. Obviously, they wanted to market unsuccessfully and then get the tie lifted. It was a nice situation, but there wasn't enough room in it for my Dad, nor anything for him to do there, so we were no threat!:rotfl:

Looks like a gardener bought it. There were no trees and few flowers at that time:

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en-GB&ll=51.693811,-2.764718&spn=0.000717,0.001742&t=h&mapclient=apiv3&z=20&layer=c&cbll=51.693811,-2.764718&panoid=k2Pic55V_JhwUqFLfmcVlA&cbp=12,238.47,,0,-4.89

Unless I'm absolutely desperate for the loo, I'm better off pushing for home than stopping off at J23A - I'm about 15-20 mins away, the quickest way home for me is to get off the M4 just before the tunnels and head north through 7 roundabouts . Penhow is lovely though, shame that you can't go round the castle any more.

lostinrates

God, I can't wait got growing season, bored of my house renovation......not anyone else's.


Btw, but not brambly is covered with BUD. I told it to hold its horses but......no telling young things.

alfie_1

LIR....do you mean my lounge radiator ? that was a £5 cover that i "renovated"...:rotfl:

choille

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

I did ask/think about under floor heating, so we wouldn't have to have rads downstairs, BUT basically our place has no footings... and after having some talks with the stonemason about the damp on the central/inner walls of the house.. we have decided not to put any damp coarse down,( floor is now concrete, the original flagstones were put around the house as a path) and control it by, controlling the water/drainage around the house ( the French rains we spoke about on here a while back) and not put under floor heating in.. The flagstone tiles will be put straight onto the concrete...


It might sound daft/stupid maybe not do the floor etc, but managing the damp/water on the outside, will hopefully mamage it on the inside.. if that makes sense..

CTC - You need a damp proof course, the walls need injecting. You cannot justify NOT putting this in place. Here, you would never get a completion certificate. You need to insulate the floor. This is not an expensive thing to do.
You could be talking serious health problems at the least. It's crazy not to.

Rummer

lostinrates wrote: »

God, I can't wait got growing season, bored of my house renovation......not anyone else's.


Btw, but not brambly is covered with BUD. I told it to hold its horses but......no telling young things.

I am enjoying the winter still, however I do love the whole potential of spring and the preparation. Things like clearing out the greenhouse, washing the pots, filling them with compost and getting the seeds started all make me happy. It is at that point however that I run out of steam :rotfl:

Facing the beds which are wildly overgrown is not something I am looking forward to Every year I promise myself that I will clear them when the growing season ends and cover them so that I don't have to deal with weed and grass infected spring soil but I never do

We didn't make it to the gardens today, life got in the way, but we are going to make a real effort to go somewhere tomorrow

choille

Rummer wrote: »

I am enjoying the winter still, however I do love the whole potential of spring and the preparation. Things like clearing out the greenhouse, washing the pots, filling them with compost and getting the seeds started all make me happy. It is at that point however that I run out of steam :rotfl:

Facing the beds which are wildly overgrown is not something I am looking forward to Every year I promise myself that I will clear them when the growing season ends and cover them so that I don't have to deal with weed and grass infected spring soil but I never do

We didn't make it to the gardens today, life got in the way, but we are going to make a real effort to go somewhere tomorrow

Snap - I seem to get that way too, but it's been so very wet for so long. I can hardly bear to go over to the veg garden - It's such a mess.

I do hope you manage to go somewhere tomorrow & feast the eyes.
I have been most of the evening looking at kitchen doors & couldn't believe how expensive some are.

Is that the time...?

Rummer

I am still up too! Although I gave up looking at kitchens a long time ago when I realised that I would need a lottery win even for a basic one

Near where I live there are a number of gorgeous gardens to go to so we are very lucky. One is purely decorative and divided into different themes and is lovely to get ideas for the back garden and flower beds. The other main one that we go to has a massive walled kitchen garden packed with fruit and veg and it really is an experience to walk round. You can then go to the tea room and eat the food they have grown which I love

Been looking into local food deliveries and I think I am going to go to the shop that stocks things from local allotments and small holders and buy some bits and pieces from there each week until I start growing again.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Morning all,


I know what you mean too Rummer, when the spring days start, I cant wait to go and sort/tidy the greenhouse, wash it down, and then start sowing like mad... and they come on lovely, then work gets in the way..lol...


LIR the house is on clay too, and its lime mortar all the way down.


As the stonemason said it is a catch 22 with these old buildings, as by putting a damp coarse in some times causes a lot more problems...


at the moment we are going with not doing the floor, as sometime in its life the old flagstones have been removed, and concrete put down..the damp on the inside walls could be down to the way the path outside the house was, and as Alfie will tell you, the old canopies in front of the front doors, were a water feeder for the front of the house, guttering broken so water was just pooring down and bouncing off the canopies right infront of the house,or it was like having a tap turned on and the water going under the house..


Is it the right thing for this house??? honestly don't know...and maybe in the future we will need to do the floor.. But the stonemason works for Cadw and historical buildings a very long time...and in his opinion sometimes/a lot of times modern building technics etc just make things 10x worse on old buildings..Like the bl00dy concrete render they put on this place... inside and out!! but in its day ( and even now) most builders will tell you to do that to cure damp etc,


I have been told right from the beginning.. with old stone buildings you can never cure everything...lol...