This week has seen us playing a waiting game – it’s been all about waiting for the plaster to dry. In the meantime, some other jobs have been done. We’ve had a modern consumer unit fitted in place of the old style wire fuse box. During the work to fit it, the electrician discovered that the whole place was not earthed, so we have had that sorted out too. At the end of the week the new coving was fitted, which highlighted the fact that nothing in the place is straight. All of the internal corners in the living room were more than 90°, which was interesting! Week 4 will be all about painting…
This week has been all about plastering. Plastering ceilings, and plastering walls. Mainly plastering. In order for this to take place, all the cabling work and chasing has been completed, the serving hatch has been reboarded (properly this time), and the radiators that are going to be replaced have been removed, along with their pipe-work.
Other things necessary to complete the project are being gathered – light fittings and switches. Because I’m a sucker for a gadget and to make Sarah’s life a little more convenient, we’re going for lightwave RF switches with a wifi link to allow remote switching. Next on the shopping list will be speaker wall brackets and a wall mount for the tv.
Now we are waiting for the plaster to dry (or “go off” as the plasterer insists I must say). Next week, we have an electrician coming to fit a new consumer unit, and at the end of the week, the new coving can be fitted, ready for decorating to start.
A good day today – the living room ceiling is now completed and the sun room ceiling is complete too. The hallway ceiling threw a bit of a challenge as the joists didn’t fall to the edges of the walls, so a frame had to be made to support the edges of the ceiling. This held things up a little, but there’s plenty for the plasterer to get on with on Monday, so it’s not going to have too much impact.
It’s very encouraging to see things moving forward!
Progress today has been pretty good today – the majority of the living room ceiling boards are now up and the sun room ceiling has the insulation and most of the boards up.
A surprise discovery was made when the serving hatch doors were opened up prior to being removed. There was a miniature bottle of baileys and a little card saying “have a drink on us!” There was also a note from the previous owners wishing whoever found it well!
With a bit of luck, the remaining ceiling boards will go up tomorrow, ready for the plasterer to make a start on Monday.
Today saw the last of the wallpaper being removed in the living room and hallway and the sunroom ceiling being removed. Hopefully, this will be the end of the demolition phase. We’re also now at the point where we shouldn’t find any more big new issues that will need sorting out. We had a visit from the roofer today, and he’s confirmed that there is some repair / remedial work required on the roof, where the pitched roof joins the flat roof. The flat roof itself isn’t too bad, which is a relief, but does require a couple of repairs – one to a repair that has obviously leaked at some point, and one to where the clowns from the virginmedia installation team have nailed cable clips through the felt!!
We encountered quite a lot of honeysuckle in the sunroom roof (which is something that we’ll need to keep an eye on in the future) as well as a few solitary wasp nests, which are really quite beautiful. After the roof work, they may not be able to get in so easily though…
On the positive side, the first ceiling board went up this afternoon, and the speaker wiring has been installed!
More demolition today – the remains of the ceilings have been removed in the hallway and living room. We’ve un-earthed yet more different wallpaper and also a boarded over serving hatch (painted a fairly startling colour!). More work has been going on to scrape the remains of the wallpaper off, prior to re-skimming the walls.
We’ve discovered that the radiators are all corroded to the point where they will likely leak if they are reused, so they are going to be replaced, especially since we will be having new carpet fitted at the end of the project – we really don’t want radiators leaking onto that. Wiring and chasing in has started for the lighting and switches.
Sarah and I have taken the plunge and have got started on the next stage of dragging our lovely, but dated and tired bungalow into modernity. We’re having the ceilings replaced in the living room, hall way and sun room, and the walls re-plastered and made good, as well as moving some radiators and other repairs and enhancements. Day one was tear-down day – lots of noise and dust as polystyrene tiles were removed from the ceilings and the ceilings themselves were brought down. The ceiling boards were made of a material called celotex, which was used in the 60’s and has sagged and cracked. At some point someone has ‘fixed’ that by covering them in polystyrene tiles.
The living room had the additional ‘feature’ of recessed strip lights, which meant that the tiles were suspended from a baton frame. This means that we will gain about 3″ in height in the room.
So far, we’ve discovered two layers of coving in the living room, 3 different wallpapers on the walls, lime green paper with stars on the ceiling and climbing plants that had got into the loft from the garden. Oh, and a couple of pieces of lead pipe.
