Weeks 42-43: Living with the Builders

Our new front door!

So the past 2 weeks we have started to live in the house! As you can see by some of the pictures from the last post, we still have quite a few finishes, but the benefit of being in the house is that we can see the progress daily, be there to answer questions and best of all – be in the house in the evenings to talk through what is next and what we need to order!

Although I’m really going to miss having numerous different trades-people seeing me in my pyjamas urging Hunter to get ready for nursery!

Morning view of the hallway

First priority was getting a new (and working) front door, as the old one was being screwed in every day and we were accessing the side door. Once that was in, an Instagram poll helped us decide which colour (to be revealed) and on to the next item on the list!

The focus has been on the top two floors. The electrician was finishing a lot of the wall lights, and switches so that at least the bedrooms and some of the bathrooms have light.

We also have a working kitchen now! It has been so nice to actually cook in this space, something we have been dreaming about for nearly 2 years.

Speaking of which, I thought I would remind myself how far we have come by sharing some before and after pictures of the place. I have pictures from this time 2 years ago when we first viewed the house! I was still on maternity leave and Hunter was a lot more “controlled” in his buggy!

Here’s how the loft looks:

Loft Master November 2017

Loft master in May 2018

This even now has moved on, as there is a carpet and fixings on the wall! I’ll need to take some more “after” pictures at the right angle!

Loft Rear October 2017

Loft Rear May 2018

 

Loft Landing January 2018

Loft Landing June 2018

Look we have a stair runner! That was installed today! If you hadn’t spotted the cables coming out the wall or the lack of hallway radiator you’d think it was finished!

Remember when the walls and ceiling were removed on the first floor?

We’ve moved on a lot since then!

Front bedroom in September 2017

Front bedroom in May 2018

Side bedroom in July 2017

Side bedroom in October 2017

Side bedroom in May 2018

Family bathroom in July 2017

Family bathroom in May 2018

Strategically shot picture as there is still no toilet in this bathroom!

Another reason why moving in before the house is completely finished is actually quite good – you get to use all of the plumbing before people leave site. We had a few minor leaks and an issue with the drainage due to the house being used for the first time in 2 years. Well worth having a plumber handily coming in the next day to fix things!

Kitchen space once we had the rear demolished

Kitchen extension May 2018

More before and afters to come but that’s enough for now!

As you can see we are currently living with a minimalist approach to our furniture! It’ll take time to get the right table, chairs and sofas etc so we don’t want to make any rushed purchases! We are very grateful to our lovely neighbours who had lent us their emergency chairs and trestle table in the meantime!!

Next priorities are getting the garden finished so that we reduce the amount of dirt getting dragged through the house and Hunter has a place to properly play in!

K

Weeks 40-41: Getting it Liveable

The time has come when our budget and timescale has dictated that we need to move in to the house – so the past couple of weeks have been a huge push from our builders to get the place liveable and safe so that we can stay there.

First up was getting running hot water through the house. The boiler had been installed but none of the bathroom fittings had been finished, nor the radiators in so this was a key job to be done.

Like our splash-back decision? It’s a copper metallic effect on glass. I especially love the way it reflects the crap that’s currently being stored in the utility room!

The bathrooms were all (and still are!) at different stages of completion, so the team worked on having at least one complete bathroom and another running toilet.

The first one to be finished with fittings, running water and lighting was the loft en-suite:

So nice to have running water. All that’s left in this room is the PIR automatic light and the splash back.

The other bathrooms are shaping up nicely too!

Here is the small loft bathroom:

 

The front bathroom:

(check out the shutters!)

Family Bathroom:

Woohoo we have a bath!

Still a few lighting bits and fixings to go but they are nearly there.

Next was getting electricity running and putting faceplates on so we can plug things in! We prioritised the rooms that had carpet in and shutters so that we would be able to have a decent night sleep. We now have two rooms that have carpet, shutters and lighting in:

Side bedroom:

Rear loft room:

Plus the loft master bedroom is also carpeted but no shutters yet:

Here’s a fittings montage:

This still means we don’t have lighting downstairs bit at least it is summer! The ovens, fridges and tap works and after a clearcut and a clean the kitchen looks like this:

We are especially pleased with our fancy hob, which is not only induction, but has an extractor built in which meant we didn’t need to have a bulkhead above the island.

It is from German brand, Bora and was sourced by our kitchen suppliers.

Also – cue fanfare – the scaffolding has been taken down after 9 months and the new restored brickwork can be revealed!!!

I can’t stop looking at it. what a transformation from how it was before:

Now that we are in, it is actually really beneficial being in it every morning and evening. We still don’t have any furniture, and living in the space really helps to make decisions. Hoping that we can soon so that we can start booking friends and family round to stay when it is more finished!

K

 

Week 39: Second Fix is Underway

It’s been an exciting week over at the house as many of the fittings have started getting fixed in, making it look a lot more like a house and less like a building site.

In the two reception rooms we’ve had the oak flooring laid. We chose a chevron design and the pieces have a large variation in colour and grain which makes it look different from each angle you enter the rooms.

I also think it is going to make these rooms look huge. I’d read that chevron apparently does this more so than herringbone. In fact we were OK with either, it just so happened that there was the right amount of stock in this pattern on the Havwoods Clearance website!

Upstairs the bathrooms are beginning to look more finished as the sinks, vanity units and toilets have been put in to place

Loft rear bathroom

This is the smallest of our four bathrooms and was an odd layout to get right because of the head height restriction near the toilet – but thankfully each item is in good proportion.

Double sink in the front bathroom

You’ll remember from a previous post that we added a bathroom in the front of the house and were debating over whether to have a double sink or a bath. I’m pleased we went for a double sink. Plus we got a clever cabinet that is hidden in to the stud wall which makes it flush to the bathroom wall and looks awesome.

The sink is matt, which is the same as the shower tiling and the bath in our family bathroom. This unit is in a concrete grey effect, which goes well with the marble effect porcelain tiles. All bathroom fixings are from CP Hart, some from the main shop and some from their outlet centres.

Sink in loft en-suite

In two of the bathrooms we went for the same style sink with a thicker shelf on one side. These are great for those bathrooms that have limited storage space like our loft that has a sloping ceiling so we couldn’t get a cabinet in. It does mean the tap is off-centre though.

The bedrooms have all been painted and skirting down ready for the carpet that comes next week! We also picked a lovely decorative fireplace for the front bedroom (the one with a bay window) This is from a local fireplace restoration place.

K

Weeks 37-38: Good Investments

Like most people undergoing a transformational renovation we have been faced with a multitude of decisions on what we should be spending our money on, and where we can afford to spend less.

The house before it all started

When working on a large renovation, and a fixed budget it is important to be really clear yourself about what you are prepared to invest in, and where you’d be willing to make the sacrifice. Sometimes the decision is too hard and the sacrifice is on the bank balance or your short term life choices. (Not going on holiday, living in the property / caravan etc)

The clearer you are about this from the beginning, the “easier” it will be to make important decisions during the build. Like: “Should we replace that wall”, “How much do we spend on flooring”, “Do we go for underfloor heating”, and “What is our kitchen budget”…. you get the drift.

It was clear that our house needed A LOT of work on the structure, and actually getting it to a basic working property with heating and lighting would all be starting from scratch. So along with this we decided that making the structure and workings of the house to be the priority for our budget – but also, to invest in making these last for as long as possible as this would be our family home for a long time.

We’ve been blogging a lot about the structure and extensions of the build, but actually there has been a huge amount of plumbing and electrical work done.

The heating was far from ideal!!

We were basically faced with a blank canvas. The plumbing and electrics were far from up to scratch, and with half of the house being demolished, it was clear that a lot of the budget had to go on this. Here’s what we’ve learned…

1. Turning a 3 bedroom, 2 storey knackered property in to a 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom 3 storey property involves a LOT of pipes!
   • The first fix involved getting all the pipes to radiators, towel rails, sinks, toilets and showers to the right places and then run under the floors (or outside for the soil pipes) and all the way down to the cellar
   • It really helps to know your bathroom layouts as early as possible
   • Also, where your radiators are going to go and if you want the pipes coming out from the floor or the wall
     

     

     
2. It requires some horsepower to ensure the showers have enough pressure in the loft
   • Victorian properties were built for one simple bathroom. When you’ve got 2 in the loft alone this calls for not only a large water tank but a way of ensuring the pressure is good and consistent – especially when other appliances and showers are going at the same time
     

     The bathroom off the kitchen!

   • The obvious place for us to put the water tank was in the cellar… a long way from the bathrooms but it’s out the way and doesn’t take up cupboard space
     

     One of the 3 huge tanks!

   • The water pressure from street level in our area is terrible at best, so we also needed a way of bringing in this water and converting it to a better pressure value to suit our needs – this means we needed an Accumulator. In fact, because our cellar was so low in height, we couldn’t get the big one we needed so we had to get two!
     

     Accumulator tank

3. There are all sorts of options when it comes to heating
   • A mistake we made on the last house was not having underfloor heating in the kitchen, so we knew with a bigger kitchen this would be a must have
     

     Boiler with underfloor heating pipes under

   • We also chose underfloor in the bathrooms but not in the bedrooms or reception rooms
   • Radiators come in all sorts of styles but we decided to spend the extra and get column traditional ones – although we have gone for the standard screw fix ones rather than the expensive cast iron version
4. The cables have to go somewhere!
   • With an average of 5 double sockets per room, 3-4 light circuits and each bedroom having points for TV and internet, that’s a lot of cables, and they all have to terminate somewhere 
     

     

     We chose the utility room for the termination point of the cables

5. Lighting makes a huge difference to the final product if done well
   • Unless you’ve had a lighting layout done by an architect or designer at the drawings stage, your builder will base their pricing of a standard spec which involves a set number of spots/ downlights in each room spaced equally
   • It makes a huge difference having a lighting layout that works for how you will be using each room – however this means that 1) you’ll be spending more in fittings and on the labour and 2) you need to know exactly where all the furniture is going in each room first
   • We didn’t go over the top (apart from in the kitchen – see point below!) but we did end up getting lights cabled in next to each bed, and getting a layout designed so that each circuit created a different effect. We focused on the ground floor and kept the bedrooms quite standard
     

     Cabling for TV, Internet and light fittings beside the bed

6. If you’re going to invest in smart home tech – choose wisely
   • We all love a gadget, but when it comes to the home do we really need an oven that you can turn on from your mobile when your on the bus home?!
   • There are plenty of options to tech-up your home but they all come at a price, so think about whether this will really add value to your life, and if this renovation is for a 5-10 year home, perhaps skip it altogether!
   • We decided to go for function over style with the radiator valves and have gone with EvoHome which means you can decide the exact temperature output of each room in the home
   • We also went for a cabled lighting system in the kitchen, rather then the whole house. This was mainly because we were going to be using the kitchen the most when we move in and for many different functions, so wanted the lighting to reflect the moods.

So the past 2 weeks have been really about getting the arteries of the house to working order, as well as more painting, finishing the skirting and general getting on with stuff. Next week the flooring comes and we focus on the outside!

K

Weeks 30-31: Bye Bye Blue

Not sure if you’ve all noticed, but the outside of our house is rather blue

It wasn’t just the front too. Every window and the back and side was also painted ‘smurf-blue’ – even a tiny 20cm window at the top of the house! Not only this but the front had this winning combination of pebble-dash and what can only be described as “trowelled cement” which created the textured look.

We managed to tackle the back by knocking it down, but the front has remained unchanged… Until now!

We have red brick! (and evidently a much larger child since the before picture!)

The bay has also been repaired with new pillars and mouldings to match the original design.

Yes there is some blue left but that’ll soon be gone once we get the brick re-pointed and the sills repaired and painted.

So how’s the interior doing then? Well, two of the bathrooms have taken a bit of a setback. After installing the shower trays and tiling the shower areas beautifully, unfortunately the shower trays were supposed to be recessed in to the wall by 10mm, which meant that the shower screens didn’t fit. A highly frustrating situation for both our builder and us, as we all thought that these rooms were nearly complete!

10mm makes a difference!

Fortunately, one of the three showers had not yet been installed, but the other two will need to be re-done. Not ideal when we bought end of line mosaic tiles, and very expensive showers! Tune in later for how this was resolved!

This shower is all OK

At least Hunter’s happy!

The shower tiles are from Domus at their outlet store. No point in telling you the name because we bought all of them!

On to more positive things… Our kitchen has been fully plastered:

I’m getting very excited about this room. Every time we go in to this area it just feels lighter and lighter.

The front reception rooms are getting worked on over the next couple of weeks, with the base flooring going down and the first fix finally finishing. (All credit to our electrician Junior from the team – it’s been a big job!)

This will be the front reception room:

Here’s what will become our ‘cinema room’ or snug:

There’s our new hallway steps in the middle of the room too. And here’s the hallway as it is now:

Hallway in March 2018

Week 29: Tiles!

Now that the underfloor heating is down in some of the bathrooms the tiler has been at work and our first bathroom has been tiled!

We chose the same tiles for all four bathrooms because: 1) We didn’t want to have to choose four different bathrooms; 2) They’ll all look slightly different anyway with the different fittings and 3) it’s cost effective

We also love them! We got the tiles from a trip to the Domus outlet shop in Surrey. The floor tiles are porcelain 60×60 Calacata marble style in a Matt finish.

The shower mosaic tiles are from the same place, also Matt and are called “tekno mosaico ”

At £27 and £21 per square metre they were a steal compared to the usual prices from Domus.

It is however worthwhile going to the Domus showroom in Battersea though. It’s like a cave of wonder full of beautiful tiles and great inspiration ideas for bathrooms and kitchens. It actually is like a cave because the front entrance is unassuming, and the place opens up to a huge space once you travel through a perfectly lit tunnel lined with feature walls

We cannot wait to show you the finished bathrooms! (We also cannot wait to use them too)

Meanwhile, downstairs the kitchen has been plasterboarded and looks even bigger. This will be plastered next week and made ready to receive the kitchen at the end of next month.

Although the weather is still cold, it’s been sunny and clear, making it perfect weather to take pictures of the rear of the house, and reflecting on what it looked like only 6 months ago.

Standing at the back with the sun beaming across the garden is getting us excited about actually being here and using it, so we better get on and finalise the garden design!

K

Weeks 26-28: Starting on the Finishes

It’s been three weeks of lots of cabling, pipework, plastering and painting.

Whilst away on holiday we received this exciting picture from our Builder:

Underfloor heating has been laid in the kitchen and now the floor has been screeded and insulation put in:

There’s a huge amount of cabling being done at the moment in the ground floor – particularly in the kitchen as we are going slightly more high tech here with the lighting.

Now that the floor is almost at finished level, we can now see how our vestibule area will look like. This is the ‘second hallway’ before the kitchen that also leads to the w/c, utility and cellar. The door from the side alley comes in to this area too so that we can come in and offload our coats, bags, buggy etc straight in to the utility.

We also came back to very stripped back reception rooms. When the plaster was taken off the walls the bricks were in such bad shape, and had no mortar left in-between that the decision was made to remove all of them and replace with stud walls. (Another wall bites the dust)

However the front bay window has been re-built and finally has new windows:

The plasterers have returned and upstairs is looking more and more finished. Check out our cool stair lights…

Exciting news happening in the bathrooms too. The underfloor is down and in the en-suite the tiler has started!

Looking forward to showing you all the progress of these rooms!

K

Weeks 17 & 18: Another Bathroom?

To say that the past two weeks have been a blur would be an understatement. Along with  running two busy projects at work, there have been a huge amount of decisions and agreements we’ve had to make, from positioning of all the lights, switches and sockets, to paint choices and architrave designs. Not that easy when one of us is in Ireland and when we are both together there is usually a hyperactive toddler running around!

Not a lot of these decisions are showing up in the latest progress pictures but we now are at the stage where we need to understand what the final product will look like to as much detail as possible. It’s hard when there are so many potential ways that we could make each room look great… on with the mood-boarding, which is not my forte but thankfully is one of Axe’s favourite pastimes.

Here’s what the last couple of weeks has done for the house:

We’ve had our flat roof lights installed in the loft landing and bathroom. They are from VELUX and have curved glass and look amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that the smaller one over the bathroom opens electronically via a remote!

We also had the sash windows at the back of the house painted a very dark grey/black. (Farrow & Ball Off Black no.57 to be exact)

The decision to go darker may seem a bold move but seeing as all of the pipework, guttering and sliding doors frame are all black, it makes sense and white frames look odd against the dark grey slate.

Inside the house, the plumbing first fix is underway, alongside the electrical first fix that is also ongoing.

Also, the ground floor ceiling has been taken down, which was a very dusty job!

But while the ground floor still resembles a building site, the loft is ready for painting! Our Builders are working top down, so we’ve already got two plastered bedrooms and Paul already asking for tiles and bathroom suites to be ordered.

The rest of the loft is all plaster-boarded and ready for the next phase.

With all this focus on the loft and the kitchen extension, we haven’t had a lot of time to really think about the first floor, where our main bedrooms and family bathroom will be. So Axe and I decided to give Hunter an extra day in nursery and had a full Friday going over the whole house. During a coffee to thaw off we discussed the front bedroom, which has a lovely bay window and quite a lot of space.

In under an hour we agreed that this bedroom could fit an en-suite bathroom in. So we drew a rough layout on a napkin and called Paul for a quick meeting. Turns out it was a great idea, and not too late to change it so we firmed up the decision and started to think through the ideal layout, one that also ensures we have enough wardrobe storage in the bedroom.

The new bathroom will steal one of the bedroom sash windows and Axe had the idea of fitting in a deep bath under it, like this:

Photo by User. See more bathroom designs

However, I was more keen on fitting in a double vanity unit seeing as we can’t fit one in to the family bathroom – something along the lines of this:

In the end we went for the more practical option of more surface and sink space over the glamorous bath we’d rarely use. By Wednesday the following week the stud work was already up and we were having a meeting with the electrician about the changes to the lighting.

We didn’t want to be those clients that change their minds in the middle of a build, but at least we made the decision quickly and it really does make sense!