Frustration

The sitting room is essentially finished. Walls are painted, the floor is varnished and the sofas are in. But. Big But, I've still got a lot to do to dress it and I'm being thwarted and feel a little stressy at the length of my 'to do' list. In fact I'm writing this blog at 3 a.m. just so I can tick it off aforementioned list. So the things still left  include:

Our Chilli light which should look like this

Looks like this:

Because somewhere in the workshop is a carefully wrapped package of the glass 'chillis'. Also in the workshop is a vintage ceiling light - but where? So we're left with a bare light bulb. I've finally sourced curtain poles that I like for the bay window which is great - but I've still got to make the two pairs of curtains.

Two garden chairs are sitting in front of the fire as the wing chairs I'm upholstering are far from finished.

Drinks cabinet hiding behind garden chairs

Hairy chair

The bookshelves that are to be built are way down the line as Andrew has moved on to the kitchen, which I agree is more of a priority, but it means I have things like this cowering in the corner.

The cabinet we refurbished for drinks is in the wrong place and I can't get to the oil lamps that I want to sit on it. And the longcase clock has been temporarily evicted from the kitchen into this room, taking up space reserved for a different clock.

The fabric for the sofa cushions is at the Post Office waiting to be collected. It's a gorgeous silk from here. But once I collect it then they will have to be made. Maybe I'll just leave it there for a while.

And the wall behind the sofa is a huge blank space waiting to look more like this

From Nesting Place

But it's so nice to have comfortable sofas, a log fire and my beautiful coffee table to rest a glass of wine on in the evenings, instead of spending down time on office chairs in the study. Progress. I feel much better now so I'm going back to bed. Goodnight.

Until next time



Sharon

Sitting room floor

The last major project before we moved into the sitting room was the floor. I had always planned a wooden floor, preferably oak, but this was proving expensive. So we looked at carpets but I just couldn't do it. We've a large dog, a wood burner and I don't like housework very much.

After trooping round some local suppliers we found some really good quality t & g pine floorboards at a reasonable price. Getting them in the house proved quite farcical -particularly as we ended up doing it twice. The only way in was through the window. Now as the boards were 5.7 metres long and bound together we both went outside and lifted them onto the window frame, Andrew rushed back inside and take one end and I gently fed them through until the last few inches balanced on the frame. Then I dashed inside and we stacked them on the floor. Here they sat acclimatising until Andrew was ready to lay them. He then realised that they were the wrong way round - something to do with the t & g - and there was no way to swing them around inside. So the whole 'get them into the house procedure' was reversed. Once outside I had to perform a natty pirouette manouevre to turn them and then back in they went. My right shoulder has still not recovered.

First down were the battens which had to be screwed into the concrete floor and form a level platform. By the end Andrew's right shoulder matched mine.

Battening

The floorboards themselves didn't put up too much of a fight (particularly for me as I wasn't involved:)) but they did take a lot of planning to avoid small slivers in obvious places. And we got through 5 kilos of brads.

New floor

Once down each brad had to be slightly recessed to allow us to sand the floor. Next on the list was staining. Now we're not big fans of ready mixed wood stains as they tend to be very unnatural colours - either too orange or too yellow. On previous floors we'd succesfully used Van Dyke crystals. These are completely natural as they are made from ground walnut husks. You soak some overnight in equal quantities of water and then they are ready to use. The lighter the colour, the more water you add. We wanted a rich walnut colour so diluted our mix with 50% water.

Staining

 

 

 

Next was one coat of varnish, then a gentle de-nib followed by another two coats. And voila - a new floor.

Dog proof floor

Lastly we put the new skirting boards in and a final coat of gloss paint and at last the furniture can go in.

Until next time


Sharon

Sitting room lights

No sooner than we get a nice smooth ceiling do we make Swiss cheese out of it. The lighting plan for the sitting room is simple but copious. The ceiling has 14 wall washes, 5 task lights and a pendant. Additional lighting will be standard and table lamps. The pendant is in place but 19 holes had to be made. The first job was to mark them, no mean feat as we had to decide what each group was to line up with.

Marking out the lights

Then Andrew got to play use his new toy gadget tool. Actually the variable hole cutter, with debris collector, is brilliant. Not only does it cut the holes perfectly but it also stops  the dust going in your eyes.

Cutting the holes

Once all the holes were drilled we could get the lights up and start to position the angle of the lamps for the wall washes. These won't be finalised until all the decoration is done and the furniture is in.

Fireplace end

Front of house

Mortimer helping with the lights

Lights in

As the room had been plaster skimmed we painted it with two coats of white emulsion to act as a sealer before the coloured coat. I can't believe how this transformed the space back into a room. The only annoyance is that it doesn't look like we've changed much as most of the work is hidden.

But the fireplace looks so much better. Remember this?

Next is to finish painting, cast a new hearth and tile it and put in new skirting boards. I've got to make the curtains (fabric arrived this afternoon), restore a cabinet and sort out flooring. But we're nearly there.

Until next time



Sharon

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday the plasterers came in to skim the sitting room.

7 a.m.

5 p.m.

Paintbrushes here we come.

Until next time.


Sharon

Back to the sitting room

The last post was done in  almost real time so I'm taking you back a step or two to play catch up. Once we had knocked all the plaster off the sitting room walls and cleared all the debris we were able to put the insulation up. Because the room is a reasonable size we weren't worried about losing a few centimetres so we decided on 60 mm thick Celotex. Celotex is  a thick sheet of insulation foam backed with silver foil. Just by putting your hand on it you can feel the warmth.

Defunct chimney breast

External wall

Into the bay window

The Celotex was put on all three external walls, the fiddly bits were round the windows, particularly the bay. Once it was all in place then the battening for the plasterboard was fixed. This took some time as Andrew had to work out the spacing for the plasterboard sheets and also where we may be placing shelves or hanging artworks. He also had to be careful when putting in the special fixings not to create thermal bridges to avoid creating cold spots. We decided to dryline the internal wall with plasterboard and then the whole room could be skimmed to give a nice smooth finish.

Battening

Blocked up internal window

Like all things the bulk of the plasterboard went up really quickly and then a couple of areas, windows and arch, took ages to get right.

We're starting to look habitable

Squared off arch

So finally, with the plasterers coming in next week, I can seriously start thinking about the room design. The concept board was done a while ago but I'm still sourcing of a few of the elements. But as a preview here's the board.

Sitting room concept board

In case you're wondering the three words for the board were suggested by Andrew and are 'Cosy Relaxed Mmmm....' :)


Until next time


Sharon

Sitting room ceiling

The ceiling had an artex finish and we had hoped to put a skim over it but no such luck. We discovered that the fireplace end of the room had hardboard as a ceiling. Our decision to take this down was made for us when we watched a Sarah Beeney nightmare house programme and saw just how inflammable this stuff was. And of course if we did one end we had to do the other.  Taking the old stuff down was relatively easy, even if we did create our own version of the Ai Weiwei seed art installation.

Our tribute to Ai Weiwei

Once the ceiling was down and there were no nails showing through the lathes we were able to move on to the plasterboard. Amazingly there was no swearing :)  On these projects I act as unskilled labour but even for me holding full size plasterboards above my head was a challenge. Andrew did make up a dead man's lift ( a giant wooden t-shape that wedges the board up while you fix it to the ceiling) but even so it was hard work.

Bay window ceiling

The sitting room has a bay window which is single storey and with a slate roof. Once the original plaster had come off we noticed a gale blowing down so we stuffed it full of insulation. Next on the list is the insulation.

Bay after plasterboard

Until next time




 Sharon

The Sitting Room so far

The first job was to hack off all the plaster as we were going to use foam board as insulation with plaster board on top. Some of the plaster came off easily, all we needed to do was run a scraper behind it and off it fell. Other areas were much harder and progress was oh so slow. I became best friends with my ear muffs, goggles, mask & thick gloves. What was amazing was the amount of rubble it produced, we lost count of the amount of sacks we filled and number of trips to the dump.

Just some of the rubble bags

We needed to investigate the fireplace as well. We knew that there had been a log burner there before but it had been replace with an electric fire. So first the plaster and render came off.

Fireplace reveal

Although the original brick arch support was intact we're a bit of a 'belt & braces' couple so decided to install a concrete lintel as well. One advantage of this was to square off the opening to give the fireplace a more contemporary feel.

Lintel in place

Clearing out the old brickwork

The fireplace had been altered several times in the past so Andrew decided to clear out all the old and badly put in bricks and rebuild it internally before it gets rendered.

Waiting for the rendering

Until next time.


Sharon

P.S. There should have been some exclamation marks in this but Andrew cleaned my keyboard and this punctuation mark has gone AWOL.  As did the W but that's back so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

About the house

The house is a bit like an ageing super model - the bones are good but it doesn't do to look to closely! The previous owners had lived here for 28 years and although left it immaculate and newly decorated there's a lot of work to be done. The house was originally  four room square, two rooms at the front & two at the back. A hall & staircase in the middle with a small bathroom between the two back bedrooms. Alterations have been made in the past which include a front & a back reception room being knocked into one with a very 70's arch. Upstairs the bathroom has been moved into one of the bedrooms and the original knocked into a bedroom. Sadly not a full en-suite just a lonely basin at one end of the room.

 So today I'll take you through the downstairs.

Now when we bought the house the hall, sitting room and dining room ( now the office) were carpeted. We'd owned the house for 36 hours when these all came up so that the new damp proof course could be injected. And because we didn't want to get too cosy they didn't go back down except in the office.

Original tiles & missing border

Under the hall carpet was the original tiled floor but it's all a little strange. The pattern includes a border but not all the way round, it disappears into the under stairs cupboard, but we can't see any evidence that the stairs have been moved. At the bottom of the stairs there is a very unattractive internal window which was once the doorway to the front parlour. This will have to go. The front door is fairly new, double glazed and nice & secure. Unfortunately it opens the wrong way, if you want to open it and let someone in, you have to reverse up the stairs!

Internal window as seen from sitting room

We have wall lights to match!

Didn't take us long - day 2

So wrong! Artex ceiling & mean skirting boards

 The sitting room floor is solid concrete and so we sealed it to stop the dust and installed some furniture to have somewhere to sit. The house is single brick so one of our first jobs is to add insulation to the walls. There are only two radiators in this space, which is approximately 7.5m x 4m, and an electric fire. So plans are to increase & improve the radiators and put in a wood burning stove.


The office will also need insulation, something doing with the open fire and updating the radiator. The problem with this room is that we both have to work here and so there will be huge disruption when work starts.

Office fireplace

Next, at the back of the house is the kitchen diner. Originally there was a pantry here but this was removed to give more space. It's a reasonable size and currently has fitted cupboards. But. Big but. The cupboards are dark and falling apart, the new work surface (put on to help the sale no doubt) is a wood effect laminate which doesn't look good at all &  the floor is dark. I have no oven, no hob, no fridge but a freezer and a very nasty smell from under the sink! So we went out and bought a cheap microwave but I think the next few weeks are going to be hard for a couple who love to cook.

Dark

Missing oven

Shiny new microwave

Now the last 'room' we have great plans for! This is the lobby that links the kitchen with the original outhouse, now a loo and a small utility space. Henceforth this is to be known as 'The Orangery', not at all pretentious!

Loo & utility

The Orangery!

Hate that brown paint!

I can dream! Source: Art et Deco

Next time I'll show you upstairs.

Sharon