HOW IT STARTED

April 2017

My house is pretty old, but you wouldn’t know it.  When I bought it a couple of years ago, the entire inside was lined with tongue and grove wood cladding and looked like a 1970’s Swedish sauna gone wrong..  Cold, damp and moldy wrong..  It also had no bathroom and the toilet was outside.  

Why did I buy it?

Well, party because I was skint and needed somewhere to live and it was cheap, and party because of the view.  I LOVE IT. 

But after a while I was getting pretty poorly living in such a damp house and I was also worried about what state the structure might be in so it is time to fix it!  

The Kitchen, with shower cubicle under the stairs, 2014

I’ve had lots of time to think about what I want to do to make it better, and read lots of useful websites and blogs and talked to people who know about these things, so I thought I’d put it all [on a Facebook page] so I can document the progress and also have all the useful info in one place.

[You can visit the Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/myhouserestoration ]

So what is the plan?  

• Firstly, I want to fix the damp problem and make sure the structure of the building is sound.  That means a lot of repair work to the walls and floors/ceilings and sorting out the ventilation. 
• Secondly, make it warm and make better use of the space.  In other words I’d like an inside toilet and somewhere private to wash!!  Heating would be awesome too.. 
• Thirdly, redecorate and make it look beautiful but try and be sympathetic to the age and style of the house.

The living room, 2014

I’m hoping to keep the costs down by doing as much of the work as I can myself, and just use the professionals for the really tricky bits, or when I need to keep the Buildings Regs people happy.  

Luckily for me my house has absolutely no historical value* and isn’t listed, so I can do pretty much what I want in terms of combining old and new, but I will try and be sympathetic to its age and I’m hoping to find and restore some of its character..

* At this point I had not uncovered any of the history!