Diary of a house renovation in Scotland (month 2)
Question 1
What parts of the house have you been renovating this month?
Slight set back this month on the decorating front - We have had a big problem with our roof, we had some serious rain and the roof was leaking pretty bad, our front entrance porch was a sodden mess! The rain was so heavy that it washed away part of the concrete tifting that joins to the tiles on the roof and water was getting in behind the stonework and seeping (more like free-flowing at some times) through the hall roof and into the entrance hall - where our main electric panel is housed ! It is now repaired although we had to scour the yellow pages and everybody (called at least 2 dozen companies) were so busy due to storm damage already!! Thankfully we hadn't decorated and it now makes the woodchip wallpaper easier to get off! Every cloud and all that.......
The diningroom has been the 2nd focus this month. We have:- stripped the bad wallpaper, painted walls, celing, skirting boards, alcove, doors & frames! Removed ply from back of the doors to reveal lovely victorian doors but the wood was not in good condition to re-vamp. Removed very old smelly carpet and revealved lovely near perfect condition floorboards. We replaced the 70's pull down shade with a modern cylindrical stainless steel light fitting - quite individual but very good for the extremely modern feel we have gone for in the dining room (stark white walls/colourful art) as a contrast to the livingroom, (traditional and warm)
The dining room before and after.
Livingroom - changed the flooring and small bits and pieces, moved some electrical plugs, touched up areas, this room is now complete except a light fitting - still can't see something perfect!
Question 2
Have the areas you’ve finished so find come out as you planned or did you have to make modifications along the way?
The diningroom was originally going to have colour on the walls but as the window is south facing it get's quite dark in the evenings, we painted the walls a base colour of white and decided the keep it that way, very blank canvass but very effective with the floating gas fire.
Question 3
Have there been any major difficulties or did anything take much longer to do than you anticipated?
The roof !!That knocked things back a bit. We couldn't do anything until we knew the extent of the damage. Thankfully not that extensive an area but enough to delay any decorating planned.
Question 4
Any hidden surprises, like things hidden under layers of wallpaper?
The diningroom door, once we removed the ply, it revealed a lovely original victorian door, unfortunatley the wood was in poor condition to strip back but none the less!
Question 5
How’s the budget going, any unexpected costs or savings?
The diningroom painting has been very cheap to do, 2 x 20L drums of white paint (£15 each) and a couple of tins of white gloss, there is much to be said about the 'minimilistic look' very cheap to achieve the base colour. The flooring is going to come in almost on budget we are sanding the floorboards, £70 to hire sander for the weekend and good quality varnish will be around £30 per tin (might get away with only 2 tins) as we find yacht varnish the best. and the light fitting was a bargain in a sale at a our 'Farm & Household' store in Inverness - old fashioned hardware store but some amazing light fittings.
Question 6
What are you going to tackle next?
We are still waiting for an electrcian to install a BT point upstairs in the house (there aren't any upstairs) and this requires the floorboards in the 2nd bedroom to be lifted so we can't touch that room until it's done, it had been next on the list. (Sparky's are gold dust up here, same as most places I believe!)
We have decided that as our budget got knocked out with the window installation we are going to do the bathroom ourselves, we had originally planned to get the tiling removed and replaced by the professionals (£600 approx inc some plumbing) but we are going to get stuck in! We will start with stripping the walls and polystriene tiles from the celing and take it from there, the walls may need replastered so we'll have to see how that goes first. We will still need a plumber but it should save us some money as the original bathroom budget was spent on the windows.
We are also planning painting the hall and landing, we are again going for white for maximum light into the area. 1 part of the hall is 20 feet from top to bottom over the stairs so should be good fun.
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