It`s Christmas Time

Well, December is upon us again and Christmas time is just around the corner, back in June we had rather optimistically aimed to be spending Christmas in our Victorian house, mmm we seem to have been wildly wrong in our estimation of the refurbishment programme. Nevertheless, we continue to move forward each and every week and can now report that finally the re-plastering has reached the ground floor with the staircase completed, I am sure with some extra effort the upstairs can be in some way habitable in the very near future.
So, our plans of Christmas in Albert House will have to be for next year and hopefully it will be a good old fashioned Victorian themed affair, a Dickensian extravaganza with snow falling outside and family arriving with the sound of fresh snow crunching under their boots, the Christmas tree has to be a floor to ceiling beauty just as it would have been when Prince Albert introduced this tradition during the 1800`s, with guests dressed in a Victorian fashion and invited to a glass of Port in front of a crackling log fire as Christmas carols play in the background and the traditional Christmas roast Goose is well underway.
The reality this year will be more like me being the character Bob Cratchit in Charles Dickens 1843 novel "A Christmas Carol", you know, the poor bloke who Scrooge never lets have a day off, well that's me this year!
So perhaps we have to look forward to the New Year, perhaps a James Bond themed evening where the dress code is strictly Black Tie, I`m not talking fancy dress but the full blown formal dinner suit. Nothing beats the understated beauty of a classic Tuxedo, a work of art, the jacket has to be single-breasted, one silk covered button with pure silk peak lapels, and always kept buttoned, jetted pockets and definitely no flaps. Finished off with a white crisp linen or silk handkerchief in the top pocket.
Trousers should be worn higher than normal on the waist, flat fronted with silk down the sides and plain bottoms, preferably held up with buttoned braces.
The shirt has to be a crisp white with a fly front or studs, nothing too fancy but I do like wing collars to show off the black silk bow tie, and of course the classic cuff links are essential.
 Personally I`m not a fan of the cummerbund I think it more suited to Jack Sparrow or a Matador. Finally, finish off with red socks and a pair of slip on black patent shoes.
James Bond indeed, get ready to give the liver a good kick-in!

Marching on through November

November has arrived and the weather remains mild, I thought it would be much colder by now so the central heating has been switched on to keep the house warm. I have to say this has not been as straightforward as you might imagine, you see, we had removed several radiators to enable the plasterer to do his work, we re-fitted the radiators but have had to bleed and adjust valve settings numerous times to get the system balancing correct, I think there is still work to do to get the heat distribution correct but I will deal with this after all the business of radiator on and off for plastering and decoration has been finalised. At least we have a warm house.

  During the last couple of weeks the plasterer has been doing his magic, I have to say this really is an art getting old walls to look like new and perfectly smooth, so far he has completed some new boarding and preparation work and has started to spread the new stuff, we have several walls on the landing areas completed including the beautifully curved wall on the first floor which is a massive relief as we thought this might have been problematic to retain the shape.

As fast as the plaster works we are trying to keep in front of him by updating the electrics, such as new  sockets and wall lights in the hallway, so far we have managed to get the cable run cut outs completed for the wall lights and new wiring, I do think sometimes what would we do without power tools, particularly the SDS drill and chiselling attachment which with very little effort cuts out perfectly 30mm wide by the 25mm of old plaster ready for the wiring. The next job this week will be to drop a supply from the hallway ceiling light which we have accessed through the first floor floorboards, fortunately the lighting circuit is of the junction box type which makes the job a little bit easier to connect to and then run the new cable through the floor and into the wall. 

You will see from the phoptgraph that whilst cutting out for the cabling we came across loads of old redundant cables buried into the wall, there are two editions here which I will do some reasearch on at a later date, there apperars to be the original single wire type in metal conduit and another version which looks like modern wires but in a lead sheath? as opposed to the modern variant of 2 core and earth in a plastic sheath, it would appear that all these cables came together here into an old type of fuse box which is a little strange as the unit would be 3m above the floor level?

large cut out where the old fuse box used to be

new cut outs for wall light and switch

Master Bedroom

We have just realised that the enormous task of paper stripping is 95% complete! the only outstanding room to deal with is the "Boys Room" and this cannot be done yet as it is currently being used for storage. Paper stripping is not exactly an easy or pleasant job so I think "An Awful Lot of Effort" has gone into preparing the walls and ceilings for re-plastering, a job very well done by you all!

This weekend has been primarily spent on two tasks, one being making a door frame for access into the loft space and the second, her Ladyship has been hard at it stripping paint from the window frame in the master bedroom, again, not an easy or pleasant task but as in Daels room the wooden surrounds when stripped back are beautiful and will be a real feature when completed. What would we do without electric heat guns, power sanders and of course determination?
 I wonder if originally the surrounds were bare wood or painted from the outset?

An Awful Lot of Effort

http://victorianupdated.blogspot.co.uk/

Plastering time is close

Having decided to open up the second floor hallway ceiling we now have a 5m high ceiling which is currently being re-boarded following inserting foam insulation boards between the flat roof joists. The lighting wiring has been extended and re-positioned ready for an impressive 3m long chandelier, this will be a real focal point in the house, but before that the whole area now needs plastering which hopefully will be started this weekend.
I have to say Dael and Liam`s idea to fully open this area up was the correct one, the expanse is impressive to say the least and gives the house a grand appearance which it deserves. Why the original design had a "built in box" over the stairs just to provide a crawl through door to access the loft space is beyond me, our idea to make a loft entrance with a full height door through one of the 3rd floor rooms looks to be a much improved solution.
At a later date perhaps when the weather is warmer we will look at the installation of the dome or roof lantern in this area which will give the home a real wow factor in addition to letting in more natural light.

Bonfire time

We had bonfires on both the 4th and 5th this year, lats lats and more lats to burn after a mammoth demolition session of old lath and plasterwork ready for the new boards.

Roof Lantern or Dome?

This week has been decision time as to whether we open up the top floor ceiling to allow a roof lantern or dome to be fitted on the flat roof part of the house.
We had previously thought about how good a roof lantern or glass dome would add to the beauty of the house notwithstanding the amount of natural light it would allow to flood through from the third floor right down to the hallway, but we put it to the back of our minds as we pushed to prioritise other elements of the build, like plastering, wood work and electrics.
However, this week as Dael and Liam were preparing the third floor ceiling they decided it would be better to remove the old lath and plaster ceiling and re-board with Gypsum plaster boards and skim, well, this exposed the area through the loft to the central flat roof area which then led to talk of "whilst we are doing this we might as well take the boarding right up to the roof ready for a lantern or dome". Nice idea and with a couple of days work the area could be transformed into a very high ceiling open space, so, decision made "lets do it, and whilst we are doing that we may as well take out the ugly loft access area box and make a new access area from a third floor room", mmm more than a couple of days work now I think!
I am sure this is the way to proceed by opening up spaces and providing more natural light, as I have said previously the Victorians did have a preposition for making unneccessary dimly lit areas and lots of boxing in, the one thing we wanted to achieve with this refurbishment is to improve on their designs by opening up areas where we could and utilising more natural light.

  

Updating the Electrics

As the paper stripping continues from the top floor down there has been an opportunity to update the house electrics, by this I mean making the lights on each of the three floors 2 way switching. When the house was rewired in the 1990`s the electricians at the time failed to make it 2 way switching, I can see reasons why, probably the time and cost of chasing cable into and through quite heavy duty walls and plaster.

But, here we are today in October 2012 and the house has to be a home with all the comforts we come to expect, this includes up-to-date compliant electrical services. So, as we are back to bare plaster ready for skimming, we took the opportunity to make the changes to 2 way switching and an additional pendant light on the second floor.

Fortunately in this modern world of ours we are blessed with SDS power tools and purpose made brick and mortar chiseling attachments which take very little time to cut 30mm wide cable runs into 20mm thick old plaster, this completed it was just a case of installing runs of 3 core and earth cable to convert the existing lights into 2 way switching. Another job completed ready for the plasterer to make good again.



cutting out the plaster



utilised original old conduit

found old wiring in conduit

Another Bedroom

As October marches on progress is being made on what will be Daels room, the paintwork on the door frames and high skirtings has been successfully removed using the tried and tested method of heat gun, followed by numerous electric sander tools designed for this task, funny how everyone seems to have their favourite tool for this operation, the results are again stunning and impressive. The colour of the skirting boards is again to be dark walnut varnish to keep the same theme throughout all the bedrooms, I`m not quite sure just yet what the door frames are going to be, so far they have been taken back to bare wood, perhaps gloss white? one thing for sure is the concensus that the newly stripped doors will be wood stain, it would seem criminal to paint over these beautifully restored pieces of wood.
The outstanding achievement in this room is most definitely the large Gothic window frame, Dael has painstakingly transformed a painted window frame to exposed bare wood, and is quite remarkable to say the least, this room now has a truly beautiful period piece of craftsmanship as a focal point.

The weather has been kind

We have just returned from our Autumn break with the batteries re-charged and ready to continue with the work (check out my other blog jolly sailor to see what we get up to) we are now half way through October with the weather still holding up with temperatures remaining in double figures, how long this will last we don`t know but as we press on with the renovation it is good that we  don`t have to have the heating switched on yet, particularly as 5 radiators have been removed to allow paper stripping, plastering and painting to continue.
Liam has been working well on his room and to date has stripped the skirting boards and door frames back to bare wood using a heat gun and numerous power sanding tools, this is not a quick job but requires many hours of determined effort. It is certainly worth the effort with excellent results that has changed the decision making from repainting in white to a natural wood finish, he has experimented with different shades of wood stain varnish and it looks as if the preferred colour is to be a dark walnut, looks very rich and warm, really impressive.
He has also given the new plaster a couple of coats of white emulsion undercoat and will certainly need a couple more! so, keep painting!! I`m not sure if the final colour scheme for the room has yet been decided? but it is suprising how much difference painted walls have made to the feel of the room,
Sunday was a beautiful blue sky sunny day with temperatures around 12C I went to the house early to do some electrical work before the others arrived and found the sun shining brightly through the window into Liams room, the room felt and had the smell of a newly build house, exactly what we are trying to achieve throughout the property.
 I will record this as an inspirational moment that gives a glimpse of how the finished project will be.

Sunny September

Well, we are now half way through September and pleased to be able to say we have continued to make satisfactory progress, the weather has been kind so we have taken full advantage and planted a Laurel hedge along the front and one side of the front of the property, 39 plants are in place so hopefully they will settle in with continued fine weather ready for a good growth season next Spring.
We now have to decide what to do with front garden once we take up the remaining ugly concrete paving slabs, grass? flowers? whatever it is, no doubt it will be more hard manual labour for me!

Three first floor bedrooms have been expertly re-plastered including ceilings, a part of the refurbishment I thought would have to be boarded and skimmed! so, really pleased with the outcome so far, this is looking very good.
Work continues along the hallway and stairs where the paper stripping continues, it is surprising that most of the old stuff is removed quite easily with a a steamer and a good set of scraping tools. In some areas, usually internal walls, we have found the old lathe and plaster is crumbling and will have to be removed and boarded.
Light switches and sockets are also being recessed into the walls as we progress, sometimes this can be a time consuming task as I find cutting out solid stone quite arduous at times, but, persistence is the only way forward here, we never once thought this was going to be an  easy project, hence the blog title"An Awful lot of Effort".

Also during September we have found a very helpful company to strip the beautiful original doors, they collect and return within a few days. To date 3 doors have been treated and the initial results are excellent, the dilemma now is do we keep with the natural wood idea or paint gloss white as we originally intended?
Some real effort and patience is now required as the door frames themselves have to be stripped with heat guns and chemicals, the size of this task cannot be underestimated as the surrounds are considerable to say the least!

Time to Plaster

We are now at the back end of August and we have the first two bedrooms ready for the plasterer, he has completed his prep work which involved final finish of the fireplace boarding work and filling in the areas which required more than just a skim ie new cable runs and loose old plaster. He has also prepared the two ceilings by taping over the cracks we exposed when we removed the old wallpaper.
Over the Bank holiday weekend he has managed to re plaster bedroom 2 walls just leaving the ceiling to complete, this will be a two man job so we wait while he gets his mate to help him.
So, things are moving faster now and it is pleasantly surprising how the project suddenly starts to look like a new build area as opposed to a demolition site! We now need to keep this momentum going and get other rooms ready.

 

Work Resumes

Well, the summer holidays are over and it is now time to get back to refurbishing Albert House. We are at the stage where 2 front bedrooms are completely stripped back to the original plaster, including ceilings, the boys have done a sterling job whilst we`ve been on holiday. There is some re-boarding work to be completed around the fireplaces and then the plasterer can get to work, we are using a Gypsum plaster to skim the walls and ceilings which British Gypsum Technical advice told me this is the correct plaster to use.
We have also opened up a doorway off the master bedroom into an adjoining room which will serve as a master en suite luxury bathroom, we have already purchased some bathroom furniture which is currently in storage, I think this large bathroom will be absolutely stunning! 

Her Ladyship is getting a little impatient I think, she has decided to make a start on stripping the stair spindles, it looks like it is taking about an hour to complete one spindle, at this rate I calculate the job may be complete by next Easter!!!!

Busy July weekend

Another busy weekend with an army of workers on the Saturday, big boys and little boys all joined in getting two upstairs rooms ready for plastering, Dael, Liam and Kalam worked in the master bedroom completing the demolition and preparation, out came the fire ready for the fireplace to be boxed in, lots of the old plaster was removed in readiness for some dot and dab work over the fireplace and room corners.
Her Ladyship worked on the ceiling project by removing the old paper covering ready for the final steam stripping.  
In the second bedroom, the previously uncovered fireplace was also prepared for boxing in, a wooden support frame was built by Liam and Kalam in readiness for the plasterboard, the ceiling was stripped of the paper covering and is now ready for the plasterer.
A solitary new electrical socket was added with several more to follow....this is harder than I initially thought cutting out into stone, but it will be done.

For the first weekend in two months the sun decided to make an appearance, on the Saturday it was very nice to be able to have a bite to eat sat outdoors in the sunshine, we even managed to deploy the sun awning at the rear of the house, hope we get more sunny days.......

Another fireplace uncovered

On Saturday I started to cut out some cable runs for wall lights in the living room, I tried the new SDS channelling chisel and can only say this is one of the best and useful tools I`ve come across in years, cuts through the plaster and leaves a perfect cable guide instantly, could possibly do all four runs in a matter of minutes, "hot knife through butter" springs to mind. Impressed! 

Whilst I was waiting for the dust to disperse I thought I would take a look at what was hiding behind the living room boxed in fireplace, crow bar at the ready and the front was off in no time revealing a fully functioning fireplace. My first thoughts are this is a really beautiful fireplace and perhaps could be kept, cleaned up and utilised, the tiled surround is obviously not Victorian so a little digging in the right place(Internet) might be able to date it. So, there I was getting exited thinking I might have found something useful here and in walked her Ladyship, Dael, Liam and Adon, and without a second glance out came the "you can get that ugly thing out" followed with joint agreement from her entourage! I was speechless, I thought I could save a lot of heavy work and a few quid here by keeping it, but alas, looks like it will be going in the skip with the many other things I had thought could be salvaged..........   

The West Wing

Well, things are moving on now as work spreads further throughout the house, her Ladyship would appear to be in the mood for stripping! one of the rear bedrooms has been stripped bare ready for re-plastering and she has swiftly moved on into the West Wing bedroom and stripped again!!
Also in this bedroom is a beautiful ornate original fireplace, as nice as it is, the fireplace and surround will have to be removed for the room to be updated. we found the marble surround quite easy to remove once we had worked out it was made up in sections and bonded together, we have plans to possibly re-locate this piece to the living room.

Work has started on the fire hearth and proved quite a battle to remove, the Victorians certainly knew how to secure things into brickwork, I`m talking about metal hooks and plates into brickwork that need serious powertools and heavy duty wrecking bars to release, you also need some good strong help for this task! 

couldn`t do it withou you

July update

The refurbishment is now well underway with several activities being carried out simultaneously, downstairs, the kitchen diner is almost completely stripped out and ready for re-plastering, we have yet to decide upon the final location for the new cable runs and additional electrical sockets, also a gas feed has to be installed for the cooker before we can get the floor sorted out.

I think that we can say "Fortunately at this stage" the recent deluge has found it`s way into the building, from what I can see so far the rain water appears to be from an overflowing gutter which is finding it`s way down the exterior wall and then probably entering the building via the stone lintel above the window, when the rain subsides I will make this a priority for correction, there are other old wooden gutters which require attention as these can also be seen to either be leaking or blocked, anyone got a long ladder and not afraid to climb it?

The living room walls have been stripped of all the old wood chip, not an easy task for her ladyship but she has persevered and patiently completed the task admirably, having the correct stripping tools, steamers and a suitable portable scaffolding unit have been essential for this work. Again cable runs need deciding upon for the required wall lights and additional electrical sockets in this room, I have been advised that the best course of action might be to run the cable down the walls and under the floorboards, not decided yet!
The high ceilings are papered over and require preparation, we can either strip the paper (hard work?)or board over, again another dilemma! A good few weekends are probably required before we can get the plasterer in.
One unknown aspect of the living room is the fireplace, it is currently boxed in and has yet to be revealed, hopefully there will be a fully functioning fire place behind that can be restored and utilised, During June we visited the excellent Hearth and Fire exhibition Harrogate aided by the trusty pack mules we came away with loads of relevant information and new ideas for consideration, high on the list at this time is a contemporary log burner, if we find an existing fireplace to be missing.

Out with the fireplace

Once we had removed the internal wall and stacked the bricks in the garden hopefully to be re-used on another project it was time to turn our attention to removing the old fireplace and opening up the chimney breast to accomodate the cooker, the series of photographs on the right show the enormity of the task.
Originally there would have been a cast iron range in this area but that appears to have been long gone and replaced with a much smaller conventional fireplace which according to dates and initials in the area was in 1949. Anyway, out with the big hammer and the lads set to in taking the space back to the original Victorian opening, it was at this time whilst I was away on business that my ever so sensible wife decided it would be a good idea to get in the structural engineer to make sure what I was doing was correct and safe, suffice to say, £150 lighter and a whole lot of extra work to what I had planned was needed!!! this entailed building two sides of bricks to hold the 6"x 6" steel beam required to support the internal chimney structure, just as a precaution in case something moved and the whole lot came crashing down, with probably half the house with it!!! as I said, just a precaution!!   

Old Gate Restoration

We had a pair of  old gates which had languished at the side of the house for goodness knows how long, probably removed from the driveway when the house became offices during the 1990`s. At first inspection we found the gates to be partly rotted where they had been stood on solid ground for years, first thoughts were to dispose of the gates and buy new, but against the advice of my sons who most definitley wanted me to throw them in the skip and buy  new, consideration had to be given to restoring them. The romantic in me decided to restore and reposition at the end of the driveway to afford privacy and security to the rear of the building as originally intended.
After stripping the rotten panels we were surprised and encouraged to find we had a substantial hardwood frame, with some remedial work this would give us a good start, with a replacement support strut and a little care and attention we thought we could restore the old gate to its former glory so project gate restoration began.

 All the metal fittings were carefully removed and shot blasted back to bare metal ready for re-painting in gloss black, new tongue and groove panelling was purchased to make good the gate ready for priming and gloss painting in a heritage green colour which would match the impressive front door.

The end result turned out quite well I think!

Making a Start

The first notable feature of our house project is what appears to be a Victorian trait, the distinct lack of natural light, this will need some serious attention as one of the prime objectives is to create a light and open feel to the building, particularly to the ground floor rooms.
On this level there are three rooms, originally the kitchen, scullery and dining room, all have walls and doors keeping each room separate and consequently quite dark rooms depending on the time of day and the position of the sun(when it decides to make an appearance!).
So, the plan is to open up the whole ground floor which will mean taking out completely, a non load bearing wall separating the kitchen and scullery and opening up the solid wall separating the scullery and dining room. This will allow natural light at both ends of the building and from a largish side window.

At the rear there is a two pane patio door which ideally will require opening up almost the full width of the room as the rear of the house is south facing and will allow maximum light into what will be the kitchen diner, the original dining room will become the living room and at this end there is a very large bay window which allows an abundance of light into the room. Onwards............the photographs on the left show the work carried out so far..........