Room with a view

Now that all the initial cleaning has been completed it is time to start on getting the rooms ready.

We have decided to get each room to a set standard, not finished as this would take far too long, but to a standard where we can live and breathe without becoming ill.

John starts on the other bedroom first.

 

Most of the electrics are removed, this does not take very long, but makes a big difference, as the electrics are all surface mounted with exterior sockets.

John adds a socket, this is with all of the wires inside the wall, this does take longer but it makes the project look so much better. If you are having a house rewired always check how the wires are going to be, as you may end up with an installation like this with surface mounted trunking and exterior sockets.

But the main job in here is to remove the rotten architraving from around one of the windows, we do not know how far the rot goes.

This we work out very quickly as rather than pieces of wood coming away, the wood breaks into sawdust!

John is ready with an acro for just in case he needs to hold the wall up, as we have no idea what condition the wooden lintel is in.

Stones and plaster come down as well, but the lintel is solid, this is such good news. John treats it with wood preserver just to be on the safe side, this is something he does with every piece of wood that gets exposed, it is a good idea to just treat everything, just because there is not a problem now, does not mean there will not be a problem in the future.

The walls are re plastered and at some point John will add the architraving, but for now that is not essential.

Next all of the walls are given a coat of paint, again this makes such a difference to the room. But the real difference is when the window frames are painted, we had bought some purple from a range for period properties so should´ve looked fantastic,

it didn´t,

it just looked like a student bedsit and did not last long.

So we played with a few different colours and eventually bought a brown that did look good and once the bed was added, we actually have a room that is liveable.

In case you didn´t realise this was completed over a number of days, John is good, but he is not superman!

I have 2 rooms in the house that are liveable and clean. I am so happy I could do a little dance.

And then I think, how easily pleased am I? I want to celebrate because we have 2 rooms that won´t make me ill, but as I think this, I look out of the window and see the sun rising and realise, it doesn´t matter what we are living in if I get to see this each morning and know at some point the sun will shine over our piece of paradise, after all it won´t be too long before all the rooms are liveable and we can sit back and enjoy

Top tips

• Always have acros´s or something similar, if you are potentially taking away something that is possibly holding up a wall
• Don´t try to do too much in one go
• Take time to sit back and appreciate what you have
• Always try to look at the bigger picture
• if you are paying to have work completed ensure both you and the tradesperson know exactly what is wanted