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Introduction

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This blog captures the journey of our renovation to an Edwardian era detached house. The property consists of a sitting room, drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, kitchen, utility and conservatory on the ground floor, 4 double bedrooms and bathroom on the first floor and another 2 bedrooms on the second floor. There is also a detached garage and workshops which run along the west-side of the house (shown incorrectly in the plan above due to lack of space) As the property is constructed of solid walls with single glazing timber windows, the house is obviously very cold, so we are hoping to improve the thermal efficiency of the property during our renovation. Our intention is to remodel the rear of the house from its separate rooms into an open-plan living, dining and kitchen area. We would also like to replace the existing garage with an attached garage and room above to accommodate a dressing room and en-suite for the master bedroom. Previous Next

Day 126 - Structural Works

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As the floor joists in the attic were quite small and were already bowing due to the weight of items stored there over the years, we decided that to make the space usable we needed to strengthen them. Again, this was another unplanned task. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Previous Next

Day 125 - Enabling Works

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Had a visit from a friend today and was just discussing whether to remove the fireplace or not from the living room. One thing lead to another and before long we had removed the fireplace from the living room and also removed the plaster from the chimney wall. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 This is where we are hoping to install our wood burner but having the plaster removed, we are now debating whether to leave the chimney as exposed bricks. Previous Next

Day 124 - Structural

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Flooring for the garage was delivered this morning and was fitted shortly afterwards. Photo 1 Photo 2 Previous Next

Day 123 - Brickwork

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 Brickie was back on site today to create the doorway between the master bedroom and walk-in closet above the garage. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3  Creating the opening using an angle grinder produced unbelievable amount of dust. Photo 4 Photo 5 This will be the doorway from the master bedroom into the walk-in closet/dresser and en-suite above the garage. Due to the height constraints, we will require some steps down from the bedroom. Previous Next

Day 122 - Insulation

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Having completed the insulation in the kitchen diner, we started on insulating the external walls of the adjacent living room. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Previous Next

Day 121 - Insulation

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With the garage roof now constructed, we waited for delivery of the breathable membrane and battens to get it covered. During the current pandemic delivery times have been stretched due to suppliers closing or reducing operations. Anyway, this was a good time to get back to insulating the kitchen/diner extension. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9 This took about a week to complete and is a horrible task to undertake. Its bad enough having to cut 150mm insulation boards and work off wobbly trestles but the task is made even more painful when the rafters are not parallel to each other, meaning the distances vary and so each board needs to be cut many times. It creates an unbelievable amount of mess. Photo 10 Previous Next

Day 120 - Roofing

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So the carpenter was back on site today to add the noggins between the rafters and we also had the brickie install the final window sill to the en-suite above the garage. Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4  This window sill was cut from natural stone at a reclamation yard. We provided the sill profile to match the existing front stone sills. Photo 5 Photo 6 Previous Next