Before and now, 10 years later!

[DJH]

Ten years after buying our house we have finally finished one of our bedrooms, well, almost as I've taken out the sashes for painting so we have a bubble wrap window behind the shutters for a while. We made the mistake, which I'm sure others have, of moving in before all the 'little' jobs were finished thinking we would do them later not realising that later meant 10 years!!

The main bedroom the day we bought....



Ten years on....

 

[DJH]

some more views...

 

[DJH]

Never give up!!!! :lol:

 

[Moo]

That's really inspiring!

 

[MdB]

Pah! you had it easy. Where is all the woodchip wallpaper that we have all had to remove? Where is the hardboard and lino?


(actually - really good job mate.)

 

[Sonyaclegg]

Before and after pics are always great to see.

 

[Zebra]

Oh my, DJH, what a lovely job you've made of that. Is that new wood panelling on the walls and ceiling?

 

[DJH]

It's new paneling on the walls and new 10" x 1" timbers over the rafters diminishing to 8" x 1" at the apex and over that is Kingspan insulation with taped joints, a breather membrane over that with counter battens fixed through into the rafters and then natural slates on treated battens.It's a warm ventilated roof which ensures the underside of the slates has air circulating under them no doubt extending their life and any moisture below dissipated with the flow of air.

Doug

 

[worms]

Love the shutters on the window!

 

[LadyArowana]

It looks great now, you were brave to take it on in the state it was!

 

[wobs]

You weren't tempted to restore the painting featured in the first photo? It would surely be better than a certain fresco in Spain.

 

[Roger H]

Excellent. (Although I hope you haven't closed the shutter to divert us from some PVCu... )

 

[DJH]

PVCu windows me??? :shock:

No the shutters are closed because I've taken them out to paint them and, as you would expect we had a storm last night which blew the plastic away and rattled the shutters until the early hours. In my view you can never paint sash windows in-situ sash properly and taking them out gives me the opportunity to undercoat the whole frame and I don't gloss or top coat the last half an inch or so so that when they go back in they won't stick, A rub from a candle on the touching surfaces keeps them from sticking as well.

You can see from the pictures that our windows are very low down and uncomfortable to paint them in position with a lot of head banging thrown in as well. :roll:

Here's the windows on the kitchen table with their first undercoat on....



This window doubles as a fire escape because as is common in old Irish houses the stairs rise from the kitchen which is where most fires happen. The mouldings aren't pinned in position and will come out easily as will the separating rail between the sashes. Hope I never have to use it too escape...

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Brilliant! Also love the shutters. High five!!!!

 

[Flyfisher]

Lovely to see before and after photos . . . It keeps my spirits up and proves that things can be finished!

So far, I've only got a collection of before and during photos.

 

[robgil]

Thats a nice job , was vaulting the ceiling difficult?
Also , undercoat absorbs moisture, well the undercoat used for painting vehicles does anyway. It might be an idea to add some pva to it? Could be an idea or it could be a bad one as it might peel off.

 

[DJH]

The candle wax I rubbed on should give the undercoat some protection and, bearing in mind most of those surfaces are on the inside condensation shouldn't be a problem. The ceiling wasn't too difficult as after we took down the paneling and saw that we had a collared beam roof with stout randomly sized and positioned purlins we decided to keep it exposed as it would have been originally. The underside of the slates still had some plaster which was used to keep the wind out and the slates on. Most of the the rafters were beyond repair after 40 years or so of water getting in and they were also haphazard sizes so we replaced them. We think that the decking over these rafters which are painted with some of the fifty shades of white available, look much like the original would have.

Anyway on wards and upwards to finish the other bedroom now. This was ten years ago

 

[88v8]

Excellent. I always finished the details as I went along, never moved to another job until the first was completed. A friend does the opposite: He finished - perhaps 'finished' by my standards - three houses while I did one. :?

One can never have too many 'before' photos. One thinks one will remember, but it ain't so.
This also applies to dismantling the car... now where did these go??

Ivor

 

[DJH]

We tried to finish as we went along Ivor but we did the work bit by bit coming over about once every month or six weeks from the UK and once the house was 'in the dry' we worked on one room at a time and somehow got in front of ourselves and left some small finishing jobs behind in the rush to finish everything. Moving in when all the work isn't done is fatal!!

In my defence before health problems as well as the house we converted a milking parlour into a single bedroom apartment part converted the dairy (still have to finish that!) and refurbished a two bedroom derelict cottage for a friend of ours.

We took photos of everything before we started work with the intention of putting before and after photos in each room until we realised that there wasn't any need to put after photos up... :lol:

Doug

 

[JoceAndChris]

Gosh, what a project, and what a craftsman you are! Beautifully neat work.
When did the previous strippy panelling go in, I wonder?