forum ideas?

[JoceAndChris]

A dining room ceiling rose? :mrgreen: Oh Mr P, can we swap houses?

( and there I prove the absurdity of my own argument!)

 

[Alex]

I love looking at photo's of other peoples houses, it always cheers me up when things aren't moving very quickly here, it's nice to know that we are not the only one's living on a building site.

Now all I have to do is learn how to upload my own photo's.

 

[robgil]

I love looking at photo's of other peoples houses, it always cheers me up when things aren't moving very quickly here, it's nice to know that we are not the only one's living on a building site.

Now all I have to do is learn how to upload my own photo's.

this might put a smile on your face , this is my living room.

and my kitchen,

 

[Flyfisher]

You didn't tell us you'd finished it. :wink:

 

[robgil]

just some minor cosmetic details to take care of.

 

[Feltwell]

Needs a bit of a dust Rob.

Some people have no shame. Fancy not dusting before posting that picture up. Tsk.

 

[Feltwell]

I suppose I just have an aversion to the phrase "putting the character back in", the same as I despise the phrase " restored to former glory".

Can't argue with that. It is hard to come to a judgement about what should be done to make a house more practical to live in for how we live today, without compromising it's history too much. I could have quite cheerfully throttled the previous owner of our house when she popped in about a year after we bought the place, and casually mentioned that the kitchen had it's original range when she moved in, plus a more modern cooker.

She ripped (literally) the old range out and put a modern "range style" cooker in instead.

There is no way I would have done that - but I do have to admit that the cooker is a very good one, and it is a very good use of space having it housed in the old chimney breast. It's not a large kitchen and to have it elsewhere (not being willing to only have a Victorian range to cook on!) would seriously compromise the available space.

 

[Penners]

Rob - in your kitchen picture you have two swatches of plaid fabric hanging on the corner of that lovely run of kitchen units. Presumably these are your possible curtain fabrics, are they?

If so, I recommend the green (the Fraser hunting tartan, perhaps?), as being the more suitable.

 

[Juju]

After discussing ceiling roses at the PPUK party the other week, we want to rip ours out! They were probably put in by the previous owner in his 'modernisation' and they don't suit the style of the living room with its beams, flagstone floor, inglenook fireplace and our crappy furniture. How can you tell if ceiling roses are old? I suppose I'd leave it if I thought a Victorian moderniser put it in but if it's only 10 years old, I want it out! We face such dilemmas with our properties

 

[JoceAndChris]

I quite agree. And also with Feltwell's point about the range - something else I might change here with the old copper boiler thing. Interesting feature - but... I need to be able to cater for large groups.

How to tell the age of a thing - I've found Nitromors to be really useful. You could do a weeny test patch. (and if you decide to keep the Rose, fill the hole with Onefill). If there are many many layers of paint, it's probably old. If you do test patches all over your house you start to build a picture of what paint schemes happened when, especially if, like here, the same colour was used in multiple rooms.

 

[Penners]

I agree with Joce. With plaster mouldings it's extremely difficult to tell whether they were made a couple of years or a couple of centuries ago. The paint is probably the best indicator - if their details have been softened and filled with many layers of it, then they're probably old.

But (and after saying this I shall wash my mouth out with soap), if you can't tell whether the thing is two years old or two hundred, then shouldn't your attitude towards it be exactly the same either way?

Delete that last paragraph if your house is listed (sorry - I can't remember!)

 

[robgil]

Rob - in your kitchen picture you have two swatches of plaid fabric hanging on the corner of that lovely run of kitchen units. Presumably these are your possible curtain fabrics, are they?

If so, I recommend the green (the Fraser hunting tartan, perhaps?), as being the more suitable.

yes it is Penners , i also fancy the green. we wish to introduce a Scottish theme into the kitchen area or to narrow it down a glasgow bedsit theme, we will be using the tartan when ever we can but also little details such as empty beer cans (the cheaper the more realistic) , a few buckfast bottles with candles in , a few burnt spoons , some vomit , a crusty old cooker that looks to be used for heating the place and not cooking on , a by-passed electricity meter and a lot of full ash trays , we may even decide to not buy anyone a drink down the pub and pretend to never have any money whilst speaking in an obscure Glaswegian dialect with the only understandable sentences being ''hey you pal , buy us a pint'' and ''fags , now''.
my period kitchen will be one from the ''Scottish'' period.

 

[Penners]

You trend-setter, you.

 

[Alex]

Robgil Yes it did put a smile on my face :lol:
I have noticed that whenever I moan on here, I am always outdone by someone who posts a photo of their still unfinished building project, which they always seem particularly proud of. I seem to remember a thread on here a while back where forum members were posting pictures of their piles of rubble in their gardens (must be a man thing). So maybe we should have PPUK awards like they do in the glossy mags but unlike theirs which seem to be for "who can use the most F&B plastic paint" and "who can struggle by with only a budget of £50k to spend on a handcrafted bespoke kitchen", ours should be "longest time spent in a caravan on site", "most number of months spent lime plastering the understairs cupboard" and "most inventive use for an acro prop (other than the purpose they were invented for)" etc. As someone who currently has the washing line strung up on the famous Christmas present scaffolding tower, I think this would be a good idea, it could also be the only competition I ever enter. Obviously photographic evidence would be required and that way we all get to see more PP Porn

Alex
P.S. What about forum member with the most number of layers of lino covering an original flagstone floor ?

 

[LadyArowana]

But (and after saying this I shall wash my mouth out with soap), if you can't tell whether the thing is two years old or two hundred, then shouldn't your attitude towards it be exactly the same either way?

Well said. Heresy around these parts though :lol: Puts me in mind of a conversation I had with someone about some antique Chinese furniture. They asked me if I thought it was genuinely old, and I said that it undoubtedly was, however it wasn't nice quality when it was new and getting old hadn't changed that.

 

[robgil]

Robgil Yes it did put a smile on my face :lol:
I have noticed that whenever I moan on here, I am always outdone by someone who posts a photo of their still unfinished building project, which they always seem particularly proud of. I seem to remember a thread on here a while back where forum members were posting pictures of their piles of rubble in their gardens (must be a man thing). So maybe we should have PPUK awards like they do in the glossy mags but unlike theirs which seem to be for "who can use the most F&B plastic paint" and "who can struggle by with only a budget of £50k to spend on a handcrafted bespoke kitchen", ours should be "longest time spent in a caravan on site", "most number of months spent lime plastering the understairs cupboard" and "most inventive use for an acro prop (other than the purpose they were invented for)" etc. As someone who currently has the washing line strung up on the famous Christmas present scaffolding tower, I think this would be a good idea, it could also be the only competition I ever enter. Obviously photographic evidence would be required and that way we all get to see more PP Porn

Alex
P.S. What about forum member with the most number of layers of lino covering an original flagstone floor ?

brilliant idea.

and for starters my nomination for the most inventive use for a 1980's hardboard and cardboard door is this. propping up a disintegrated clay lump wall.

then i realised it was too low to the ground after much of the wall crumbled from in behind it so i had to angle grind a section out of the door in situ.

the best part is if you look behind the clay lump you will see the lovely old red floor bricks that were lifted to be replaced with concrete and then used in various diy projects around the house such as this , i am not sure why they are there but i am sure they dont really need to be there.


and the finished wall.
you can clearly see the difference in size between the old blocks at the top and the new ones at the bottom , thats how much they have disintegrated through water and frost damage , its stable now though and doing its job quite well.

 

[Alex]

:twisted: Been out done again, my hardboard door is just laying in the garden, waiting to decompose.

 

[robgil]

HA HA! i too had one in the garden , it is now in my shed awaiting transformation into a table to work on.
i am not quite sure what work but i am sure it will come in handy.

 

[MdB]

P.S. What about forum member with the most number of layers of lino covering an original flagstone floor ?

I won't win that one but I think I might win the "Most amount of lino stuck to the walls"

 

[Alex]

I do like the idea of lino stuck to the walls ! That beats my artexed t&g on the stairs. Think I can beat you with the colour of the bathroom suite though, when we viewed the cottage the bathroom suite here was what my teenage daughter described as "baby poo brown". As soon as my ill I.T. technician friend is better, I shall get her to put the photgraphic evidence on here to proof it.