Front of house Restoration

[billybuntus]

Hello,

Been lurking on here for a while and I thought I best contribute. I'm currently around 2 months into what started out as replacing my front door and timber surround. We looked to have the front re-rendered. Then struggled to get a match to what was applied to on of the house gables some 3 years ago. In the end I thought I'd try and point the rubble stone up....And here began my quest.

Firstly this is the door that is going onto the house. After much hand stripping by me.

Under the layers of paint is a lovely coating of scumble glaze. I'm not old enough to know why it was ever invented but my uncle reliably informs me that their were a few men who could do a fantastic job on making pine look like walnut or whatever was your chosen timber 'look'.

When heated it turns into a sticky mess then is difficult to remove

I've scraped as much as I dare for now and used a stanley blade to scrape in the fine grooves. Still a long way to go.

After applying lots of elbow grease and water based stripped I'm now here...

The door was thoroughly hosed down with water then a final clean with methylated spirits. Sanded with 120 grit paper and spot coated (knots and edges) with zinnser bin then two full coats using Zinnser 123. It's had one top coat but no pics until it's hung

Thanks

 

[billybuntus]

Moving forward..

This is the house as I started to remove the render. Then found both bays were completely wrecked and badly set out. Clearly the brick has always been rendered. Lime pointing in between the bricks was shot and I could literally pull out bricks with my hand. The door and surround project was obviously put right on the back burner at this stage.

Moving forward again, Most of the render was removed but the brick bay were yet to be touched...

I started re-bricking the bays with reclaimed engineers. The left hand bay had an inner skin which I tied the out course to. I simply turned the original air bricks around and washed them down. The concrete poured cill has to be cut back on the left hand bay.The eagle eyed will see that I used 4:1 sand and cement for the brick work. The rest of the house I will be using NHL 3.5 (3 sand 1 lime).

One finished bay

Onto the right hand bay. This was only single skin brick. I use an acro and strong boy to support the bay whilst I replaced the brickwork.

Both bays completed. At this stage I started to remove the render from the mid section between the upper and lower windows. The same builder had clearly done this section in brick last time the house had a face lift.... More rotten brickwork that would need to be replaced with stone.

The plan is to fit sandstone cills to the 1st floor windows (UPVC is staying which I'm sure will horrify some). Steel lintels will be fitted above the windows and I'll lay a soldier course to tie in with the brick bays. All spoiled limestone will be replaced. All joints hacked out ready for repointing in lime. The whole front will then be sand blasted to remove any remaining cement on the face of the stone.

Rise and fall gutter brackets to be fitted along with cast iron look alike guttering. The real deal is way out of my budget. 90% of the work is being done by me aside from the hacking out of joints and repointing to which I'll be helping out due to time & money constraints.

Scaffolding went up on Sunday morning so I'm progressing nicely although it's hard work on my own as the guy I've taken on to hack out is now finished his end of the deal until I'm ready to blast and repoint. Carrying stone up and down a ladder is far from ideal.

Thanks



Thanks

 

[malcolm]

That looks a lot like my uncle's house in Sheffield. The stone was repaired with brick a long time ago and rendered. He stripped the render off and has been slowly sorting out the stonework for as long as I can remember. It's always fun to visit to see which wall has a great big hole in it.

Yours looks a whole lot nicer without the render. Fantastic work on the door too.

 

[billybuntus]

This ones in county Durham. Just replaced about 2 square metres of spoiled stone tonight. Just sat down for a beer and my tea.

I'll post some more pics and updates when I get a moment.

Thanks

 

[billybuntus]

Here's one of the damage the render had done. The brick looks like I've taken a jack hammer to it. I hadn't it was literally crumbling away as the render was removed. But notice the strength of the remaining lime mortar. Crumbling away but still enough strength to hold up all the brick courses with very very little support. Quite impressive.

 

[LadyArowana]

Thanks for sharing so many interesting pictures and well done for all the progress so far. Will all be worth the effort in the end.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'll do my usual.
You won't like what I'm going to say, but...
I'm pretty sure the house was always rendered. Unless it started life as a cowshed.

 

[billybuntus]

I'll do my usual.
You won't like what I'm going to say, but...
I'm pretty sure the house was always rendered. Unless it started life as a cowshed.

Hi Gareth,

Should I be offended I'm also pretty sure it was always rendered. Part of the reason for doing it is that one gable has an awkward to match finish and the front would never match 100% and it would always annoy me. This way I get to re-render the other gable as near to a match to the existing other gable finish as possible. The render on the gable was done at a cost of 3k before we bought the property so I'm loathed to remove it.

The render I removed was 'original' to the last century as it was in one coat. I imagine it was applied in the 60's/70's

Allowing the front of the house to breath can only benefit it. I'm also replacing a fair amount of spoiled stone which will only strengthen the wall.
I appreciate the render was probably applied as a protective coating and in one respect its saved the stone from weathering but it's spoiled alot of stone through constantly being soaked.

Worst case scenario is that it would be lime washed in 20+years or lime rendered. I think it will be fine as it is though.

Thanks