In the attic

[88v8]

No. No stuffed parakeets suits of armour Van Goghs.

And the house has a remorselessly modern presentation with some hideous lighting, but even though I hate the rooflights, all rooflights, I have to admire the way they've engineered the attic.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40443060.html?utm_content=v2-ealertspropertyimage&utm_medium=email&utm_source=emailupdates&utm_campaign=emailupdates3day&utm_term=buying&sc_id=4990530&onetime_FromEmail=true

The house appears to have some original windows, and a catflap. Not all bad.

Ivor

 

[Flyfisher]

Looks like the owner is a keen artist. What's wrong with roof lights giving an abundance of natural light?

 

[88v8]

Rooflights... are modern.
A nice set of dormers, that's another matter.

Ivor

 

[Flyfisher]

Rooflights... are modern.

Even if that were true, would that make them automatically bad?

http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/rooflighting/rooflighting.htm

A nice set of dormers, that's another matter.

Agreed . . . they wouldn't flood an attic space with natural light :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

Rooflights... are modern.
A nice set of dormers, that's another matter.

Ivor

Well, modern-ish - my house, built in 1899, has both rooflights and dormers and they were all original.

I say were as unfortunately the cast iron rooflights, just like the ones on FF's link, were too corroded and damaged to be saved. They've been replaced by the closest replicas I could buy, and I added an additional one to one of my attic rooms which was very dark. It really has transformed the room, which previously only had a small dormer at one end for natural light.

Rooflights do let in a lot of light - far more than a dormer of the same size - and arguably are a more sensitive alteration to an old house, preserving the original roofline. Cheap modern rooflights don't look good though, and even some of the "conservation" ones aren't great.

My extra rooflight can hardly be seen from ground level due to the angle of the roof, and it's behind a chimney stack. It also opened up a very nice view across the neighbouring roofs and chimney pots that previously we did not have.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I'm not keen on the bus shelter over the vestibule.

 

[mims&pip]

In our 1888 villa in Southsea, Hampshire we had an original cast iron roof light above the ceiling of the large main stairwell and the ceiling itself (directly beneath the roof light) held a large etched glass 'window' that flooded light from above down onto the sweeping staircase and ground floor below......'twas a lovely feature

 

[88v8]

Hmmm
You're undermining my prejudices here. :?

 

[Longdogs]

We had a rotten old piece of Perspex on the landing ceiling which, when removed, revealed a rotten old window in the roof with corrugated plastic nailed to it. It was original to the house and the 'tunnel' was made from lath & plaster. We were going to remove it and tile over but the roofer convinced us to renew the window and leave it as opening. It was one of the best things we have done as there is now plenty of daylight on the landing and down the stairs which would otherwise have been a dingy area. The only downside is that it's a bit scary getting up there to paint.

 

[mims&pip]

Hmmm
You're undermining my prejudices here. :?

Sorry Ivor - that wasn't my intention......honest :lol:

 

[plasticpigeon]

Pretty.

 

[malcolm]

I hadn't realised but my 1910 roof appears to have had a skylight on the front elevation from new. It is just visible in a photograph taken just after it was built, though was replaced with a reasonably tasteful Velux about 12 years ago. It's not pretty but serves a purpose. The original one was downright ugly.

 

[TheRoost]

In our 1888 villa in Southsea, Hampshire we had an original cast iron roof light above the ceiling of the large main stairwell and the ceiling itself (directly beneath the roof light) held a large etched glass 'window' that flooded light from above down onto the sweeping staircase and ground floor below......'twas a lovely feature

We have a similar original feature above our stairwell, the roof light is currently timber (not sure if original or not, has been re-glazed in safety glass!) and the 'window' directly below in the ceiling also serves the purpose of being a sliding loft hatch, it looks like a 2 pane sash window and is original (but the glass is sadly not) hmm, wondering now if ours had a light tunnel originally to channel all of the light downwards.

 

[bobby spray]

We too have a roof light or Cupola in our house (built 1895). However you can see it's in a pretty bad state. it's single glazed and has ventilation which lets the heat disappear up through the vents. this is presumably the reason someone in the 1950's put a nasty internal glass ceiling over it. It's on my to-do list.

 

[MatthewC]

That ventilation duct on top of the roof/cupola thing is pretty bad! I guess the frame has been leaking, as that looks like metallic tape over all the glazing bars?

 

[bobby spray]

Yes it does look a state. The good things are that you can't see it from anywhere but up on the roof and it doesn't leak. it's been there for over 120 years so I can forgive it its current state. A powder coated aluminium replacement comes in at about 8k fitted. Given the state of the rest of the house it will have to wait.

 

[mims&pip]

In our 1888 villa in Southsea, Hampshire we had an original cast iron roof light above the ceiling of the large main stairwell and the ceiling itself (directly beneath the roof light) held a large etched glass 'window' that flooded light from above down onto the sweeping staircase and ground floor below......'twas a lovely feature

Bit late in the thread, but I've been trawling through old physical photo albums to find some pics of ours. Therefore please excuse the quality of the first four as they were taken in the late 1990s, long before we had access to a digital camera. They are also from our first few days in the house - which had previously been configured as four flats since the 1950s/60s - so the place looks rather a mess and you can see evidence of my handiwork demolishing the huge partition that separated the ground floor flat from the three on the upper floors :roll: The other two are digi shots from around 2005/6, a couple of years before we sold up......and when our restoration works were almost complete!


More to follow........

 

[mims&pip]

I was unable to add all the pics to my last post so here are the rest. The first of this series shows the 'before' again, while the other two are the afters. Sadly, having spent ages looking for these, I've been unable to locate an 'after' pic that shows the ceiling window/light, but I can certainly testify that once cleaned up (and the actual roof light above repaired), this feature flooded the ground floor hallway with light.......

Mims x

 

[88v8]

You certainly do things with flair. Makes my efforts look very pedestrian.
I have to wonder, once again, how you could bear to sell it.

I suppose it's the moderness of modern rooflights I dislike, rather than the idea of a rooflight per se. There was a wonderful example over the Room in the Lloyds 1928 building in Leadenhall Street, that I was able to visit shortly before it was torn down. During the war, a steel net was spread over it to catch incendiary bombs.

Ivor

 

[mims&pip]

You certainly do things with flair. Makes my efforts look very pedestrian.
I have to wonder, once again, how you could bear to sell it.


Ivor

Thank you Ivor I actually thought our decorating tastes & styles were fairly similar :wink:

Selling it was extremely difficult as we both adored the home we had created, but two of us rattling around in a place that size seemed ridiculous (or rather it did at the time - we've both come to regret our decision hugely as I've mentioned many times :roll: ) and tbh the maintenance costs were crippling, plus Pip needed to give up his stressful, but well-paid job and work from home so our income took a significant hit........

Mims x