Period frustration

[tobydog]

I always said that if I ever met the people who entombed my sole plate plinths with 8" thick cement (yes 8" at ground level and going over 2' into the ground), I would do horrible and illegal things to them. Well, on Sunday afternoon I finally met them. A lovely old god fearing couple who wouldn't say boo to a goose. They lived in the house from the early 90's to 2003 and we invited them round so they could see how it had changed. It turns out they were totally clueless when it came to having building work done and relied totally on a builder who was equally clueless. Most of us know that most of the work done 20 - 30 plus years ago was probably done with the best intentions despite the consequences.

Even more painful though was their admission that they dumped what they believe was the original front door (c1640 :roll: ) in a skip. The door was later taken by a neighbour to renovate their own place. Sometime you can find out too much that you later wished didn't want to know.

On the positive side they did provide us with some great information on the house including how they landscaped the whole third of an acre from bare soil.

I have forgiven them - just.

 

[MdB]

I'm not sure I would be so polite if I met our house's previous owner. He is dead so that is unlikely but when the zombies rise, he will be the first to feel the wrong side of my spade.

I guess what annoys me the most is that it would have taken only a little extra effort to do things properly.

 

[DJH]

I know what you mean tobydog. My neighbour keeps telling me how he buried all the equipment that was scattered about in and around the out buildings of our house. He had bought the farm for the land and sold off the house because he didn't want it. It stayed on the market for nearly five or six years and he thought if he tidied it up it would maybe sell better... all I can do is not even think about all those treasures. As he says 'one mans meat is another mans poison'. Where's that spade??? :lol:

Doug

PS He also keeps telling me that they were weeks away from knocking it down to use the stone on the farm roads but, as he keeps reminding me, he told his family to hang on as there was bound to be some idiot out there to come along and buy it... :lol:

 

[PeterI]

It turns out they were totally clueless when it came to having building work done and relied totally on a builder who was equally clueless

I keep hoping I'm not about to fall into the same trap. I do have a CO to help but it is a worry.

Forgive them a bit (the door however!)

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh Toby that's awful. How absolutely frustrating, all so unnecessary. You did well to remain so civil and be sweetly forgiving. It's true though, that people didn't realise what they were doing with cement, and also true that with every year year that passes things like antiquated doors get more precious. I'm sorry for you, the loss of the door is galling and I know how you feel.

Our previous owner destroyed our front doors because the joinery was a bit rotten and because , he told me last time we spoke about it, painting all the glazing bars is fiddly He has given me close up photos of the demolition in progress so I can see the extent of the rot - yes- hard to put right, quite a lot of bars needing to come out, but I know it could be done. Too late now.

Original porch

The poor substitute he came up with

Matching inner doors to hallway still remain however, as a pattern were I to get hold of the many thousands needed to replicate the original

 

[tobydog]

Joce - I'm not normally an angry person but I have to say that since I found and joined PPUK I am far less tolerant. I'm always judging other peoples houses and work and questioning what they hell were they thinking at the time!!. A bit rich maybe coming from someone who previously only owned new houses. I'm worse than a reformed smoker :roll: .

I did find myself getting frustrated on Sunday but I hope it didn't show because they have given me a good number of contacts to find out more detail about the house including where to get pictures of the house pre- renovation (the rather odd ex-village historian who now lives in a local home with stacks and stacks of history paperwork around him). The old couple bought the house from the person who renovated it so it's not clear why they felt it necessary to add more cement. They said it was to keep the rain from the thatch overhang from causing damp in the plinth but the additional cement on the inside led to the inevitable rot problems.

It had a corrugated iron roof for some time and, despite the horrors inflicted on the place during the renovation, the builder did reinstate the thatch whereas he could easily have pantiled like the rest of the country.

I can see your frustration with your door but at least they did try and copy the original to some extent. I can see what you next project must be.

 

[plasticpigeon]

It's not a million miles away though Joce. The devil is in the detail though. I have a feeling cutting off the frilly lead flashing to leave a straight edge would work wonders as it would look less twee and more elegant. The doors look a good proportion but I assume the lower panels being flush are not really correct. Shame about the sills as these look to be replacements and I'm sure that glazing bars could be spliced in. It might be possible to alter what is there to make a very good copy.

Things like this happened on my place too, although not to such an extent. The most annoying was when the neighbour told me that the old lady who lived there before me only stopped using the coal fires a year before the house was sold when she got too frail to use them. She wanted an electric fire, so got a builder to rip out the original fireplace, brick up the opening and put an electric fire in front. I found smashed up bits of tiles and bits of the slate surround as backfill. The most ridiculous thing is that the electric fire was free standing. I hate to say that despite my best efforts, a lot of damage had been caused during my watch due to incompetent builders. This includes poor pointing, some damaged bricks and the worst offense, damage to stonework on the front of the house. I am now going to have to learn stone carving as I can't find a builder or mason near me that give a s*** about what they are doing.

 

[JoceAndChris]

(the rather odd ex-village historian who now lives in a local home with stacks and stacks of history paperwork around him).

Ooh, you must try to find this person -good luck with that! It's lovely to learn more about the history of the house and at least they did preserve your lovely place rather than let it fall down. Ridiculous amounts of cement though, and hard work to put right.

It's not a million miles away though Joce. The devil is in the detail though. I have a feeling cutting off the frilly lead flashing to leave a straight edge would work wonders as it would look less twee and more elegant.

Thanks, that's kind, and also a very interesting idea that's never occurred to me, as is thre idea of knocking out the existing leaded lights but re-using the existing softwood frame. It could be done, fiddly fiddly work as the glazing bars are just 1.8 cm thick and very crowded in, but Chris is expressing a new interest in carpentry and making great progress with it in the Campaign Room, so a retirement project? I did get a quote from a wonderful company who make the lovely Architectural Bronze Casements - Vale - they'd have put in new doors and frames and double glazed lead lights (very like what's there now but double glazed so a warmer house) - they wanted 7k. I thought for that I really ought to be able to find an independent joiner who would be prepared to make the diamond shaped wooden glazing bars. The proportions of the new doors and the panel is actually an exact copy of what was there, it's flattish on one side but the other side is like what you see in my yellow hallway pic.

I found smashed up bits of tiles and bits of the slate surround as backfill. The most ridiculous thing is that the electric fire was free standing. I

Just so senseless and sad.

I am now going to have to learn stone carving as I can't find a builder or mason near me that give a s*** about what they are doing.

What a shame, I can imagine the problem though. I had a quick look at the directory, not much in your area. Wonder if these people are interested in small projects
http://www.buildingconservation.com/directory/v-a-conservation

 

[88v8]

Very lucky here that no significant damage has been done by the last five owners, three of whom we have met. Cement floor - we have removed - cement pointing - partly removed - sole plate buried, but no harm done, some windows replaced but with wood + single-glaze leaded lights, the only sad thing they all have float glass.
On the plus side, they added a bathroom extension which isn't a complete blot, and the 1972-84 owners thatched it to match the cottage.
We looked for over two years to find a house that hadn't been ruined internally or hideously extended, or surrounded by Barratt breeding boxes. So bad for the blood pressure. And that was looking in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Gloucs, so not exactly a small area. Vandalism, crassness, stupidity, laziness, and now the obsession with insulation, not many unspoilt houses left.
OTOH, the past owners gave us some useful info on the house, and some pld photos, so like you, Toby, I can't really be annoyed with them.
But to throw a 1640 door..... in one of our storage units we have a 1700ish door that we got two years ago from a (listed) Surrey cottage where it has been replaced with a poor replica on the grounds thatt it was warped and twisted. 'It was draughty' whined the seller. It will end up as the side door of our garage, but it should have stayed where it was.

Yes, Joce, you should be able to find someone who will replicate your old glazing bars. Add some Tatra crown glass and you'll have a lovely feature. Just so long as you don't have to keep painting them.

Ivor

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks fore the link Joce. That company is really weird and I have been aware of them for a while. The address there is very close to me, but I think they are actually based at the Birmingham museum and art gallery, and more usually involved with the repair of antiques. I'm sure i contacted them once but didn't get very far.

There were 2 large "conservation" construction companies that were near me until recently when they both went bust. One was Linford Bridgeman, and the other William Sapcote. Although these companies had some high profile restorations in their portfolios, all the people I have met from these companies don't seem to be very good. The builders who worked on my house were fallout from William Sapcote, I got a quote from a plasterer who worked for Trumpers (part of Sapcote) who wanted to PVA my walls and then wouldn't give me a quote when I said i didn't want PVA, and a mason from Linfords who suggested filling my damaged stone with cement and painting. After I said I wanted it left bare stone, he suggested mixing stone dust and pva. This might be ok for a fireplace but for window sills?!?!?! He also thought my stone was grey and couldn't recognise it, and it took me a while to convince him that the grey colour was the remnants of some dirty paintwork and the stone is actually a pale cream colour like Bathstone. I think very few people know what they are doing, and this isn't limited to the building trade unfortunately.

 

[Flyfisher]

We shouldn't be too hard on 'modern' materials. In the right place, they are often far superior to the traditional ones. Who would not want to replace multiple short lengths of salt-glaze foul drainage with modern plastic, for example?

Also, when labour was far cheaper (in real terms) than it is today, it mattered less that linseed paint wouldn't dry in a few hours or that lime plastering was such a time-consuming process. These materials were not used because they were the best things available, they were used because they were the only things available.

Unfortunately, there have been loads of period houses pulled down over the years because people were fed up with living in cold, damp conditions and longed for a nice new modern bungalow. Witness the commercial success of uPVC windows. The vast majority of people are too busy worrying about other things in their lives than to be concerned with quirky old buildings.

I'm not really defending all that, just recognising the reality. Fortunately, there is a hard core of people willing to take an old building under their wing and pour time and money into preserving it for the future, but we should recognise that it's quite a small minority really.

 

[Keithj]

The way it was put to me was "You're not buying a new house to own and live in. You're buying time as custodian and conservator of a very labour-intensive but supremely lovely old house."

I hadn't realised just how many "traditional skills" I would need to acquire, or how much of my time would be taken up with fiddly little DIY jobs. I love it!

I've realised that the house is a living, breathing, moving thing. Doors that opened and closed perfectly last October now bind at the top or the bottom. Plaster cracks that I filled and painted last year have opened up again. The wind blows rain through the tiny gaps that have opened where the green oak from two years ago has shrunk, and the inside walls have tannin stains as a result.

No surprises. We were told. It's only 500 years old, after all. Actually, the old bits aren't such a problem: it's the new oak that's wriggling.

Come the spring (if it comes) I'll be out there with my bucket of chalk, lime and hair and my trusty spatula, filling gaps. Then it's just a splash or three of pink limewash and I can get on with the inside. I'm very tempted - if such exist - to get a small pot of white Classidur and one of magnolia ditto, just to see how they perform on the inside.

 

[Flyfisher]

I love it!

Me too, but there are plenty of people who will question our sanity. :lol:

 

[Keithj]

Yes, but as long as they don't have the authority to section us...

I find people with similar single-minded determination in other fields where I plough a furrow. I enjoy a beer or three with them, too.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I can't take such a light hearted view. When I see well made attractive objects discarded in favour of functional but poorly designed cheaply made modern disposable junk, it upsets me.

 

[Penners]

I'm very glad that you have softened a bit towards the previous owners of your house, Toby.

It's important to remember that the importance of conserving original fabric and using traditional, breathable materials in renovating period properties has only been widely recognised in recent years. When I carried out my first repair/renovation in the 1970s, nobody but a small band of real enthusiasts were aware of such things. And I wasn't one of them. Fortunately, I wanted the house to be as traditional as possible, so I conserved old features, renovated old windows, made new, appropriate doors to replace modern ones, replaced crumbled floors with new pamments, and so on. But I was required by the CO to use old oak for frame repairs, and the re-rendering of some complete walls was done with EML and cement render - all with LBC. I (and apparently the CO) just didn't know any better.

So - one and all - be a bit gentle with those of previous generations who may have "vandalised" your houses. They undoubtedly had no idea that they were doing anything wrong.

 

[DJH]

I love it too! We spent a lot of time travelling over here to work on the house and nothing, absolutely nothing was a chore.For example Mrs DJH carried all the slates we used on the roof carrying 3 at a time up the ladder four times before having a little rest. My beloved climbing a ladder onto scaffolding???

The downside was that we immersed ourselves in the work and never had chance to really meet any of our neighbours. They must have thought we were stuck up but in actual fact it came out that they thought we were 'cracked' as they say here for buying the place. Anyway. once we moved in and I took to driving down the shop on my vintage tractor I met people and made friends by the bucket load. You know that you've fitted in when they rag you about Ireland beating England in the cricket a few years back.

Together we have started an old fashioned flower show and part of the fund raising involves, amongst other things, quizzes and it's my chance to include a few tricky questions about the game. I end up under a mountain of beer mats when the answers are read out...

Love it? We have both never been happier... especially as there's a Marks & Spensive about 20 miles away

Doug from the Premier County.

 

[Feltwell]

No one - or rather almost no one - makes changes to their house to deliberately harm it. A few doors down from me, a nice old couple have just had their original Victorian sashes ripped out and replaced with UPVC. I think it's a heinous crime against the house, they think it's a great improvement. Give it a few years and I hope a new owner will be bemoaning the tatty UPVC and wanting wooden sashes back, but the originals are gone for good - and I've almost certainly got a case of wishful thinking!

Our kitchen range survived until about 10 years ago, the previous owners broke it up in order to put a modern range-style cooker in the space. I think it's a travesty, we might never have used it but I would definitely have kept it and found a space for a modern cooker elsewhere in the kitchen. Mrs F is quietly glad it happened as it makes the best use of space in what is not a particularly large kitchen. :evil:

 

[Penners]

I wonder many decades/centuries will pass before people are "restoring" their houses by putting back those "lovely old uPVC window frames and photovoltaic panels".

 

[plasticpigeon]

I wonder many decades/centuries will pass before people are "restoring" their houses by putting back those "lovely old uPVC window frames and photovoltaic panels".

Ha ha. I'm hoping that in the future people who don't care about the way their built environment looks will live underground.