Basement conversion and renovation - EPIC project!

[BlueC]

Lets hope you get the planning...............!! As you have already started.

I take it neighbours have done similar?

Planning is only for the external work and we're told it is a formality as there are no issues of privacy, light, etc and other neighbours have dug out the front. They might insist on finishes in-keeping with the existing walls etc but that is what we plan to do anyway so hopefully it will all go ok! The internal work is being done under a building notice.

[pjl83]

Great looking project. Looking good so far and good luck going forward!

[Megaross]

Prefer Georgian on balance (love working in the Georgian terraces round here) but Victorian can be bloody lovely depending on what you're working with

That looks like an awesome job, I'm really jealous, thats the kind of work I love to do.

[BlueC]

Minor update... slow progress! Our architect let us down so we've had to find a new one - probably set us back at least 6 weeks if not more. Very annoying.

However we have completed the move of gas, electric and water as shown below so at least this is done and won't hold us up when we do get going again.

To fill the gap we've started to renovate one of the ground floor rooms. All the ceilings have been overboarded with asbestos board but done really badly with huge nail heads sticking out that can be seen through the paper so they look a complete mess. We are removing the boards and then need to decide whether to fill then skim or take the whole ceiling down. The latter would allow us to insulate above which would be useful as its a cold property (thick walls!) but obviously it is a fair bit more work and we're unsure whether we can keep the cornicing in tact.

Pics below. New plans from the new architect should arrive within the next few days.

More details here: http://www.renovationblog.co.uk/

[martyn1967]

Minor update... slow progress! Our architect let us down so we've had to find a new one - probably set us back at least 6 weeks if not more. Very annoying.

However we have completed the move of gas, electric and water as shown below so at least this is done and won't hold us up when we do get going again.

To fill the gap we've started to renovate one of the ground floor rooms. All the ceilings have been overboarded with asbestos board but done really badly with huge nail heads sticking out that can be seen through the paper so they look a complete mess. We are removing the boards and then need to decide whether to fill then skim or take the whole ceiling down. The latter would allow us to insulate above which would be useful as its a cold property (thick walls!) but obviously it is a fair bit more work and we're unsure whether we can keep the cornicing in tact.

Not a problem keeping cornice intact as long as its in reasonable shape.
Use an old saw and get a Labrador to cut along the edge of it, it takes time but it then means you can drop the whole ceiling without disruption, its well worth it, keep them dust masks & goggles on when you drop it cos its a very hacky job. you have a long way to go by the sound of it & I hope you have a big amount of money, a property of this size eats money like a V8 petrol engine going round the world in 80 days
Good luck with it & keep us all updated as we love it.

Pics below. New plans from the new architect should arrive within the next few days.

More details here: http://www.renovationblog.co.uk/

[BlueC]

Not a problem keeping cornice intact as long as its in reasonable shape.
Use an old saw and get a Labrador to cut along the edge of it, it takes time but it then means you can drop the whole ceiling without disruption, its well worth it, keep them dust masks & goggles on when you drop it cos its a very hacky job. you have a long way to go by the sound of it & I hope you have a big amount of money, a property of this size eats money like a V8 petrol engine going round the world in 80 days
Good luck with it & keep us all updated as we love it.

Only just noticed your reply (above) hidden in there! Cheers Martyn, your method is what we're going to do, but I'm not sure if a dog is really going to be much use?

[BlueC]

Wow, what happened to July and August!?!! We had planned to get this boxed off over the summer !!

Finally making a bit of progress again now though - took us all that time to get a new architect and get plans drawn up, but plans are all finalised now, structural engineer has done his stuff and we have put our application in to building control. Will post the plans in a bit. Builder coming at the weekend to help us out with some lintels then we're going to get stuck into the tanking.

A few piccies below of minor progress on the basement....

Breaking up the tiles for a perimeter channel

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Claire on her hands on knees with a garden trowel...she said she felt like someone from the great escape!

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Perimeter channel all sorted

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Digging up the coal cellar floor

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The coal cellar had an uneven brick floor so it had to come up and will be replaced with a slab

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Next things to do are move a doorway by about a foot, extend a single doorway into a double, and lay a slab in the coal cellar. Should be cracking on with those this weekend.

[BlueC]

Making some progress now.

This wasn't in the plans but we realised it would make sense to extend the doorway to this store room to make it a double door.

Used two steel UBs as I didn't fancy lifting a 2 metre concrete lintel!

Bargain of the week is the brand new acrows, got them from a local scaff merchant for £15 each (he does them on ebay for £18 if you want some).

Before...

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After.

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The less fun part - sometimes it seems that all we do is bag up rubble!

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[Wes]

Thanks for updating Blue C...Definitely looking forward to the progress and ribbon cutting

[nick200]

Looks great and I look forward to seeing the out come. I checked out the blog and it is a shame that some of the original features have been removed on the ceilings especially.

[BlueC]

Thanks for updating Blue C...Definitely looking forward to the progress and ribbon cutting

Cheers, that could be a while yet!

Looks great and I look forward to seeing the out come. I checked out the blog and it is a shame that some of the original features have been removed on the ceilings especially.

Thanks. The ceilings are a shame but most other features have been retained. I need to update the blog!

We also moved a doorway about 18 inches - might seem a lot of hassle for a small distance but we thought we'd regret it if we didn't do it now.

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And I mixed my first ever loads of concrete so we could lay a new floor in the coal cellar. I was knackered after doing 1.5 dump bags of sand and stone... wouldn't want to be doing this all day!

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New concrete floor for coal cellar.

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Will be a week or so until we do more. Just got a lintel to throw in then on with the tanking.

[BlueC]

To give this all some context here is the plans for the existing layout and proposed changes. Shame this forum doesn't allow me to edit posts as I'd prefer to have been able to add these to the first post!

This is the existing layout of the flat. There is a lot of scope for changes but we wanted to keep the original physical layout as much as possible. It is a beautiful Victorian property with well proportioned rooms and we don’t want to spoil that.

The basement is a bit of a blank canvas consisting only of a coal cellar, hallway, storeroom and large front room.

More info here and full size image here: http://www.renovationblog.co.uk/plans/existing-layout/

Existing layout

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This is the proposed layout. It was a tortuous process getting to this decision but sometimes you have to go on a journey and make a few wrong turns in order to be sure that you have reached the correct destination at the end of it!

More info and full size image here with construction notes and everything here: http://www.renovationblog.co.uk/plans/proposed-layout/

Proposed layout

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I finally got around to posting some updates, and all the layouts/options to the blog too: http://www.renovationblog.co.uk/

[martyn1967]

Not a problem keeping cornice intact as long as its in reasonable shape.
Use an old saw and get a Labrador to cut along the edge of it, it takes time but it then means you can drop the whole ceiling without disruption, its well worth it, keep them dust masks & goggles on when you drop it cos its a very hacky job. you have a long way to go by the sound of it & I hope you have a big amount of money, a property of this size eats money like a V8 petrol engine going round the world in 80 days
Good luck with it & keep us all updated as we love it.

Only just noticed your reply (above) hidden in there! Cheers Martyn, your method is what we're going to do, but I'm not sure if a dog is really going to be much use?

Labrador = Labourer sorry just my daft sense of humour!
Your making progress though, nice to see the good toothing in on the doorway movement, you have a long way to go but will be worth it in the end. Remember... Rome wasn't built in a day. Keep the misses working hard, they love this sort of work in their own way! well mine does

[BlueC]

Labrador = Labourer sorry just my daft sense of humour!
Your making progress though, nice to see the good toothing in on the doorway movement, you have a long way to go but will be worth it in the end. Remember... Rome wasn't built in a day. Keep the misses working hard, they love this sort of work in their own way! well mine does

Thanks Martyn! Yes she is a good grafter to be fair to her and never shirks at doing the manual stuff either like carrying bags of rubble upstairs or clearing up - she puts me to shame really! I just have to make sure I don't let her near the power tools

Also she spends most of her time dreaming about what sofa and curtains she's going to buy - pricing up lintels and building materials doesn't seem to interest her for some reason!

Just got a price for my tanking materials - £2075 inc VAT. OUCH.

[custom made]

Looking good

Would love to take on a project like this. Looking forward to more progress pics