www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Hey all. Quick Intro to myself and my project.

Name is Danny and from Chesterfield. Bought our first and last house a few months ago in a semi rural area. It's stone built and 170+ years old.

Recently made the decision to go through the house and gut it, top to bottom. Main reason is that although the house is perfectly fit for living in, I wanted to add our own touches to it, satisfy myself that everything 'behind the walls' is fundamentally sound and also to give me something to give myself a focus of sorts away from my day job. I work in IT but as a youth, did some building work on the usual government schemes back in the 80's (not to a qualification level though).
I'm not a bad handyman around the house and I do pick things up pretty quickly. This takes it to another level of course.

I'm not pressed to a timeline, but order of things as they look at the moment are:

• Gut Master Bedroom (self, in progress).
• Remove chimney breast from same and cap off in attic (Builder).
• Gut 2nd bedroom.
• Gut dining room, including taking up concrete floor (self).
• Gut living room, including taking up floor (self).
• Open up living room outer wall to panoramic bi/tri-folds, or similar (Builder).
• Gut Kitchen, Including taking up floor (self)
• Open up dividing wall between kitchen and dining room (Builder).
• Gut staircase/Hallway.

That brings me to the whole house gutted back to a shell with the skilled building jobs completed. Bathroom was done only a couple of years ago so probably not going to touch.

Renovation steps:

• All internal walls re-pointed (Self).
• New Floorboarding in Bedrooms as Required (Self).
• Full Re-wire (Electrician).
• Fully Networked (Self).
• Fully Alarmed (Self).
• [provisional] Full House Speaker System Install (Self).
• Full Re-Plaster of Master Bedroom [this is to re-establish a 'comfort zone' for the missus after living in a 'cave' for so long] (Plasterer).
• Underfloor Heating Installed Through Kitchen, Living & Dining Room (Self/Plumber).
• Concrete Floors Re-Layed (Self).
• Full Re-Plaster Throughout in Provisional Order: Kitchen | Dining Room | Living Room | Staircase/Hallway | 2nd Bedroom (Plasterer).
• Re-insulate Attic

After that it will be a new kitchen and master bedroom designed/installed and everything else is just gravy. I've just become aware of the fact, I must be mad!

Anyway. It will be a stop/start journey based on the ebb & flow of cash availability, but we'll get there in the end.

I will get some photo's up later of the current state and keep it updated with progress shots. I will of course be reaching out to the pro's on this forum, as and when I need advice/guidance for each unique job I have to tackle and whether I should be even attempting it as an unqualified professional. look out for my first post coming soon on what I need to do re engaging local gov building regs/control.

Thanks in advance for all the support provided.

/Danny

Hello and..

Speaker sytem SONOS ?

Not yet decided. Need to look at options. Luckily I have a friend who is a big audiophile. Cost will play a big part in it and the speaker network will be cabled to keep wireless interference to a minimum.

OK, few shots here of the gutting of the master bedroom. These are a few weeks old so will post more recent tonight.

I've actually starting chasing out the mortar in preparation of the re-pointing that will happen next. To keep things on an even keel - and give Sarah a break from the dust - I will do the re-pointing after each room is gutted before moving onto the next.

After spending an hour with a chasing chisel and lump hammer, I realized that I needed some automated help. Did a little reading and popped down to a well known store (not sure if I'm allowed to mention) yesterday and picked up a cheap (<£50) SDS Plus Hammer Drill. I have to say, I gave a it a whirl for an hour last night and was impressed with it. The pointed chisel that came with it had no problems stripping out the mortar. I have also invested today in the Armeg G175B4MRC6 175mm Carbide Tipped SDS Plus Mortar Raking Chisel. Again from another well known online store (it was cheaper than the local one). Hopefully that will yield even better results.

Anyway, to the pics. You will see that a previous owner - to get nice clean square walls I imagine - decided to simply baton, board and skim over whatever was on there at the time. This was at least 100 yrs worth of old wallpaper and plaster (I counted 8 layers of paper).
They had also nailed to some of the walls the black (bitumen based?) corrugated damp proofing. And when I say nailed, I mean there were a bucket-load. Not a good idea to nail it I was told by a plasterer who came out recently to do me some quoting, because as soon as you put a nail through it, any moisture will draw through and rust the nail, which is exactly what happened and the reason I started the whole strip, because those damp/rust spots were leaking through onto the plaster finish.

The wallpaper was really damp behind the plasterboard. I have no idea how long it had been there, maybe 2 years, maybe 20. A day or two after I'd removed most of the plasterboard and damp proofing however, the paper dried out and the wall behind it was dry as a bone.

The chimney breast you see in the images below is the one that is coming out. I have discovered - after whipping up some boards - that it is not currently supported. Again, it was removed from the ground floor by a previous owner to make way for french windows in the dining room below.
In the dining room above the french window is a huge wooden beam casing that we assumed enclosed the RSJ supporting the removed stack. Not the case, that beam - which is simply wooden - supports the front end of the upper bedroom floor joists; they are not embedded supported within the wall.

Few more pictures as of current state. Next step is to get that chimney breast removed. Struggling to get a builder that has some time so have agreed with one that I will remove the breast and re-brick up the wall face and he will come and do the permanent support in the attic when he is free. For the interim, I'll throw up a temp support of sorts that will last a month or two.

I'll take out a layer of stone at ceiling height and support with an acrow-prop/beam, then work top down to remove the breast. I can then move to the attic and take out enough courses to get the support in, trying to leave a greater height of internal breast than external.

As you can also see, I've done a fair bit of raking out of the old mortar, which I will re-point myself with a lime mortar. As you can probably also see, the top 3 courses don't look too clever so I may remove and re-lay those.

Will head to the plastering forum for advice on finishing the walls. Not sure if regular boarding and plaster is the way to go or whether I should consider lime plastering (could be expensive?).

Anyway, here are pics....