Day 8: A spooky recap

Although it was Halloween, nothing too spooky happened at the house today. 

Recap:

- bath - gone 

- toilet - gone 

- wall - almost gone. Going to leave the studs to provide some support until the new wall is built. Hopefully tomorrow 

- hot water tank - installed. It's a maze of pipes but all the work is neat and tidy. Tom and Aaron did a very professional job - in impressed. The unit fits perfectly in the corner. 

Tom tested the heating system under mains pressure and everything worked on the first go. No water fountains from the existing pipes so a very good result. He also flushed the heating system - the water was much cleaner than expected. All the rads are working now.

Day 8: Plumbing the boiler

Came to the house and found Tom and Aaron hard at work already. Also found a fox outside that had been hit by a car and was in bad shape. Poor little guy. Tom called animal control and we fed it a steak pasty. Turned out to be the little fellows last meal as he died shortly afterwards.

Onto the house, we finally managed to cut the tub in two to get it out. Used an angle grinder. The thing is solid steel and probably weighs 100kg. It still to two of us to carry out the halves. The new tub is 1/10th of the weight.

Toilet is also out now so the bathroom is clear. I'm going to finish taking out the plaster today in prep for the stud wall tomorrow.

Day 7: Recap of recent events

Today marks our 1 week anniversary of the house. With 1 week to go until we move in. 

Today Tom made good progress, running the cold water main to the bathroom and bypassing all that yucky lead piping. No live water feeds in the loft anymore. He also mounted the boiler on the kitchen wall. It looks good, just a bit bigger than I had imagined. Guess that means lots of hot water for uus. 

I spent the first half of today driving around building supply shops to get material for the new wall. Really didn't do any work until about 2.30. I first built up the floor for the hot water tank. It's going to be carrying alot of weight so it needs to be level and well supported. It was neither before but is now. Nailed 2x4s (or whatever they call them in metric) to the floor joists and mounted 1/2" wood planks on top to disperse the load. I also cut out a 3/4" layer of plywood to go over top. The cylinder should be mounted tomorrow. I'm about half way through the bathroom wall. It's taking a lot longer than expected - hopefully it'll be faster to put up. 

Day 7: the bathroom feels bigger

Added a few inches of width to the bathroom. Man this is a messy job. Just think, each of those slats was independently cut and hammered on. They're hard enough just to take off.

Day 7: Drivin around Surbiton

Not the most productive start to the day today. Picked up a zip car near New Malden and proceeded to make trips to Homebase, Travis Perkins and Wickes. Homebase is much better than the West Hampstead branch. Travis Perkins is not very useful... But Wickes is awesome! My new favourite store.

Day 6: Recap on a busy day

Recap on a busy day 6

• Boiler - gone
• Hot water tank - gone
• Old bathroom fixtures - almost gone. The toilet is sticking around for another day. The tub is made of steel and weighs a tonne. It's not going without a fight. We're going to try an angle grind it in two tomorrow
• New bathroom fixtures - received and ready to go
• Tiles - Carolyn???
• Basin in the 3rd bedroom - gone
• Electrical - all done and tested. Thanks for the great work Martin!
• Bathroom tiles - all gone

In addition, I punched a hole through the wall in the bathroom to see how far I need to move the wall. Wince, we've got a big job on Sunday. In the meantime, it's a bathroom with a peep-hole

1 out of 4 of the bathroom walls is in good shape. 1 will be knocked down, 1 will be backer-boarded, 1 will need some plastering TLC next week - not looking forward to that. Tomorrow I need to pick up some more supplies and kit for the new wall. 

Day 6: Bathroom in a box

Our new bathroom. Some assembly required

Day 6: A proper construction site

Busy start to day 6. Tom the heating tech arrived today. As did the bathroom fixtures. The water stopcock is frozen shut and there doesn't appear to be a shutoff at the mains feed so Tom built a workaround. I called up Thames Water to get a meter installed and a proper shut off installed outside. 

Tom's got the old boiler and tank out now and fully drained the water. He found a massive spider taht now needs to find a new home. Martin looks set to get the rewiring finished and tested today. Now that the water is out, I'm now taking all the fixtures out in the bathroom and "ensuite". The tub is solid steel and weighs a tonne. We may need to cut it with an angle grinder to get it out. ... 

Day 5: Plaster time

My first crack at plastering. I picked the worst surface to begin with - curved, completely uneven, around tiles and including a ceiling. Going easy is for chumps ...

Step 1 - add some PVA to get the walls nice and sticky

Not bad considering that this wall had lots of "character". Needs another skim coat before painting 

...final skim coat on and looking half decent considering that it initially looked like the bumpy side of the moon. I'll throw on a coat of paint any it'll be good to go. 

Day 5: Little discoveries

Pot pourri behind the tiles. Lathe and plaster, another layer of tiles, and a random piece of wood.

Plaster was basically powder so it's getting replaced with backerboard.

Day 5: Change of plans

Martin is working in the kitchen. Don't want to disturb him. So I've decided to X-Tex the bathroom walls.

X-Tex, the magic solution to big decorating mistakes

Directions
1. Apply liberally
2. Cover with cling film
3. Wait 30min to 8hrs depending how awful the finish is
4. Scrape away the painful reminder of the 70s
5. Reapply if still really awful

... And a few hours later. It's like unwrapping presents

And the final result...  A wall with minimal "character". This one will finish up nice

Now let's see what is behind the tiles....

Day 5: Nice surprise to start the day

Came in a bit late this morning and was greeted with a nice surprise - a gift box from Halifax. Wine, biscuits and hanging nails. Could have used some carpentry nails too but beggars can't be choosers.

Martin is hard at work on the kitchen already. My plan for today is to finish off the plastering in the kitchen and start measuring up the bathroom.

Got a chance to see the neighbours place yesterday which is a mirror image of ours. The previous owner sacrificed some space in the 3rd bedroom to make the bathroom bigger. Great ideas deserve copying - so we're going to do the same. Wince is coming by Sunday to help build a new partition wall. More tools needed, happy days.

Day 4: The waiting day

Not a heck of a lot I can do today. Waiting on Virgin Media to finish installing the Interweb. Martin has really progressed with the wiring as can be seen from the photos.

The place looks like a proper construction site now. Sorry Care, we had to smash down a few shelves and the kitchen cabinets to run the wire.

Plan is to take care of some odds and ends and make a trip to Travis Perkins to pick up some plaster kit.

 

Day 3: Wiring

Day 3 we started the electrical work. I met electrician Martin at the house at 8am. Got to peek into the loft and it looks like there will be plenty of height for a conversation later on. Good news. Martin wasted no time pulling wires and ripping out sockets. Looks like he's off to a good start. I did some clean up around the back to stay out of his way.

Greg came by to check out the bathroom window, it doesn't look good. I think we'll have 3 options : 1) shrink the window down making it quite narrow. 2) shift the window over requiring a lot of building work Ipricey, intrusive) or 3) keep everything in place for now (not a great layout). I'm leaning towards the last option for the time being.

Finally, I signed up for a Travis Perkins account. It's a 5 min walk away - very handy.

Day 2: Not all surprises are good

False corner hiding a few spiders and more importantly, lead water feed pipes heading up to the loft. These will need to be replaced at some point in the near future. As will all the plaster. The spiders can go.

Day 2: stairway to hell

Decided to take out all the carpets as the smelled pretty rank. The stairs  were a pita with all those nail strips. Good thing though is that the stairs are in a decent shape. Almost worth all the effort.

Day 2: Cleanup and prep

Late  start today as I needed to wait for homebase to open. I have a new addition to the tool family. Will need this for replacing floorboards.

Today the plan is to clean-up yesterday's mess and then create some new mess. I'll start by removing tiling and textured paint in the kitchen and bathroom. I'm trying out a product called X-Tex which looks great on the adverts. Let's see.

Given that I'm going to be working with Artex which contains Asbestos fibres, I wanted to make sure I wore the correct PPE ... I may need to save this for Hallowe'en to scare the local kids. 

Kind of reminds me of something else we've been watching recently ...

Time provided and provided I can find an isolation valve. I'll look to take out the tub and sink in the bathroom and sink in the small bedroom (low budget ensuite).