The Finished Plastering

I've been struggling for things to do this week because we needed the plasterer to finish. He came on Thrusday and Friday And the plastering is now finished and just needs to dry out a bit. Nathan has filled in the bottom of the fireplaces and raised up the front one a but ready to put the tiles on. We put the fireplace against the wall to see what it would look like before Nathan did the self levelling concrete and took a photo (below). 

The plasterer recommend a plumber so he came round to have a look this morning and is going to get back to is with a quote. We need the boiler sevricing, the oven fitting and the radiator pipes sorting in the lounge and front bedroom. We will be moving in next weekend so we might be living off microwave meals until we can get the oven connected. 

We have also cut the beading for the bedroom and given it a first coat of paint today. Whilst we were waiting for the plumber to come I was pulling up weeds in the grass. I've looked online and we might kill it all off in the spring and out new turf down so we can sort it out and get rid of the lumps and holes and the weeds.

Tomorrow's jobs are to finish painting the beading, clean the floor in the lounge, Nathan is going take the frame of his fireplace concrete and is going to tidy up the edges and we might start painting the ceiling in the lounge! 

Fireplace Progress

We've only speant a couple of hours at the house today. I've started to unpack some of the things from the kitchen. Then I cleaned up the fireplace a bit, I've seen some polish online for it which is recommend by most people so I think we will get some of that.

We laid out the terracotta tiles by the front fireplace to see how many we will need in a row so we can plan the bottom of the fireplace a bit. Nathan is going to make a raised hearth.

Nathan's four some concrete in the bottom of the back fireplace. He's going to get some self levelling concrete to flatten it all out to make a base for the tiles inside as we're having a drinks storage wrack inside this one!

We're getting a bit stuck for things to do now until the plasterer has come and finished. Hopefully in the week we will do the beading for the floor in the front bedroom as we've not had chance to do this yet.

Moving Things

We've spent most of today moving things over to the new house. We've moved pretty much everything we can until we move out of this house which will probably be in less than two weeks.

Please excuse the half cut grass, the lawn mower is having a hard job getting through it and keeps dieing!

Yesterday we went on a shopping trip! Home base had 15% off so we bought some duck egg blue paint for the lounge and two new toilet seats!! We also finally got some keys cut. Then we went to an outlet furniture shop and found a sofa we really like for £400. It's a 3 seated and the end 3 seats recline and the fabric is a fake suade effect. It's also really comfy!! We've put a deposit on it for it to be delivered around mid September. We're due to be getting £700 back from the deposit from our rented house so this will buy the sofa! 

Today I've cleaned the downstairs toilet and fitted the toilet seats upstairs and downstairs (I'm now an expert toilet seat fitter). Nathan has been preparing the fireplace for the plasterer a but more by filling in some missing bricks in the side.

The Bannister

Today I was waiting in as we were getting a water meter fitted between 12 and 6. I did a bit of cleaning and tidying and touched up the paint in the bedroom them I was wondering what o could do next without having to go and buy anything. I decided I would try and clean and paint the bannister and railings upstairs. The light isn't the best but you get the idea!

Before...

After...

Plastering

Just a quick update on the plastering; they have finished most of the lounge and doing room. They just need to do above the picture rail in the dining room and inside the fireplaces! The plasterers aren't able to come again now until early next week so it will get finished around then.

We're having the night off from the house tonight. We need to go and measure some things tomorrow. Nathan had been looking at some radiators that we want and we need to know the sizes of them ready for if we get a plumber in. We nee to get the plumber to service the boiler and fit the cooker so we thought we would try and get it all done at once.

I've still not seen any flooring I like for the kitchen. It would be good to get it done before we move in and have to put the cooker in the kitchen but I don't want to get anything I don't like!

I've got the day off in Friday and someone is coming to look at fitting a water metre in the afternoon so I should get a few jobs done then! We're going to try and move most of the things from our old house in this weekend!

Plastering- Day 1

Just some photos of walls but the plasterer has made good progress today in the lounge/ dining room! By tomorrow hopefully most of it will be done!

Varnishing The Floor

Now we have finished the floor in the bedroom here are some photos. The first is before we started the sanding.

The next photo is after we finished sanding.

Below is after two coats of varnish. After the first coat I had used nearly half of the tin and I was planning on doing three coats as this is what most people had recommended online. The floor was quite absorbent so it was taking a lot of varnish to cover it. On the second coat I used much less as the first coat had sealed it and I used even less on the third coat.

And then this is the floor after the third and final coat of varnish! 

I'm really pleased with how it has turned out and I like the finish of the varnish we used (Liberon High resistance floor varnish in matt- soft sheen) as I didn't want to too shiny. The floor is darker in the middle of the room than it is around the edge but this is just how the wood has been treated differently over the years and I think when we get the furniture in you won't see this as much.before the third coat I tried to do an extra coat of varnish around the edge to darken it but I it didn't make much difference and I didn't want the edges to end up more shiny.

Sorting Out Our Old House

I finished varnishing the floor in the bedroom yesterday morning so photos should be up later today!

We have got someone coming to view the house we are currently renting on Tuesday so we spent mostif yesterday (Saturday) moving things across to the new house and cleaning and tidying our rented house. 

We also went to B&Q yesterday to get the stuff for the plasterer. He is hopefully bringing someone with him and coming on Monday so they should make good progress on the lounge and dining room. We still need to buy the metal covers for the corners of the room but they're long so we will have to hang them out of the car! We also need to go to Wickes today and get one more thing for the plasterer. We need to PVA the walls today ready for the plasterer and take the last few skirting boards off.

Hopefully today we can get some of the finishing touches done in the front bedroom. We just need some beading for around the edge of the floor and some wood to sort out the gap above the window. We're going to use the old curtain rail for the bay window as they look quite expensive and I think it just needs tightening up. I'm going to measure for some curtains and hopefully if we get some fabric Nathan's a grandma can make us some!

Below is a a combination of the two videos I have took, I managed to edit them into one video last night so we can see the changes more.

3 Week Update

I have done a video to show you how things are going with the house. I've decided we're at the end of the making it look worse stage and now it's only going to get better! The lounge is pretty much ready for the plasterer now and both fireplaces have been knocked through.

The upstairs front bedroom has had the floor sanded and is going to be varnished this week. I have painted the skirting boards tonight and we just need to get some beading for around the edgenof the floor and sort out the window frame then we can move onto furnishing it!

Sanding The Floorboards

We picked up the sanders from the rental shop this morning. We had reserved a bug sander and a smaller one for around the edges. We are paying £40 for the weekend including the paper. The first photo is of the floor before we started, the middle was in good condition and had no coating. Around the edge had been varnished previously. 

First we had to make sure all the nails and staples were not sticking out. Nathan did this with a punch. I had  ago but after making a hole in the floor decided to stop!

Below is a photo of the big sander.

This was the smaller sander, this turned out to be the harder one to use! Nathan started with the big one because I was a bit worried. I said I'd start with the small sander but after a few seconds of it moving around everywhere I decided to stop. The big sander just moved forwards but as the little one spun it was harder to control. 

The varnish on the edge was hard to remove and was melting on the sandpaper and we had to keep stopping and removing it. 

We started by going with the grain and using the medium grit sandpaper. As this was quite hard we eventually changed to using the tougher sandpaper and going against the grain. We then went over this with the medium sandpaper. The man in the shop also said some people do it diagonally.

The paper got shredded once as it wasn't on tight enought and went flying all round the room. Nathan was using the machine at the time and thought it had exploded!

Below is a photo after using the small sander with the toughest grit sander to go over it once. Getting the varnish off was definable the hardest part. We had to keep taking the sandpaper off and peeling off the varnish that had melted and set on the paper.

We got as close as we could to the edges then finished the very corners with sandpaper on a block by hand.

At the end if the day we have made good progress but not quite finished. We still have some of the edges to finished and once this is done we need to go over it all with the finer grit sandpaper. We're really happy with how it is turning out!

We've pulled up the carpet in the other bedroom. We weren't going to decorate this room yet but we thought while we have the sander for the weekend we might be able to get started on it tomorrow. 

Other Updates

We needed to get things ready for the plasterer. We have finished cleaning the walls downstairs and got the polystyrene bits of the wall by either washing or sanding the walls. Nathan has now taken the radiators off and his dad has helped to put a lintel in the fireplace.

The second fireplace was full of soot. There had been a smaller chimney built inside the big chimney, it didn't have the tops closed off so either side of the small chimney was filled with soot. The lintel is going in this one tomorrow. This fireplace is bigger and we thinks this would have been the original living area in the house and the front section would have been kept for best which is why it is in much better condition.

This is the fireplace we have bought leaning against the wall to see what it would look like. For the second chimney breast were not going to have another fireplace but we have seen an idea on Pinterst making the alcove into a drinks storage area so we might do that as it will be in the dining room.

We've also cleared all the weeds out the garden, I've not got any photos but Mum wasn't very happy when a frog jumped out! Luckily by that point we had nearly finished!

Dad's also been tidying up the edges in the kitchen where there was sealant on the edges if the tiles and we had tried to paint. He has been removing the sealant as it's not needed and the tiles have a nice edge to them.

We had a look for some flooring for the kitchen but haven't seen anything we like yet. I want laminate tiles but I want them to be light in colour as we painted the top grey. I also want the tiles to be quite small as I think they will look out of proportion if they are too big as the kitchen is white small. We will keep looking out for some.

The Fireplace

We've had a fireplace delivered today from Neath. This is going to go in the lounge area once the chimney breast is finished. I really like it and think it goes well with the style of the house. Its in good condition but needs a bit of cleaning and has a few little spots of rust. We're not going to have it as a working fireplace and we not decided what we will put in the fire section yet.

We've also reserved some sanding machines to do the floorboards in the front bedroom on Saturday. Mum and Dad better get ready because it's supposed to be hard work! 

The Front Bedroom

We are going to have the front bedroom as the main bedroom but we may change this at some point. We decided if we get this ready for when we move in we can sit up here in the evenings as well incase the lounge isn't finished. There was wood hipped paper on the wall so we removed this with a steamer.

The walls were ok underneath but did need quite a bit of filler over the dents and holes. Nathan filled in the holes using filler and painted the walls with a coat of white paint to seal the filler and to highlight any areas that needed filling.

On top of the window was a strip of PVC which Nathan removed and behind it is a gap. I'm not really sure why it's there but it doesn't go through to outside. We are going to get some wood to go around the edge and cover it up!

Below is a pho to saw on Pinterst of a similar room apt hat I liked the style of so I am trying to copy.

We painted the walls with a light brown, it looks much darker in this photo but i didn't put the light on. We were a bit unsure at first but I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I was going to paint the skirting boards this morning so we decided to lift up the carpet. We were hoping the floorboods underneath would be good enough to sand and varnish and they do look pretty good!

I think we will sand the floor and varnish, apparently there is a shop nearby where we can hire a sander quite cheaply. Hopefully we can do this next weekend if we do a bit of research and prepare it a bit during the week.

We took the curtain rail down but it can cleaned up ok and we just need to buy some stoppers for the end. Looking online they are quite expensive for bay windows so it will be good if we can keep the same one.