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.

Painting the Kitchen

The kitchen in the house is in good condition so we are just going to paint it and redo the floor. We picked the grey paint for the hallway originally but when we got home we decided it would be nice in the kitchen. We were a but worried when we started putting it on as it's quite dark but we're really happy with how it has turned out and it thee the room together. I think we will have a light coloured laminate stone floor.

Opening The Fireplace- Stage One

Today we have made good progress and one of the jobs Nathan has been doing is opening up the fireplace. We're really happy with how it is turning out. It had concrete over the top and he used a hammer drill to get it off and to help remove the bricks. The next job is to sort out a lintel. We have seen a second hand fireplace for sale in Neath so we might go and see it.Sorry about the sun shining on the photo, we will take more tomorrow!