OWC House Renovation

OK I have a hidden agenda posting this right now. Was checking the sites logs and had a hit from Google for “how to strip woodchip” and another for “removal of woodchip wallpaper”, so checked the SERPs in Google and this site is number 1 and 10ish for the two SERPs By posting this post about woodchip wallpaper we should keep those SERPs long term (that’s the theory anyway).

I guess the poor people searching for a way to strip woodchip wallpaper didn’t find the site too helpful, so I’m hoping a combination of our hard earned knowledge and maybe someone kind enough to comment on how to do it without replastering will step up (hint, hint :-))

Tags: Decorating

Earlier today (yesterday I suppose now) I was pulling into ASDA’s (supermarket) car park and an idiot in a Land Rover mounted the kerb, cut over the pavement to take the parking space I was patiently waiting for!!!!

So I’m sat there in my little car, I drive a Daewoo Matiz, 0-60 in ten minutes :-) in a very busy car park (Saturday afternoon) waiting for another car to reverse out of the parking space etc… so I could park there. On the actual car park there were no other cars near by (so it was going to be my space). The parked car pulled out, drove off and I started to park in the free space. I look up to see a large black Land Rover come hurtling across the bus stop pickup area, mount the pavement an proceed to park where I was pulling into (I was lucky not to hit him as it was very close!!). This meant he went up one kerb, over a pavement and down another kerb directly into the parking space I was already partially in, instead of driving around a mini round about, round a couple of bends before getting to where I was.

Have been too busy with work and the house (was there Wednseday and Thursday) to find time to write a post!

Finally our eldest son (14yrs old) is helping me. One of his younger brothers had punched him between the legs about a month ago which resulted in a very tender swollen testicle (OUCH!!!). So he wasn’t able to move for two weeks and Wednesday was the first day he felt able to help. At last some help and company, getting tired of listening to sixties radio DJs

The wife wanted to have a look at the house and so we all went on Wednesday (first time she’s seen it since we bought it). The wife and the two younger kids tried to strip woodchip wallpaper from one of the rooms, but didn’t do so well.

After the wash basins had been removed from the top floor I then had to remove the copper hot and cold water pipes that fed the basins and the PVC waste pipes that took the waste water away.

The pipes were laid under the original floorboards of the house, so I had to lift a few floorboards. This was made much easier by who ever installed the plumbing as they hadn’t bothered to secure the floorboards correctly after completing the job (who ever worked on the house was a bodge job expert, nothing done to a high standard)!!

Tags: Plumbing

The house is a former guesthouse, so most of the bedrooms (6 on the top 2 floors for starters) have a wash basin with associated built in wardrobe and under wash basin cupboard.

The quality of the work is very low for the wardrobes etc… (bit of 2 by 4 timber with thin plywood skin, the wardrobe hanger bar is a peice of copper pipe!) and we don’t need a wash basin in the kids bedrooms, they’d wet everything knowing our kids!!

So I’m in the process of removing them.

On Saturday I finished removing the last remenants of the three wash basins on the top floor. Thought it would take much longer than it did, but once I had the confidence to start cutting copper pipes it went quite quickly.

Tags: Plumbing

The purchase of the house hit a few problems on the way that others may learn from.

First mistake and it may seem minor when purchasing a house, but make sure the current owner of the house plans to remove everything you don’t want left there, and get it in writing.

This house was fully furnished when we viewed it, though no one had lived there for at least a year. Now the owner had listed on the inventory they planned to take all the furniture, but a week before completion it became clear he intended to leave a LOT of stuff!!

To be accurate the renovation started just over a week ago (completed the purchase 27/02/2006), but I only got the idea to start a blog about it a couple of days ago.

This is my first major project, really my first house like project since before this house the only stuff I’ve done is minor DIY projects like building the kids a bunk bed which they fall out of occassionally

I also have a disability, couple of degraded disks in my lower back that gives me constant low back pain (take strong pain killers for that) and dodgy knees (recently started having steroid injections for those). The knees are are going to be the main problem since this is a 4 storey house, basement to atic filled with room upon room!!