Pre-move Essentials
What do we really need?
When you have a small opportunity to do some essential work in your new home before moving in, how do you decide what you really need? Or do you prioritise the things that will cause most disruption once you're actually living there?
You can see how our priorities unfurled below!
Dry walls
And I don't mean dry-wall in the American sense. Several of the walls (and floors) at Murray Street were literally sopping wet, both from the rising dam in the walls and floors, and water coming in the chimney breasts. We put a full new damp proof course in down stairs, which meant taking every wall back to the bricks for a meter above floor. Necessary, but painful aesthetically.
Electricity
I mean, we had electricity, but it turned out there weren't loads of sockets, and quite a bit of the wiring was old and dodgy. Since we knew we would want to redecorate everywhere, and need to re-plaster downstairs after the damp-proof work, we thought it was the perfect time to re-wire the place and set a sound electrical foundation for the future.
Storage
The under-stairs cupboard was poorly configured, and the doorway ate up Kitchen space. By bricking up the old door and cutting a new one in the dining room, we made the space more accessible and freed up a whole corner of the kitchen.We also fitted a loft hatch and ladder, which made the sparkies jobs a lot easier as well!
...Inside and Outside
Everybody needs a Shed, and we were particularly pleased with ours, all nicely wired up for power and lights, and painted a in contrasting blues. Of course, the yard was as far away from a flat base as you can imagine, so it took a bit of sorting, but the end result was - and still is - super useful.
A Bathroom
There was a Bathroom in the old outbuilding behind the Kitchen, but it was crap. It was so bad that they didn't een show a picture of it on the rightmove listings. We wanted a good compromise of cost and comfort, with a focus on a big walk-in shower.
We'd started the design work for this a couple of months before moving in, and I had all of the components ordered and delivered just after we completed. We didn't realise quite how much reconstruction would be needed in this space, and were very nervous about what the result would be, but Phil our builder did an amazing job, and my first attempt at speccing a Bathroom turned out okay. Phew.
After the crazy walls had gone
Back to Brick - let's build!
Making good progress
Et Voila!
As well as the re-wiring, damp proofing, and building a whole new bathroom, we also did a whole host of minot but equally important jobs!
We stripped off half of the worlds wood chip wallpaper to allow the damp proofing
Removed a number of redundant gas pipes (some lead!) and capped the supply to all the old fires and the cooker
Stripped out and replastered the understairs cupboard
Replaced a number of broken roof tiles and redid the chimney and outhouse fillets
Removed a chimney from the outhouse
Tidied up a bit of the yard!
After all of this, we were shattered - and we were getting out old house ready for tenants to move in at the same time!
We definitely deserved out post-move treat....
Chinese and Fizz
First night in the house. We had a Kitchen but we did not want to cook, so we celebrated our new home with the help of the Widow Clicquot. Oh, and the very handy Chinese takeaway at the end of the street.
We would live with those unplastered walls for the next three years!