Trash

We've got quite a pile of rubbish to dispose of. On checking behind garages, in bins and around the back of sheds the extents of the problem is becoming apparent:

Behind the garage is a fair quantity of corrugated concrete roofing, I suspect containing asbestos, I didn't sniff it. Heavy, and difficult to (legally) dispose of.










The green bin is supposed to be for cardboard and green waste - I don't think topsoil is considered green waste.

Nearly killed me moving it, a wheely-bin full of dirt & rubble is not a light thing.

Inside the garage I find yet more junk - I was hoping to move less-used boxes straight in here, but unfortunately we'll have to dispose of this lot first.

May talk to the solicitors about this..

Electrical discoveries

A mystery box up near the ceiling of the living-room revealed some tidy, yet ancient, wiring.

It turns out that the wiring topology for the lighting is know by some as a spider layout, where all the permanent connections are commoned up in a single location, rather than at each ceiling rose.





This is the power supply to the conservatory. Nice little bit of 2.5mm T&E poking out of the wall with a 13A plug on the end. Nice.



This later turned out to be a bit of a godsend. But for now it just says bodge.



I'm not sure why, but I love the heath-robinson look to this electrical installation. It'll be a pity to get rid of it, but it's really not the look I'm going for.

Labouring at the old place

Today was spend working in Bristol mostly, trips to the tip, and then the shops, brief break to watch England loose at football, then back to finishing off all the DIY jobs we'd started but never finished - the wife was glossing doors, I was putting the bathroom back together.

The landlady of the old place is coming around tomorrow mid morning with an estate agent for valueing purposes. So we've made a bit of an effort to straighten the place out - as much you can when half of it is in boxes.

I've made a start tidying the garage- there's a small patch of floor near the door which is clear, and you can see (most of) the workbench. Still need to put the engine back in Dave's car and give it back to him (a job for monday afternoon perhaps).

Weather is scorching, house is cool enough during the day, but acts as a storage heater, so is quite warm in the evening. The new place seems to take the heat quite well, though the conservatory is an oven. We'll see how it does in the winter time..

Tour of the house

To give an idea of what we're starting from, here's a bunch of pictures of the place on aquisition:



The Kitchen












The conservatory















The dining room













The living room, to the front, the doors shown leads to a small 3ft x 3ft cupboard that protrudes into next doors space, in the same way we have a corner missing from our room. Odd eh. We call it 'Narnia'










The living room, fireplace, with coal fire and back boiler. The boiler heats rest of the house via a storage cylinder and radiators.













Some unexciting stairs. The excitement comes in trying to turn anything around at the bottom of them.
















The airing cupboard, containing an elderly hot water storage cylinder, mentioned earlier. In the attic above is a pair of tanks, a header for the hotwater and a cold-water store.

The circulating pump for the heating system is on the floor of the cupboard, controlled via the switch on the 13A socket supplying it.

Primitive.











The bathroom. Thankfully recently refitted and will be largely untouched in phase 1 of our renovations.












The back bedroom, bedroom 2, guest bedroom, etc.. Recently decorated.








Master bedroom, front bedroom, etc.. Again recently decorated.






Bedroom 3, Box room, etc. This will become the office. To the left of the window is an alcove as deep as the stair width, a handy dumping ground/storage space for bits of computer I think. Floor is laminate, though irritatingly one piece is cut a bit short by the wall behind the door, leaving a hole.

Explorations

Today saw another trip over there, just myself this time, with a carload of 'stuff': some needed over there (tools and a small fridge) some just needed out of the way (boxes of books)

Prodded and poked things a bit more, took some measurements of the locks to get them replaced, lifted some floordboards to get a look at the wiring and plumbing - interesting:

This is what greeted me under the floorboards of the back bedroom (no 2). A novel form of leak-control.

I guess the assumption is that the leak is small enough for the towel to dry out quicker than it's getting wet. I think I'll be draining the heating system fairly soon in the order of things.

This is the fuseboard, fairly old-school, though it's nice that they left me some fuse-wire - I guess they think I'll be needing it. To the right is the edge of the alarm control box - inoperative - later explorations revealed the backup battery had been disconnected, along with other, random, wires.

Had a visit from some pikeys wanting to take the dead tree (in the front garden) down for me, "bargain at £30" - I politely declined - I have a brother with a chainsaw.

Then it was back to Bristol to carry on making a dent in the long list of things we need to achieve.

Things begin

Today has been spent phoning various service providers: We'll have a phoneline in and working on the 29th, the electricity meter has been read (I added a few KW hrs) and the leccy board informed of our new status- I had to repeat a few times there was no gas. Likewise have the water-board have also been told. Our house insurance and life insurance policies start today, so there's still a small trickle of post arriving for that. We have our bridge Tag (little electronic gizmo that allows us to cross the bridge whenever we want) and that worked a treat first time out.

We spent a merry hour wandering around the house with all the various random keys trying to figure out what opened what door/window/shed - we'll probably change some locks when we get a moment, as we have far too many keys. Thankfully all the doors and windows open and close again, so we won't be needing a locksmith just yet. We also had a small adventure with all the random light-switches, trying to figure out which switch operated which light - not as straightforward as you'd think.

We met the neighbours - Lady to our left was sitting on her patio chatting with her sister-in-law sipping wine, and to our right was doing, well, something, but we got talking about the houses as hers should be a mirror image of ours as it's adjoining. Interesting one there, 4 kids and a little dog too...

My brother and his wife came around to have a good nosey. We talked about some of our plans for the layout of the kitchen and the like. I've pulled up some carpet and discovered the ceiling joists run in the right direction to allow extractor and possibly boiler flue to fit in the void - assuming the void is big enough. The evening finished off with us returning to theirs for a barbecue and to have a quiet laugh at their collection of poorly cats.

Tomorrow will be taking another carload of essentials (small fridge for starters) over, but before that a trip to the DIY shop to hopefully confirm which bits of kitchen we need/want/are going to get..

Then follows the fun of pulling floorboards and discovering a few more shocking truths about the electrics & plumbing.

the aquisition

Like any potentially life changing investment we chose the house based on the 'feel' of the place, rather than a realistic assesment of it build quality, services, suitability and value for money.

It's a 3 bed end terrace, built some time in the 60's as part of a new housing estate just outside a small city in south wales. I liked it because it had lots of space for off-road parking and a garage (albeit only a single). My wife liked it because it's in a friendly neighbourhood, and it has 3 bedrooms (2 doubles).

The QS appointed by our mortgage lender conducted a survey and valued the house below our offer price. This should have been a warning, however we simply adjusted our offer downwards and hoped the vendor would accept.

He did. Loosing several thousand pounds on the sale as it was now being sold for less than he bought it only 6 months prior.

This also should have been a warning.

We weren't blind to the issues, it was immediately apparent that the house requried modernising, a single 13A power outlet in each bedroom is hardly sufficient for todays electrical requirements, as is the elderly fuseboard, or the coal-fired heating system.

We knew we had some work ahead of us, and the fact that we had 'saved' several thousand pounds on the purchase was added motivation. I immediately started calling around for quotes to install a modern gas heating system, as well as a gas supply (oh yes, the house didn't have gas), not to mention a a complete electrical re-wire.

The top of the task list though was to return our current accomodation to a rentable condition. This was no mean feat, as I'd been living there 9 years, and had accumulated 9 years worth of junk - er - useful stuff.

Introduction

On the 25th June 2010 we (my wife & I) bought our first house together. After over 10 years in rented accomodation this was a bit of a shift for yours truely.

This blog is a summary of emails and photos sent to a few interested parties, and then, hopefully a continuation of the story of what we're doing to the house I'm beginning to suspect was built late one friday afternoon.

It's being compiled and edited retrospectively, based on email archives and photos, so updates will be sporadic and possibly out-of sequence.