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Making the utility room functional

I love my utility room, it has a real “old world” feel about it. You can imaging in times gone by this being the hub of the house. Where all of the old hotel bedding was being laundered or the plates from the restaurant being washed up (well that’s what I see in my mind). It also takes me back to a very vague childproof memory of my Nans house in Bristol, probably very inaccurate but it gives me a warm glow and whether its correct of not, that’s never a bad thing is it?

I had two uses in mind for the utility room. Firstly I wanted to keep the washing up out if the kitchen and secondly it was a good place to have the laundry facilities. Fortunately, the utility room already had a nice of Belfast style sink and also on the run by the window it had enough space for a washing machine, tumble dryer and a slimline dish washer.

It was short of key utilities, i.e. there was not enough plug points and the wet services (drainage and cold water feed) was not set up to feed both a washing machine and dishwasher, plus things like the basic pipework and taps could all do with a good refurbishment.

The flooring was an old lino and very stained and the room colour was not to my taste plus the door to the courtyard just outside of the utility room had loads of flaked paint indicating a damp problem. Basically it was like a dog with mange you find at the rescue centre. On the surface looks a sorry state of affairs but you can see the love and potential in it.

The first step was to get a basic set up working and with a washing machine and dishwasher both needing a water feed and waste plus a tumble dryer and microwave to go in a basic layout was created that allowed me to use the existing stand pipe for the washing machine and then loop the waste for the dishwasher over the sink. Whilst I had both a hot and cold feed for washing machine, I actually needed two cold feeds so I was able to find a Y adapter from Screwfix that allowed me to run two cold feeds off the existing outlet. This would be fine until I got the plumbing sorted.

You can see from the picture below the complex plumbing over the sink that will need tidying up and the original yellow walls with the new grey going on in the background, oh and loads of open paint tubs under the sink! This was definitely being used as a dumping ground at this phase.

Once the basic layout was sorted, I could then turn my attention to getting all of the utilities as I required them. The first one to get sorted was the electrics as the sparks was the first one booked. Basically in this room it was just a case of adding a couple for additional double socket units to power the washing machines etc and also remove the existing fluorescent tube and change it for a ceiling rose so I could hang a bulb and light shade. Also just outside the utility room in the small hallway by the back door, I wanted an additional light and after finding a nice industrial style bulkhead light that fitted the character of the house, an additional switched feed was wired in to complete the lighting in this area.

A simple grey lampshade to compliment the walls – the uplighter was there purely to add some extra light when we were painting!
A little bit of light in rear hallway plus all of the stonework exposed now the plaster has been removed (following the roof leak!)

Once the electrics had been completed, the next job was to get the plumbing sorted and this has quite a list as follows:

  • Assess main route in and ensure that the main stop cocks turn freely. This ended up having a new main feed routed and a new stop cock
  • Decommission all of the pipework above the sink (taps and hot and cold feeds)
  • Create two new cold water feeds below work surface level for the washing machine and dishwasher
  • Add an additional stand pipe to the waste below work surface level for the dishwasher
  • Re run new hot and cold (stainless) water pipes to the sink and fit new BIP wall mounted taps
  • Put new waste trap onto Belfast Sink
  • Fit outdoor tap
New clean lines on the sink tap plumbing, just making good on the walls to sort out before they are painted

Obviously I was not going to leave the appliances freestanding and not make use of the space on top but I was unsure whether to go with solid wood worktops or patterned laminate. The actual lenght was 210 cm so off the shelf 2m was just so short. Luckily the kitchen needed a 180cm run so I was able to get a 4m solid Birch work top and cut that to size for both rooms. Due to the height of the appliances and the low window sill my method of supporting the worktop was limited so I have actually settled on a simple solution. Using offcuts from the 40mm battens used in the kitchen I have been able to cut “lifters” which basically sit on the top of the dishwasher and tumble dryer and then the worktop just sits on top of this. This allows the washing machine which is the middle appliance to have enough space to vibrate its heart away without affecting the worktop and also creates really good air flow for the tumble dryer.

A simple solution with a simple approach

So the next step was to turn my attention to the paintwork and this is where my daughter had her eye in. As she is a mad fan of Mrs Hinch (who I believe is some sort of cleaning guru?), she wanted to theme the utility room and turning it into a domestic bliss palace with a colour palate in keeping with the period restoration we are trying to achieve throughout the house. She ended up going with a mid grey on the walls and then picked up the wooden panelling with a sort of duck egg blue

There is still quite a lot of work to do around the window and sink side, and the area where all of the cleaning materials are kept but with two of the walls done now it is really starting to take shape.

The final thing to sort out will be the flooring as originally this was covered with very old lino. When this was lifted the floor underneath was very wet as it has no chance to breath.

Quite a shock when the flooring was lifted but it dried out very quickly

I suspect the floor is the same construction as the dining room which is slate slabs l laid straight onto soil (the utility room is actually created from a simple stud wall separating off part of the old dinning room) so it is logical to assume that the flooring is an extension of that. The problem is, a concrete screed has been laid over the top of it but in some places this is quite thin and you can see some slate tile profiles breaking through. I had left the floor to breath and within a few weeks it had dried out and has stayed dry even with very cold and wet conditions outside so the next decision is how to dress it. I am tempted to get some good quality floor paint just to make it presentable and then next year attempt to take the screed back to uncover the original slate tiles. If I find that there is not full coverage of the original slate tiles or I am mistaken I can then relevel it and maybe lay new tiles down.

Whilst we are in the Utility Room area, it is worth mentioning the wall by the back door. This was another area that had been highlighted with damp on the structural survey and was indirectly in the vicinity of the valley which we knew was leaking. Bearing in mind once I had exposed the wall upstairs, I knew that on an average rainfall over night I was getting about 2 litres of water in, this would have been following a number of fall lines to dissipate and I suspect that some was tracking the floor structure above and finding its way behind the plaster by the back door. Once again, removing the blown plaster showed a lot of wet stone but some fantastic size pieces which once cleaned up will make a nice feature I think.

Some of these stones are huge!
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The saga of the roof

A problem with the roof was always my worse case scenario. For a number of reasons, firstly it means wet is getting in and it is not something you can ignore or turn a blind eye to but secondly I have always believe that the equation is: roof problems = big bill.

So moving in during December, in an area that appears to rain a lot was always going to alert me quickly if I had a problem and bearing in mind the house had been left empty I suspect for 6 months, it was not long until my suspicions were alerted that I had a problem.

I originally turned a blind eye (or nose in this case) to the musty damp plaster smell after heavy rain and even every time I walked past the wall and saw the plaster bulging and being hollow when I tapped it, I just put it down to an old existing problem but once I started to get water staining in the corner of my bedroom ceiling I thought maybe I should at some point investigate.

It was actually an evening sat watching telly where I stumbled across the source of the problem. I had 30 minutes to kill between programs I was watching so in my true style I thought I would just “strip back the wallpaper” on the bulging area to see just how damp the plaster was. I was not expecting the plaster to come clean away from the wall in sheets with just the light leverage of the wallpaper scraper.

What immediately jumped out was the wet black patch and it was clear that this was not a new breach and I suspect that the water ingress had been occurring for a number of years.

The next thing was to wait for it to rain (which did not take long) and during this it was visible to see water running down the stone work and into the remaining plaster. The only thing to do now was to strip all of the plaster back until I got to solid plaster to assess the extent of the damage.

The area at the top is slate panels nailed direct to the ceiling rafters then plaster skimmed direct on top of them

Once the area was stripped back, I could now let it dry out but also it was incredible to see the original stone work which actually formed part of the external wall of the house (as the area past this I was later to learn was a stone built extension which can not be dated at present).

Unfortunately, every time it dried out, we just had more rain so in order to stop it running down the stonework, I had to create an ingenious method involving a tea towel stuffed into the stones where the main water run was (to act as an absorption point and wick), a trowel forced into the mortar (to force the wick end of the tea towel out from the wall) then a large bucket on the floor to catch the steady run of drips. On a normal night I could easily collect between 1 and 2 litres of water, and to think prior to this, it was was running into the stonework and settling into the plaster and mortar or finding other run lines into the toilet wall and sometimes down into the kitchen ceiling cavity and also affecting the plaster by the back door!

So now I really knew the extent of the problem (and why various areas of damp were occurring and picked up in the building survey), it was a case of finding a roofing company but first of all I wanted to see if I could establish what was going on and once again it did not take long to see that the run line of the problem was immediately underneath a roof valley and by getting a clear view of the valley in question, I could see an overlapping patch on the bottom 1/ 3 of the valley which was directly over the internal wall that was affected.

The one thing I have learnt as I have embarked on this journey is the wide range of service you get from the skilled trade fraternity. It ranges from spot on where you get a quick acknowledgement to your request, maybe a pop in visit to assess the job and a quick quote turn around to the other end where you either get no reply or a bunch of messages saying “tomorrow” then no call and the need to follow it up (sometimes multiple times). Ultimately I always try to get at least 2 quotes for any work but the decision is not always priced based. You get a feel for the individual or company and I have learnt to feed in a small piece of work first knowing that there is more work to come if their price and quality is good.

Well on this occasion, both roofing companies validated my thoughts as the root of the problem and also had a good look around the roof for other issues, Both picked up on common findings which sort of means neither was pulling a fast one trying to feed in extra work that was not needed and both actually came down with photos of the roof where the additional issues were. The bad news though was that although the roof was replaced 30 years ago, the tiles used were high in pyrites and were now suffering from oxidation and were crumbling. A box full of tiles were bought down and shown to me as evidence of the problem and a quick trip up the scaffold tower to see the finished job and to point out other clearly visible areas of perishing tile clustered together made me happy that I was getting good advice. A conservative estimate was that the roof had between 3 and 5 years before the slates would need replacing. Another one for the budget!

So back to the original problem. It has now been fixed with the whole valley being replaced, the valley on the opposite side repaired (which we suspect had caused the plaster to fail in the middle bedroom as once again that was directly under that valley), about 30 perished tiles replaced and some flashing around the main chimney stack repaired.

Since the repair it has both rained and I have had snow and during the thaw I have not had a drop of water come through so fingers crossed the initial problem has now been fixed. I just need to save for the main roof to be retiled now!

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Restoring the fireplace in the Cariad Room

One of the wonderful features of Glan Gors was the original fireplaces in a number of the bedrooms. Originally I wanted to get them re-commissioned to use as open fires for guests in the winter but I was advised by a number of flue specialist that whilst the flues were viable, the efficiency is very poor and actually the government were “strongly discouraging” them making fireplaces useable again via significant red tape so I decided just to restore them and use them (as most people are now) as a nice feature.

The fireplace in the Cariad room was very nice on the eye but it was obvious that it had been painted multiple times with white gloss and I was unsure what was actually underneath.

The starting point

After a general wipe down, I decided to tackle the top shelf first as there was a nice horizontal flat surface to start investigating the paint layers. After researching paint removal methods, the two main options appeared to be liquid paint remover and heat guns. With the risk of the paint containing lead, I thought it best to start with paint stripper but after trying a well known brand and after that was limited in its impact, also buying a building suppliers own brand product, it was clear that the depth of paint and the compounding layers was going to be a struggle for it. Following the instructions of painting on a layer, leaving it for a while then scraping it off, the depth of removal was negligible so I put that to one side and tried the heat gun approach.

Being aware of the risk of potential lead content in the paint (not knowing how old the layers were), I ensured that the room was well ventilated and found the best face mask I could. I got out my heat gun and scraper and picked a small area. This actually worked better than the liquid paint remover and whilst very labour intensive, made steady progress.

Left to right, slowly uncovering the original surface

Once I had broken through all of the paint layers, I unearthed a small black surface and originally I suspected that this was slate but on further inspection it appeared more like a type of resin as small blemishes seemed to indicate a man made under layer. You can also see in the picture above on the far right (mid section of the picture) a higher gloss area which seemed to be some form of varnish or lacquer. At this stage I had to bite the bullet and try and work out how to take this back and get to a base layer and knowing that worse case I could purely repaint the whole surround (not what I wanted but a way of salvaging it), I reached for the different grade sand papers and wet and dry and worked down from course wire pad, fine soap/wire pads then the wet and dry to get back to what ended up as a smooth resin surface.

Before the final surface treatment

Once stripped back, it was just a case of finding different ways of enhance the finish and I found that a semi abrasive cleaning paste and then spray polish bought it back to a finish that was satisfactory.

The next step was to tackle the sides and looking at both the volume of surface area and the fact that I was only going to get it back to black I weighed up the effort (at this stage) vs final finish and decided to paint it! I may when time permits, strip it all back but at the moment I was happy to balance the restored top with painted sides and looking at the overall color scheme, settled on a mid grey gloss.

Choosing a mid grey to balance with the bedding colour

As I was painting over old gloss, I originally cleaned it back and lightly sanded the surface but even with this treatment, when the new gloss dried I had patches where the paint “slipped away” and did not adhere, leaving uneven patches. I thought the best thing to do was lay down a couple of coats of undercoat to give a new fresh base and this worked a treat, allowing the new gloss to bind and gave a nice smooth finish.

The hearth is natural slate and this just had a good clean with soapy water and the main metal work was given a good clean with fine wire wool. I still need to restore the metal work and need to research the best product for this but for the moment the room looks much better for having the surround freshened up.

The final result…

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Finishing the kitchen off

Once the flooring was down, the units in and the worktops fitted, it was time to move my attention onto the wall covering. The current wallpaper whilst “quirky” was not to my long term taste and therefore an alternative was needed. My vision was to go back to a more traditional country kitchen type style so I chose softwood cladding. The benefit of this was also going to be that all of the exposed cables which currently run in plastic conduit, the water pipes which come down from the ceiling and the gas pipe which was exposed on the wall could be hidden behind the panelling and give a much more cleaner look.

I had never attempted panelling before so this was going to be a huge learning journey, but I understood the basics, which was to lay down horizontal battens at the top and bottom, then at approx 500mm gaps, plus where there were plug sockets etc, add additional battens around these to support the cuts. I decided that the battens would be screwed into the wall as opposed to “grap adhesive”, mainly because all of the cables etc were exposed so there was no risk of drilling into anything plus long term I knew that they would not be coming away from the wall!

Laying down the battens on the back wall

Laying down the battens was actually quite time consuming and as a ratio of battens vs panelling per wall I would say 2/3 of the time was on the battening. This was quite a surprise as I envisaged the battens being the quicker part?

Once the battens were up, it was then just a case of cutting the panels to length and then using hidden head pins, with two per batten to secure it into place. Whilst I tried to be diligent with the lengths, I knew that at the ceiling point and where it joined the worktops I was going to use finishing strips so in some cases and where the ceiling was uneven etc small gaps were present. Cutting around the power boxes, fused spurs and powered vent was a bit fussy at times but this does mean that a lot of these now look flush fitting. I suspect when I get to painting the panels, a small amount of decorators caulk will come into play but I did try to get these cut outs as accurate as possible to limit the amount of caulking that would be needed.

The creative part of this phase of the kitchen was trying to work out how to deal with the joins at the walls but also around the two fitted cupboards and around the window. To be honest, I had no plan and it was really a case of as I got to each challenge, evaluating the options and then adjusting the framework or width of the panel to create both a clean join but also minimise the need for additional finishing strips which could deviate away from the final look.

The window was going to be a challenge in its own right as it was an irregular shape with uneven walls and with it having a large cavity due to the thick walls, also had a very deep sill.

The starting point was to take the sill off (which was basically a large piece of cut and stained wood with a finishing strip at the front) and in doing this I was surprised to discover white tiles underneath. Unfortunately these were cracked and secured with very heady duty cement and even after an hour of trying to remove them very little progress was made.

One hour with a range of hammers and chisels!

With this knowledge I stood back and looked at the window as a whole to create my plan! Whilst the cladding is fixed, I wanted aspects of the kitchen to be able to change with the seasons or as my tastes changed so for the window cavity and sill I have the idea of tiled panels, By this I mean fixing battens to the sides and top of the window cavity then creating panels of tiles on thin ply which can then be screwed to the battens using some nice small head screws. In a similar way I am planning to cover the cracked tiles on the sill with a new piece of wood which will either be painted, stained or tiled but once again can be changed. I quite like the idea of having some Christmas panels that can go up and seasonal things like that. I suspect this area is going to be an ongoing experiment as it is new skills I will be developing but at least the bulk of the kitchen is done by this stage and useable and its not like I am short of time!

With the cladding up and a plan for the window area, I could now get the sink and taps fitted. This was the only part of the kitchen where I was using external trades as plumbing is something I have never tackled. I have a basic set of rules in life when it comes to DIY (whether that’s the house or car maintenance) and that is stay clear of anything that could kill me or cause a lot of damage which for me is electrics, plumbing and car brakes!

Originally I was going to go for a half bowl sink as the plan is for all of the washing up etc to be done in the utility room but I wanted running water and a sink in the kitchen for the odd occasion when water and waste would be needed. The problem was, I am not a huge fan of stainless steel sinks and there were very few other sinks (whether recess or flush fit) that I liked. Then I stumbled across a sink for a bathroom that sat on top of the worktop and explored some of the options available, This gave me a lot more options and whilst slightly larger footprint of a half bowl, fitted in with the style I was trying to create. It also gave me good flexibility with the choice of taps to go to a more traditional look. There was one downside, they commonly were porcelain type sinks for bathrooms and therefore whilst being suitable for the majority of tasks I wanted in the kitchen (small amounts of washing up, water for the coffee machine, washing salad and veg, water at hand for cooking, filling saucepans and for recipes), I suspect that if I was draining boiling water from veggies straight off the range there would be a small risk that it could crack the sink. The utility room with a large Belfast sink is next door to the kitchen so I was happy to accept that trade off.

{update} the sink has now been in for about 2 months and it defiantly was the right move. It suits the kitchen perfectly and the trade off of draining veggies in the utility room has not been a problem at all.

Once all of that was done I could (at last) order the cooker. Now whilst I would have loved to have put a proper Rayburn or Aga in, I did not want the fuss of venting but also with servicing companies being short on the ground I wanted something reliable and easy to maintain if it went wrong. With the house being on gas mains and having both a gas and electric oven in my last house I liked the flexibility of cooking on both heat sources so I wanted to source a multifuel range with a gas and electric oven. I had the option of 90, 100 and 110 cm ranges but as I wanted to use the worktop on the left hand side and have access to the cupboard on the back wall, I wanted to maintain the space and the gain between the 90 cm and the 110 cm was basically an extra 2 rings and a slightly larger oven. In the end I went for a 90 cm multifuel gas range which had 5 rings, a gas oven, separate gas grill and a tall vertical fan oven I had a couple of brands to choose from and ended up going for a Belling Kensington in cream. Now what I did not think through was the cladding! I had cut out holes to allow access to the gas pipes and their was a 13 amp socket for the ignition etc but my old gas cooker had a flip up glass lid that basically created the “splash back” and what I was not aware of was the regulations for open gas flames and the minimal distance from combustible materials so I was surprised when the delivery drivers (who also do the gas safe install) said they could not install it as the range was going straight against wood!

Panic!!!!!!!!!!!!

I basically had about 20 minutes whist they disconnected the old one and unpacked the new one so I was left with a decision of find something in the garage suitable to make a splashback in 20 minutes or get them to take it away and rebook (which would cost me) or get them to take my old one away, put the new on in place but not connect then rebook (which would cost me).

Now at this stage I was pretty sure there was nothing in the garage but as the previous owners had left a lot of materials in there I might get lucky. And I did!!!! There was a panel of 2-3 mm metal large enough to meet the regs as a splashback so 10 minutes with an cutting disc on the angle grinder and smoothing off the edges with a file resulted in a makeshift rustic splashback that allowed the Gas Safe fitter to install and sign off the paperwork. The question now is do I keep the aged metal splash back for character, paint if or create a tiled splash back later on?

Not bad for a quick improvised splashback!

Well that’s the bulk of the fit out covered. Hopefully by the time I do the next chapter of this blog I should be covering off colour schemes, edge trim, plug flaps and skirting.

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Making a start on Cysgu

Whilst this is the smallest of the bedrooms, and probably going to be the least used, I wanted to make sure this still got the full treatment and what was needed was quite extensive.

The main issue was the crack in the ceiling and this was picked up on the survey as “non structural” but still needed investigating and fixing before the room was finished off. As well as this, the room needed painting and a new carpet fitting.

So lets start with the ceiling. Basically it was a crack running the width of the room about 18 inches away from the outside wall. My original plan was to scrape out a broad V, fill it, sand it back and then paint but as I reached the corner in the left hand side of the room the plaster became unstable and started to come off in small chunks. Suspecting it was something that needed investigation, I allowed it to break away to see the full extent of the damage.

A bit like removing rust on a car, keep hacking away until you get to good material!

From what I can see, the structure used to bond the plaster to the ceiling was either compromised or not present. I could see some wire meshing but not over the extent of the hole so either it had perished or was never there. Interestingly, the place of the compromise was also over the roof valley (not the main one I knew was leaking but the one on the other side of the building), so it could have been that there has been a leak on this side which had caused the base structure to rot away or become detached?

And that seems to be the reason. When the guys were up on the roof assessing the leaking valley (and I had this validated by a second roofing company), I got them to check the whole roof over and surprise surprise, a compromise on the other valley was evident Not as bad as the main leak but enough to allow some form of water ingress to affect the ceiling integrity so whilst they were fixing the main leak I got them to sort this valley as well.

At least now I can get it re-plastered and the plan is to strip the damaged section out and then get that re-plastered and feathered in.

The next step was to get the wall painted and I had originally purchased a colour from Homebase called Granada for the dining room. Well, once we put a sample up (in the dining room) it was clear it was going to be too overpowering (I wont write what my daughter actually said)! But I did like the colour and actually it has suited this bedroom really well. The walls are a natural plaster as opposed to wallpaper in the dining room and it seems to have absorbed in a lot more and taken the sharp edge off of the colour and toned it down significantly.

The shelf you can see above with the pictures on it is actually the old window cavity from when this wall was the original external wall. There is no information regarding the extension but as the extension is built of very similar stone (and not modern built and rendered), plus the wear on the slate floor you can only assume it has had some longevity.

So what is left?

Well the room is useable but before I make it available to guests it needs the plastering done, a new carpet and a new matress on the bed (as the current one is a thin Ikea one which is not the most comfortable and is slightly smaller than the bed frame).

The room has no central heating fed radiator but the room does have electrics so the plan is to has an oil filled electric radiator in there to ensure any guests are comfortable!

I’m off carpet shopping tomorrow, so hopefully once the plastering is done I can get the carpet down and tick this one off as done….

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40421 – Llyn Y Manod via Afon Du Bach

Still awaiting a name. I found this character on my walk and as there were no young families around I took him home rather than leaving him to persish. He will accompany my on my walks unless he is claimed…… Just need to give him (or her) a name now

Logged distance: 4.83 miles

Walking Time: 1hr 45 mins

Out Time: 2hr 7 mins

Ascent: 1081 ft

I am still getting use to the OS walking app on my phone, but also walking generally and by that I mean getting use to wide open spaces which have a published foot path but not a clearly defined walked route. I tend to find that on each walk I have at least one “deviation” from the route but have been reading up on the OS map legends to understand “free access areas” a bit better as well.

So for those of you joining us for a walking stay or just wanting to walk in the area, what about this walk?

Once again, its a simple loop from the house and the time displayed included me taking some photos and checking my location etc.

Leg 1 – Glan Gors to Llyn Du Bach

So lets start by saying I did not get to Llyn Du Back but that was the intension of this planned walk (but more on that later!). This leg has a good altitude climb. Easily walkable but worth mentioning. Following the path adjacent to the house you traverse the stile and then walk up the wide path until you get to a kissing gate on the left hand side. From there it is a simple bearing walk following the fence line with a few additional kissing gates swapping sides of the fence for some reason. It is hard going under foot as there is no fixed path and you traverse the steam a number of times but it is well worth it for the views you get.

As you approach the bearing change to move towards Llyn Du Bach you find yourself near the base of a rock face outcrop. The natural line seems to be to follow the base and then turn up but this is where I think I made my error and next time I will try taking the left hand route and see if that keeps me on track better. Having visited Llyn Du Bach on a previous walk I can at least tell you what is there and what you find is a beautifully clear lake which is used for trout fishing.

Leg 2 – Llyn Du Bach to Llyn Glas

Walking to the end of the lake, you then take a right and start a shallow descent towards Llyn Glas. Once again the footpath is not well marked but with either a simple bearing or a visual marker you quickly pick up a natural route down to these two small lakes.

Leg 3 – Llyn Glas to Llyn y Manod

Follow the small lakes to the end and you quickly see a well marked path bearing up and off to the left. This has a gradual uphill incline but worth it as you take the right turn at the top and drop down towards Llyn Y Manod.

This lake is just beautiful! With Manod Bach rising up against the right hand bank, the marked footbath takes you around the left hand bank although there is a kissing gate that appears to loop you around the right hand bank as well.

  • Looking back up the lake
  • Manod Bach rises up to the right

Leg 4 – Llyn y Manod to A470

That is the hard work done as the walk down towards the A470 is well marked with good footpaths and some great views along the way. At the time of walking this was active farm land with sheep scattered around and signs asking for all dogs to be kept on leads.

One of the small finds along the way

You come out near the main road that runs through Blaenau Ffestiniog (the A470), just by a small local football pitch.

Leg 5 – A470 to Glan Gors

Once you are on the road, it is a simple right turn then literally a 5 minute walk along the road to return back to Glan Gors

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Floor down and worktops in

Its been a manic week! As well as the roofer here, the sparks and the guys knocking out the fireplaces I’ve been flat out trying to get the kitchen fitted. The last update was that the self levelling floor was down so the next step was to lay the tiles, get the base units back in and fit the worktops.

The last time I laid flooring tiles was probably 15 years ago and all I could remember was the cuts and the mess from grouting plus living with the odd tile for 15 years that had a dull hollow sound when I walked over it (where I had not bedded it down properly) and as that always got on my nerves I did not want to make that mistake again.

One of the key decision to make was the flooring type and I had quickly set my heart of tiles as opposed to lino. I don’t dislike lino, but I had never put lino down before but also I have had a couple of people I know split or scag their lino and once its down its a big effort to replace it, especially with the kitchen built in so I stuck with tiles. I was very much working to a budget and once I had worked out my square meterage it gave me a price point of about £12 to £15 per sq m. I also had a style in mind and after searching around found what I wanted in B&Q. The product is described as Worn Wood Grey Matt Wood Effect Porcelain Floor tile and they come in packs of 11 as 600 x 150mm tiles. I have never ordered tiles before on-line, having always visiting the shop to view them first but with the current travel restrictions in place I bit the bullet and ordered myself 5 packs plus adhesive, grout, spreaders, mixing bucket and mixing paddle and once it turned up realised I had incorrectly calculated the number of boxes needed and had to order another 3 boxes!

So it was time to start putting the tiles down and as the bag of tile cement said it would go off after 20 mins of mixing, I estimated that for me, that was probably no more that 3 or 4 runs of tiles (with each run being 4 full tiles and one cut) so I decided to forward prepare 5 runs and then 1/4 of a bag of cement.

Pre cutting and laying out the tiles before mixing the cement

This wasn’t a bad estimate to be honest but what I did learn in this forward prep stage was that in laying the tiles out in advance, I did have one high spot and 3 or 4 low spots in the floor. Obviously the self levelling was not perfect in a couple of spots and I think hindsight for the future would be to buy an additional bag of self leveller and make up a final thinner mix to do a final skim after the main one had set but I wanted to crack on so I took the high spot off using a coarse belt on a belt sander and for the low spots, marked the tiles up with lines and crosses to denote the spots that were low and during the laying down I compensated for this with extra cement.

I don’t know if it is the done thing? but I certainly found (especially where I had used extra cement to build up the low spot) that bedding the tile with a few gentle taps with a soft head leather face mallet seated the tiles better.

I slowly worked across the room pre cutting runs and making up small batches of cement and this allowed me to do the floor over 3 evenings. Once everything had cured I then found my nightmare! One tile, slap bang in the middle of the floor had a hollow tone when tapped. Right in the main walk way and I know it was going to bug me so I had no choice but to crack it with the mallet, gently chisel it out without damaging the surrounding tiles, clear out the cement back to the floor then reseat a new tile with a good bed of cement, giving it a good tap with the leather a mallet to make sure. Checking the next day, no hollow tone so I could now go about the grouting.

Once again, the whole grouting process was a bit of a vague memory. I could remember you used a sort of squeegee to force the grout down the gaps and then scrape any overflow off but that was about it! Luckily, that is the basic technique and armed with a couple of bags of grey grout and a new bucket and grouting squeegee I was surprised how quick it was to grout the 9 sq m. I had also bought a “finishing tool” which was basically a bit of plastic with a small plastic ball on the end (about the size of a large ball-bearing) which you ran along the joint at the end to get that perfect curved finish.

Even though units are going in, I wanted to tile the whole floor in case I ever change the layout

All that was left was to let it dry a bit then 3 or 4 runs over with a damp cloth and mop combination to remove the surface reside on the tiles. Standing back one it had all dried, I was really pleased with the result.

To save a bit of cash, I had planned to re-use the existing wall and base units. I had already painted the doors and now it was just a case of repositioning the base units where I wanted them. I was restricted by the location of the gas pipe and the waste pipe (although I can get the water pipes re-ran) so kept to the two base units on the left hand side and the single unit on the right hand side. The cooker was then going to go across the end facing wall.

The cooker will be replaced with a gas range cooker and the item on the floor to the left of the current cooker marks the end point of a 90 cm range which means I can easily access the cupboard and use the work unit to the left

I had also ordered new beech worktops from an online company (House of Worktops) with a view of cutting these to fit myself. As there will be panelling going on and I am bringing this down to the work top (as opposed to behind) then putting a beading strip on, any errors I might make in terms of being a few mill out will be covered up!

The right hand side was easy, as this was 192 cm off of a 2m work top but the left hand side was a bit more troublesome as the walls are uneven and looking at it side on, whilst the edge facing the right had wall was at a clean right angle, the other side wall facing edge was actually a small obtuse angle. Measuring the walls, there was a 4 cm difference between the rear and front edges so when marking the cut I had to be careful with the piece of guide wood to make sure I got this right.

My next challenge was what to use to cut it! I had both a jigsaw and a circular saw. The circular saw would go through it easy but I was worried about the brutality of the first contact causing visible damage. The jigsaw would be cleaner but the wood was quite dense so it would be harder and there is always the risk of blade flex giving you a lopsided cut.

I did a test cut a few cm off the end of the waste part I knew I was going to have and as expected, due to my lack of experience, the ripsaw caught and caused a small amount of damage so I decided to do the cuts with the jigsaw.

I did have a bit of worktop spare (after fitting the utility room one as well) so I used this to make some custom size chopping boards. Once the worktops had been oiled and the chopping boards placed, I think the end result works really well?

You can start to visualise the final result with cladding on the walls and a nice range cooker?

The next step is to panel the walls to hide all of the existing pipes and cables (and also to give that traditional cottage kitchen feel) and to get the sink and taps fitted.

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Gosh they grafted!

So the time had come to tackle the fireplace in the dining room. If you recall, what we knew to date is that there was a large slate lintel and that’s about it.

The first exposure of the lintel where we knew we had potentially something special

What lies behind the brickwork, how deep does it goes, is there an old range behind there, is all undiscovered territory. Once again, trying to use local companies, I had contacted Bryn at Gwynedd Safeflu Specialists Ltd who had visited the property a number of times to guide me on what was needed.

Due to the amount of opening up in both the dining room and the lounge he put me in contact with Shaun and with support from Caron, they set about dismantling the existing fireplace.

You would never of guess what we found behind this and why you would ever brick it up is beyond me.

A number of people have commented as this blog has developed that it is good to see me taking the house back to a more “original” state and not making it a modern home. My attitude toward Glan Gors is that it is my home first but also it is a piece of local history and I am purely a custodian of it for a period of time. I have a duty to maintain some of that heritage (plus I think it looks cool as well)!

After stripping back the plaster layer, an initial inspection of the lintel showed no cracks and also that the supporting pillars were not compromised so the removal from the middle part took place. The silver liner you can see in the middle was for a gas fire and was encased in concrete which took them a great deal of work. You can also see a build up of sooty sand where at some point we suspect their has been a compromise. It is good to get all of this removed as it was probably contributing to the damp.

By the end of the day the main central section was removed with just some layers of brick at the bottom / back left to remove.

Even though they were coming back the next day, the standard of the end of day cleaning was impeccable

So not bad for a full days graft! and Shaun and Caron got an early start the next day finishing the dining room excavation off and then once it was all cleared, Caron continued removing some of the mortar to allow the sandblast cleaning to take place, whilst Shaun made a start on the lounge.

It is incredible when you see the final opened up fireplace below and once again you wonder why it was originally filled up the way it was?

I thought I would finish this off with a side by side view…

The next steps are:

  • Get the stonework sandblast cleaned – currently trying to find someone
  • Repoint the stonework – Shaun and Caron
  • Replacement liner fitted to take a log burner – Bryn at Gwynedd Safeflu Specialists Ltd
  • Select and purchase log burner – currently trying to work out whats best to put in here
  • Get log burner fitted – Bryn at Gwynedd Safeflu Specialists Ltd

I think its going to be a lovely dining room and can’t wait for family gatherings especially Christmas 2021!

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A chat over the garden fence

It was a mild sunny day a few weeks ago, so I took some time out of the house to continue the work on the garden, and as it seems to happen, it was lovely to bump into one of my new neighbours and spend 30 minutes continuing to get to know them.

One of the lovely things that tends to happen in these meetings is little bits of information about the house come out as a lot of the neighbours have lived close by for quite a period. So what did I learn this time?

Well firstly, at some point the house had been extended. Basically the upper level back bedroom and the toilet and bathroom, plus down stairs, the dining room and utility room were not part of the original build. No one knows when they were added but they are stone built like the rest of the house and not modern brick and rendered. Once you know this fact, you start to see the signs such as the alcove in the middle bedroom which is actually the old external wall window, the way the hallway floor dips slightly in the corridor between the original and extended part of the house and the roof line with the two valleys on the extended part. It would be lovely to date the extension, more so to understand the history but I suspect that there is limited information around this.

This leads on nicely to the fact the the property originally had an outside toilet and I suspect looking at the location of the soil pipe and the small lean-to that is on the rear of the stable block, that is probably where it resided. Now if you look at the current toilet, the toilet bowl is a very old brand and I would not be surprised if when it was moved inside the original toilet bowl was moved in with it!

Keeping with the outside of the property I also discovered that the previous owner landscaped the garden himself to a very high standard in that the contour that allows the lawn to curve up to the upper level of the workshop is actually not just soil but composite hardcore with a thin soil layer on top. This allowed him to drive quite heavy cars up the garden incline and store them in the upper level of the workshop to work on them. Personally I don’t think I would trust putting a car up there but it is good to know that in the past, it has been demonstrated with that load bearing capacity!

When the garden was landscaped, the area was prone to getting waterlogged so to combat this, a large bore draining pipe was also sunk under the hardcore which routes water from the upper lane, under the garden and into the surface water draining system, once again, great fore-thought and hopefully I will benefit from that for years to come.

I think whenever you buy a house, one of the main nigging things is always the state of the roof. Not just the short term issues with potential leaks but also the long term longevity in that are you buying a property that within your lifespan is going to need reroofing and felting? A number of neighbours have all indicated that the roof was completely replaced and re-felted approx 30 years ago and the slates used are actually local states which can be identified by the more dull / matt colour, The downside of these is that they carry a higher iron content and there were a number of claims made by other residents about the deterioration of these slates (becoming brittle) so whilst the felting and structure is generally OK (albeit apart from the couple of leaks I am getting fixed), I am probably going to have to monitor the tiles over time.

Around the same time, it is believed that the external walls of the house were pebble-dashed using locally available grants and I am not 100% taken with the look of the outside (also wondering if this could be contributing to the damp retention), It will be a big decision and cost to strip all of this back and restore the stone and have it repointed but at the moment that is way down the list of priorities.

So a few little snippets of history, a couple more leads to explore and hopefully a bit of light reading for those followers of this journey.

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Kitchen strip out and self level flooring down

The last kitchen I fitted from scratch was probably over 15 years ago, but apart from getting in a plumber is to do the wets and someone to connect the gas for the oven and hob, I managed to do the rest including the new floor so when I realised that Glan Gors was going to need one, to be honest it was one part of the restoration I was actually really forward to getting my hand dirty on.

This weekend was the start of the main strip out. I have next weekend clear to tackle the flooring so I really needed to crack on and strip the kitchen out and self level the floor to allow it to dry and cure.

The first step was to empty all of the units, strip out the work top and then to store them in another part of the house. I had already repainted the doors, so when they go back in they just need a really good deep clean but moving the carcasses out allowed me to check that they were still solid and they definitely have quite a few years left in them.

Before and after, now the hard work starts!

Of course, its OK stripping out the kitchen but you need to have somewhere to cook, so the next step was to set up the temporary kitchen in the utility room. I had spent the last 12 month living in a lovely farm cottage with a small kitchen made up of an oven and a little portable electric 2 ring hob, so I had mastered the art of cooking meals that only need two rings. Fingers crossed this will only be for a couple of weeks, but I have planned my meals to work around this so once again, a good incentive to crack on.

And the award for the best use of a workmate goes to…..

The existing floor tiles have a strong indication that they may contain asbestos. I have researched this and whilst you can get tests done, removal even by specialist companies can leave a residue as the asbestos also exists in the glue. Having asked around the common advise was to “encapsulate it”. This basically involves covering it with a self levelling screed, ensuring it is all covered then lay the new floor on top of the screed. As I will not be drilling into the floor this seemed the logical thing to do. The only thing you need to be aware of is that if you plan to sell the house you need to declare this. Not a problem, I’m not looking to sale….

So the next step was to give the floor a really good clean. Mop, floor cleaning solution and plenty of hot water made sure that the years build up of grime under the work surfaces was shifted then all that was needed next was to a mix a 50/50 PVA and water solution and give the existing flooring a coating. I continue to read conflicting information about this step, some people saying it is not needed, others saying it allows the self leveller to bond better. I thought I would go with the applying it route and created the mix and then applied it.

I forgot to mention, the kitchen has a gas cooker and whilst this is being replaced once the kitchen is fitted out it was still connected so the self leveler needs to go down with this in place. My only option was to stand it up on four tins and allow the leveler to run underneath then once its cured, move the cooker off and back fill the small holes.

My first time at a PVA bonding layer. Not sure if this is right or not!

So wind the clock forward 12 hours, and I wake up to most of the PVA dried with just a couple of patches left where either it was a low point and liquid had gathered or I had been over generous with the brush. I quickly smoothed these out and left them to dry so that in the afternoon I could set about self levelling and this is where the messy fun started.

The kitchen is approx 2.7m square so that calculates out as 7.29 sq m. I had 2 bags of self leveling compound which cover 5 sq m each at a depth of 3mm, a large 45 litre mixing bucket, a drill powered mixing paddle and a large float. The bags said they only needed 4 litres of water per 20 kg bag which seemed hardly any but once it was mixed up you could see the volume bulk up. I thought it best to mix it up in the kitchen and really I should have covered the cooker! but as it will be going at some point I didn’t stress about the splatter, I can give it a quick clean once the floor has hardened.

My dilemma was as I knew I needed both bags, did I mix both together, or get the first bag down to cover the first half of the floor then quickly mix the second bag and blend it in. I went with the latter and worked quickly, trying to get use to the large float sticking flat due to the surface tension and also having to manoeuvre over partly laid self leveler as the second bucket went down and spots on the first part of the floor needed a top up!

Two bags of self leveler later…

I went back to check a few hours later and I am pleased to say it was good to its word on the bag which said you could walk on it within 3 hours as you can see the change of colour below. All in all, a satisfactory result!

[Footnote: when laying the tiles, I did have a slight dip in the middle, so for all of those home DiY people attempting this for the first time I would suggest running a thin batten at each edge of the room and the middle and level them using a spirit level, then fill and shutter in 2 sections. Once dry, remove the middle channel and fill in]

I had to make a judgement call on how far out the door to extend the screed. The shuttering contains it up to the original tiles then the kitchen tiles will run to the door opening and the gap between will be painted with black floor paint to match the run to the left.