Posted on

New Year 3 day binge! – day 2

Whilst tradition says that Christmas decorations should come down on Twelfth Night, I have always found that the over hang from the Christmas festivities is best packed up quickly. For me, it creates that sense of “new” beginnings and certainly this year it was very apt. One of the lovely elements about this house is the cellar and having only just moved in, I have no plans for it so instead of using the loft as the annual decoration store, it was nice to just get some boxes and pop everything down into the cellar without the hassle of getting loft ladders out etc!

Once that was done, I could crack on with todays decorating and the plan was very much around finishing the Snug off and if possible getting all of the emulsion on the lounge walls. Hopefully that would leave me with a couple of options tomorrow, the main one being starting to unpack the workshop and if I felt inclined I would start the gloss in the lounge but I really wanted the Sunday to be a more relaxing day with a more fluid plan.

The snug work was really straight forward. I had laid down two coats of white emulsion on the places where I had stripped the lifting wallpaper and the two top coloured coats went on really nicely. Once that had dried back I was able to finish off the two skirting boards under these panels then stand back and enjoy the transformation.

The two sides adjacent to the front door have very poor adhesion on the paper and I suspect some form of damp coming from the outside wall. Stripping them back and just applying plaint should allow me to monitor it.

Once I had tidied up and dressed the room, it was time to grab a quick coffee then start on the lounge. The area behind the sofa had a lot of lifting wallpaper and I had started on the walls before it yesterday so knew I had the complex bit coming. The first two short walls around the dining room door were OK but as soon as I came to the corner it was evident that the paper adhesion was poor and even thought I started just cutting sections out it quickly became apparent that the only option was to strip it all back and see the extent of the problem. Whilst a messy task with that underlying fear that I was going to discover my first major issue, the paper came off clean with little damage to the underlying plaster and whilst there was one patch of degradation the underlying walls seemed OK.

Area of damp and and the work done previously in the cellar which has obviously address rotting beams due to damp

Now all of the parts of the jigsaw have slotted together and probably give me something to monitor / address going forward. From what I can see, this area of dampness in the walls is directly above the new floor boards and if you look in the cellar you can see where new supporting walls have been built, I assume to take the weight of the floor joists which had started to rot in the old wall supports. Without specialist investigation confirming it, I suspect it is an occurrence of rising damp with moisture being drawn from the ground where the cellar walls touch the outlying soil.

The walls next to the building works are very black indicating a longer term damp problem I suspect

I will leave the lounge walls to dry out (with a oil filled radiator next to them and also allowing the window open above to let the moisture out) then get a couple of coats of white emulsion down whilst I monitor for 12 months without any paper on them.

This was expected (as damp was highlighted on the structural survey) and my approach was always to blitz each room quickly with a fresh coat of paint, exposing the damp areas for a 12 month monitoring. The extra work prepping these walls put me behind for the day but I felt I had achieved a lot in the lounge so called it a day.

One of the reasons I proceeded with the purchase after reading the survey was the potential of hidden gems. Yesterday I lifted the lounge carpet and found a lovely set of floor boards and the next one was going to be the dining room. The sound and texture underneath the carpet indicates a solid floor and I had banked on maybe a concrete or compacted stone floor but lifting the carpet in two places unearthed I hope something potentially fantastic…

The picture to the right shows a layer of old patterned lino being used as underlay. Whilst decorative it was very brittle so in another section of the floor it came up with the carpet. The picture on the left appears to show original welsh slate flooring. We will see when we lift the whole carpet the extent of the coverage.

Posted on

New Year 3 day binge! – day 1

Well 2021 was rang in at midnight, I watched a bit of telly till 1 then nodded off to sleep (OK I did fall asleep during the Last Leg at 10:30 pm but that was because I was tired!

My intention on the Friday (1st) was to get the gloss finished in my bedroom and then finish the Snug (gloss on the stairs, strip the walls around the door and get the coloured emulsion finished). As it was, I also ended up starting the white emulsion in the lounge and a bonus job of lifting the carpet to expose the floor boards!

The gloss in my bedroom was pretty straight forward as it was just a couple of skirting boards and door surrounds. Basically all I have left now is to make a small curtain for the back window and await the grey gloss paint for the inside of the door then its done. I will post some pictures under the Ymlacio category once those small jobs are complete. All in all a really practical transformation and has created the space for the en-suite to go in later this year. Oh and my new rug arrived yesterday which was quite nice.

New rug has arrived. The mirror doesn’t work here so its going to be moved.

Once the bedroom was done, it was time to try and finish off the Snug. This is basically the front room as you come in the front door and has an incredible decommissioned fireplace and the hallway / staircase. The main issue as well as a paint refresh was that the structural report highlighted some high level of damp by the doorway and this was evident by an amount of lifting wallpaper. My plan is to refresh the area with a new colour on top of the existing paper but where it has lifted take that paper off and lay down two coats of white then two of colour then leave it 12 months to monitor the damp. I’m hoping with better heating and air circulation it does not reoccur but if it does at least I have a starting point for treatment.

Stripping the paper and laying down the two layers of white emulsion took longer than anticipated but at least I go into tomorrow with it all prepped to finish it off.

By the front door has been stripped and sanded. Now two coats of white then two of colour will be left for 12 months to assess any potential damp issues

So as it was getting to the end of the day but I had an hour left to kill, and I had a white emulsion brush in my hand and a few easy access walls it made sense to end off with an easy white coat. If only it was that easy!

The problem started with the small wall just under the curtain…

The problem hit when I got to the second wall which had no skirting to so the emulsion did touch the blue carpet no matter what I did. Luckily this was going to be behind the sofa and the carpet would be replaced at some point but I would know about it, so the only “illogical” thing to do was to rip the carpet up!

I say illogical as it was now 5pm and I had been going since about 09:30 and I genuinely did not know the state of the floor underneath. I knew it was floorboards as it is the floor above the cellar but it could have been in any state! So bread knife in hand to cut it into sections and watched as the foam backing disintegrated in front my eyes (I can not estimate how old this carpet was), an hour later I was presented with a fantastic starting point of a new floor for the lounge.

The slow and messy process of removing the old carpet

Once swept and vacuumed, what I have been left with is a solid set of boards but with two new sections. My decision now is whether I sand it all back and re-stain it or keep the original board patina and try and color match stain the two small sections.

We will see…..