Floors, Walls and Staircases!

The last post was all about taking walls, floors and ceilings out, whereas this time it's about putting them back in...Yay!

The big 600mm wall has gone and we've replaced it with this block wall whilst at the same time opening up the kitchen  into the dining and living area to make the room flow better and offer a more sociable space.

This space will be the 3rd bedroom and downstairs toilet, previously it held the bathroom and one set of stairs.

 The new staircase will go here although we still need to cut out a doorway at the top into the bedroom on the left. Unfortunately the landing (albeit small) will have to come out of the bedroom on the right which makes it slightly smaller.  The original plan was to have the landing in the middle between the two but the steel girder and the position of the staircase prevented this from happening.

As you can see we still don't have any ceilings but this view is from the front door looking back through the cottage.  The doorway on the right has since been blocked up again and re-opened further along the wall for the loo and the window you can see at the back has had to swap places with the back door to accommodate the stairs, talk about putting a jigsaw together : )

The next step was to get the concrete floors laid and after months of rubble and bedrock the concrete mixer was a welcome sight (sad I know)!

Before the concrete can be poured the damp proof layer has to be laid and this is what it looks like....who knew!

Here it comes,,,,watch your feet!

Et Voila! At last it's starting to look like a floor!

Next was the staircase and ceilings.  We decided to raise the floors upstairs to give more headroom in the lounge and as the bedrooms have a vaulted ceiling they still feel roomy.

These are the bones of our new staircase and not a rotten tread to be found anywhere!  The poor estate agent who showed me around nearly broke his ankle climbing the old ones.  We've positioned them in the kitchen next to the 3rd bedroom so we now only have one set of stairs.

New ceiling all ready for first fix electrics and plumbing!

Vaulted ceiling in the bedroom, although the water tank needs to go!

Our next task is to put the rooflight in above the stairs and increase the number of velux's in the bedrooms and kitchen to let the light flood in.  I'll share some photos next time!

Shipwreck to even bigger wreck!

The first thing we had to decide on was whether we were going to keep this property and move into it and either sell/rent the existing one or vice versa?  My initial thoughts were to keep the new one as it's considerably bigger downstairs and has a lovely sunny courtyard out the back but Mr M wasn't as keen.

I think the main problem is he's not very good at visualising how it will look when it's done and is also absolutely in love with St Edmunds Lane as it's warm, cosy and clean.  I suppose when I show you what we did to it within the first month you can sympathise somewhat with his point of view.  As of this date we still haven't made a final decision (which is hindering my choices on finishes a little).  Ah well, I'm all for going with the flow and seeing where we end up : )

A decision I did make was to knock down the main internal wall as it was 600mm thick and taking up way too much room which could be better utilised.  It also accommodated my main ambition  to make a third bedroom downstairs (albeit a bunk bed room) and have a downstairs loo, here's how it looked with the wall half demolished.

You can where the two original cottages back doors were.

 And this is the magical floating wall, held up with a couple of Acro Props and very little else! I kept getting a bit nervous when 'Big Stu' our lovely demo man kept leaning on them.

Here you can see the fabulous slate walls which we will keep as features if at all possible.

The one thing this house has in abundance is fireplaces although they have either been breeze blocked up or plastered over so it's been interesting discovering what's underneath.

As you can see we had to take out the ceiling between the ground and first floor due to the wall coming down but this has enabled us to once again increase the ceiling height downstairs without adversely effecting the upstairs as they are open to the rafters, which is great for those of us in the family who are 6' 4" (Jake).

This is where one set of stairs and the kitchen (I use that word in the loosest possible sense) originally were. 

And the bathroom, soon to be bedroom 3 and a loo! The window on the left didn't make the final cut and is no more, the door in the kitchen has also moved and has changed places with the window to accommodate the all important new staircase.

Outside things are looking slightly better but not for long as this whole space was soon filled with dirt and rubble from all the demolition which was going on inside.

Next time: The new walls are going in and the space is starting to be re-defined with a much more open plan feel.  Is Mr M going to go for it when it's done......????

Watch this space!!

Our New Project - fondly known as Padstow 2

Welcome to our new 'shipwreck' acquisition!  

This is our new project and one which is keeping me very busy.  We've actually had it since April and we're making good progress so I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog. These photos show how the house looked when we first viewed it and I thought I'd take you on a guided tour so you can follow it's transformation.

As you can see from the front it looks fairly respectable and unlike our first renovation it does have four good walls and a roof which doesn't leak however....

From the back it's not so good and the vegetation has started to take over inside and out as it hasn't been lived in properly for about 3 years.

The front room had a lot of old furniture still in it including this beautiful old dresser and the oak table you can see below.  The cottage formed part of an estate and the trustees sold me all the contents they didn't want which are currently holed up in storage.

The lounge and dining room look as though they are in good order but the whole place is extremely damp and in need of some major TLC.  The house was originally two cottages which wasn't apparent until we started to strip everything out but you can see the identical cupboards at each end of the room and the original doorway through to the back is masquerading as a bookcase. 

This is the kitchen!! most of this stuff went in the skip but I kept the 1960's cabinet and anything else I could salvage.  It was quite difficult to go through what had obviously been somebody's belongings and I wanted to keep what was worth salvaging. 

 Here are the two staircases which were positioned opposite each other and went to their respective bedrooms, again a relic of the two cottages.  I can also tell you that the third step up on the above staircase was lethal and totally rotten which made navigating them a little tricky.

 And finally downstairs the appalling bathroom, complete with Ivy coming through the window.  It was in a filthy condition and obviously hadn't been touched since the last resident left (excuse the scary image in the mirror : )

Upstairs somebody had started to do some work and had put in a couple of small velux's and built a block wall between the bedrooms.  As you can see the fireplaces have been breeze blocked up too.  The roof is totally vaulted in one bedroom but in the other has been shaped like a 'Dutch Barn' to accommodate a water tank, which will be going but I think the 'Dutch Barn' effect will stay.

Outside the back garden is a bit of a mess but at least we have one and ultimately it will make a lovely place to sit and have a glass of wine or G&T after returning from the beach.

And that's it for now.  I'll show you what we did next soon as I have a lot to share, until then have a great Bank Holiday Weekend!

Before & After Photos Part 2

As promised here are the remaining before and after photos and a sneak preview of our new project, which is actually starting to move at pace so I have some catching up to do.  However, if you're interested there are some photos on my instagram account @debs_padstow_cottages so feel free to pop over and follow the progress on there too.

I thought I'd start with the stairs this time.  As you will recall if you've been following the previous posts we took the original stairs out, turned them around and completely re-configured the upstairs by moving the landing.  This allowed us to take the space that had been allocated for a large landing into the front bedroom and make a small en-suite.

 This is what they looked like before, rickety, dark and a little unpleasant.

  And now they look like this:

 We decided that it was more important to have an en-suite in each bedroom to give people privacy rather than maintain the family bathroom which was already there.

The back bedroom was full of pine wardrobes and was fairly okay as it had been added in the 1980's so was structurally sound, and the family bathroom was next door with it's lovely Pampus green suite!

It was extremely uninspiring so we gave it a bright white airy feel as the pictures show below (they're not the best but give you an idea), although after a year of using it I'm about to have the headboard wall, papered in a pale blue Sanderson Seagull print which should add a bit of warmth. 

Here are the ensuites, very similar but one has a window in it and the other a large mirror to reflect the light and they have different floor tiles.

The front bedroom also had a lovely set of pine wardrobes (there was a lot of orange pine in this house when we bought it : )). 

The aim was to make both rooms have their own character so we exposed the beams in this room and added a feature wall with the final addition being the shutters which were fitted a few months ago.

And here is the space we took from the original landing looking down towards the window (en-suite is on the left) with paper blinds and then with the shutters fitted.

So that's the final post on Padstow, as it's now affectionately called, but it's not the end of our story as we have now embarked on Padstow 2 and this is what it looks like from the front. 

I'll be writing another blog over the next few days showing you the interior before we started knocking it around : ).

This time we will be letting it, hopefully for the 2019 season, so if you follow the renovation and then would like to go and see it for yourself you'll definitely have the opportunity to do so and we'd love to welcome you to Padstow which as you know is very close to our hearts.

Thanks for taking an interest in our journey so far and I hope you'll enjoy the continuing saga of our renovation projects.  Have a lovely sunny day!

PS.  I really tried to get these photos to sit in pairs which they did in draft but as soon as I published it they reverted to single images.  If anybody can tell me how to change the margins I'd be eternally grateful.