Tag: house

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Before we had a bathroom

We’ve got plumbers in today replacing a few items that have broken in the 15 years since we fitted them. Before we moved into this house we had about 11 months of renovation to turn a flimsy house with no insulation, minimal plumbing and wired with appallingly dangerous wiring (rubber coated cables where the insulation had disintegrated), into something that could be lived in.

I could rant about how the plumbers back then made absolutely no thought as to future maintenance, but I will not. However, in looking for how the shower was fitted (so it can be replaced) I came across this photo before the bathroom even existed.

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In this photo the flat roof of the utility room below has been removed and replaced by joists to provide a floor. The door opening was previously a window at the top of the stairs. The shower was fitted between the two studs you see to the left and in front of the white door.

Here’s how it looks now from the exterior (the window you see is about where I was stood when I took the above photo 14 years ago.

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Our hidden little coal burning range

Inside an old house in the process of renovation. Walls are bare brick and scaffolding is holding the roof up.

One of my lockdown projects was cleaning up an old range we found in the house. This blog post has been in Drafts ever since.

When we bought the house about 16 years ago. We bought it from an old couple who had moved into a home (we never met them). They had bought the cottage in 1933 and lived there ever since. They were 102 and 98 yrs old.

When they bought the cottage they renovated it. Removing the thatch and adding an extra floor.
We knew it was an old cottage, however, we assumed (and the survey suggested this too) that all the old features had been “modernised” and removed.

Here’s how the cottage looked originally (around the 1890s).

StJohnsLane Children

Shortly after the “modernisation” in the 1960s (photo taken 1970).

An old cottage with a Morris Minor parked outside
Here’s how it looked when we purchased it 18 years or so ago.

A dilapidated white cottage with a pensive looking man stood outside

..and here’s how it looks now. Photo just taken after I’d spent three months putting eight coats of limewash on the lime render.

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But when we started renovating the cottage we found lots of old original features that had had just been covered up. Two lovely features that we discovered are an inglenook fireplace and our little coal burning range in the kitchen. Both were completely hidden before we purchased and it was only when we started ripping down fibreboard covered walls that we discovered both.

Just after I’d started ripping of the fibreboard around the tiled fireplace, and I discovered the oak bressumer and the inglenook fireplace.

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The kitchen looked like this when we bought it:

An old fashioned kitchen(The water tank is where that little range is now)

When I removed the water tank and associated crap. I found an old range. Seemingly destroyed with all the doors missing.

01072009588But when I cleared all the rubble away I found all the missing bits.
A crappy brick wall was removed, cement render removed and repointed in lime and sand.
I put a wine rack on top of it, meaning to go back and clean it up. I’ve only just done so.
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Incidentally the 85 year old son of the owners visited here 8 years ago. He grew up in this house and he has never seen that range.

There is still burnt coal in the range, but the chimney above is missing. It looks to have been torn down when they reroofed it many years ago.

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New House New blog? How 2008 is that?

So the new house is ours (well 4 weeks now, but what with Crimbo etc….). Since this is going to be a fairly long renovation/rebuild there’s a blog to show it all! If you’re at all interested please visit, although you might want to wait until there’s some content!

In the meantime here’s a picture of my office to be! img_4730