You skimmed it yourself?

Yes. Badly. And then sold it before the cracks showed through :C

Borrowed a small scaffold tower off a mate to do it - 12 foot high ceilings, NOT FUN!

From some of those photos it looks like it's half done - which I'm guessing is wrong, and that's all the "before" shots  :-D

I know I've already said it, but I'll say it again - get everything done. Not extensions etc, but everything you realistically can. The massive clean-up of removing the ceilings, wall coverings etc is worth it in the long run. Also, I believe you have a suspended ground floor - so insulate it, just do it well.

Removing walls and ceilings is going to make all the electrics, plumbing and insulation a LOT easier, so yay!

Run plenty of electrical points, network cables (I used CAT5e FTP because overkill) and if you need it coax (WF100). You can use a full CAT5e cable with active adapters to carry HDMI if you want, or two with passive adapters. If you want to carry analog audio, that's a bit different.

I didn't run quite as many sockets and light switches as I should've unfortunately, but enough...

Plumbing isn't terribly hard, just make sure you pressure check - it has been known *cough* to find floor boards screwed through copper pipes. No, it wasn't me, thanks - but it was our house. Oh, we used Spax flooring screws for the boards - they just seem a bit more secure.

I'm sure you have plenty of people to draw on for advice, but if we can help, ask away.

Definitely ethernet everywhere. I also ran some building type string (?) with all cables in case I need to run more another time.

I didn't do the renovation on mine (bought already renovated) so couldn't get network cables everywhere without ruining brand new carpet. Thankfully due to it being rewired homeplugs work very well where needed.

Sockets and light under the stairs, in the meter cupboard if indoors (I've got my satellite receiver and cables coming into there), in the attic. Sockets both sides of the bed. On the chimney breast with cable management if you like TVs there.

Haha, oh dear. Have you plastered some houses down here too? :) Plasterers make it look so easy.

Aye, I'm not bad at most DIY jobs (though I try to avoid anything with live electricity) and plastering's always been something that eluded me. I wonder if I could do a part time course in it on an evening? The cost of that would massively offset what I'd need to pay a plasterer to sort out our house.

I'm sure a course would help, but I'll suspect experience is worth a lot more.

Also don't skimp on the preparation work.

I'd agree with Kos. Do a course then practise on other people's walls and ceilings :)

Heh, not a bad idea. I was having a word with the guy we got in to plaster one of our attic rooms, and he said it takes about a years worth of experience to get good with a trowel (Possibly John).

 

So you'll have to practise for a year on other people's houses then do your own :)

My brother's got pretty low standards, I'll nip round his.

In the past I've chased cables into walls and patch plastered over the top of those. I'm pretty good at getting a neat finish if the channel/hole is thinner than the width of my tool (NJ).

 

When we had our extension done, I asked the electrician to do a simple move of a socket away from where a radiator was going.

I got home to find what looked like somebody had pushed porridge by hand into a badly chased trench. The new socket was at least 10 degrees skewed and at the other end was a blanking plate with one corner UNDER the porridge/plaster.

There was a builder working there and he could hardly stop laughing. The 'apprentice' had done it. I had to dig the whole mess apart and do it again properly before it set. I checked all the new wiring after that. There were some interesting choices like chasing a couple of back boxes into blockwork which had the frame for plasterboard fitted instead of surface mounting (i.e. when it was all in place the last sparky in had to use ridiculously long screws to fix the frontplates on) but it mostly looked good (and they signed it off).

 :-&

It's bonkers what some people think they can get away with. However, I think the blame can partly lie with the homeowner too. Our kitchen is a cellar conversion that the previous owners had done. When we looked round before buying we'd asked if it was tanked and a pump installed, to which the guy said yeah and the pump's under the sink - we stupidly thought no more about it, getting distracted by the rest of the house. Turns out the kitchen is tanked (though some cupboards are still a tad damp) and the pump is a saniflow unit to get the sink/dishwasher drain water back to ground level. (fail) No idea why he didn't question it when they put it in.

So, we're saving for a new kitchen, those problems not withstanding it's just been poorly put together, skirting boards just butted up to each other at corners (no mitre-ing) backs of cupboards cut out to accomodate gas/electricity meters, wonky cupboards. We got the house in an unseasonally warm September, come the time to turn the heating on we found that the kitchen radiator wasn't getting even a tiny bit warm - it hadn't been balanced properly, so God knows how long he'd not had heating down there for.

Thanks for all your kind words and advice :) I've not had much chance to reply, but I AM reading and taking it all in :)

After much debate (And being told not to by lots of professionals) we decided to drop the upstairs ceilings over the weekend. I'd always wanted to, but got talked into over-boarding.

Because it's got a traditional built roof, the ceiling joists aren't load bearing and it appears they were literally chucked up. We weren't having much luck marking them out, I was feeling frustrated (And I'll confess I did always want to take them out to 'complete the job') so we pulled them down.

It was pretty obvious why we were struggling - most of them are at something of an angle, with some having distinct twists and kinks in. One was so bad we decided to splice it (I was tempted to replace it, but they're nailed to the rafters so it felt like a Step Too Far for DIY. Plus, it was right on the boundary wall so any fuckups could have seen me having awkward conversations with the neighbours)

 

mitreing is considered very 'old-school' now - butt&scribe is where it's at these days

Yep, I wished I'd seen the videos on that technique before doing the skirting in our attic room. :C

Mitreing's still needed for external corners though.

 

For getting your ass tattooed?

I used to think they were called button scribe joints. A new house I was working in today had butted internal corners, mitred external ones though.

How's it going? Any more progress? We're a week into having our bathroom done and it's already caused a few headaches and stress, a leak's brought down part of the ceiling in the dining room and our heating system is again proving a challenge getting itself understood by anyone. I'll post some pictures later on this weekend.

It's still going, just about! I've been working away for the last 5 or 6 weeks, and the 7 day weeks have taken their toll! 

But, yeah, good amounts of movement since my last posts. With the exception of the bathroom (Which I just can't justify / afford to do as part of this) every single ceiling and stud wall came down. So, with the sole exception of the bathroom ceiling there's not a single bit of original lath and plaster, or indeed any old plasterboard (The kitchen had been overboarded in the past).

Upstairs was all chased out and the main electrics ran, and it's now been all boarded and plastered. Finally got some paint on this weekend and the difference is just staggering. All of sudden the upstairs looks like it might just be liveable! I'm pretty bad at taking work photos, but I've uploaded a handful to the album:

https://www.flickr.com/gp/vwdanh/16c962
(They're out of order, so scroll down below the original Estate Agent photos)

I'll take some proper photos when I'm next in, because I really am chuffed to bits to see the upstairs looking like a show home, instead of so tired.

We also got in new double glazing windows on the front (couldn't afford all the way around), and the difference with the bay windows is massive. The old ones had horrid plastic trim everywhere, which were mainly covering big huge holes. The bays were freezing and noisy, but now they're absolutely mint.

Other than that, we had the fireplaces knocked out and liners put in. I've got some guys coming in on Friday to replace our original lead water pipe and bring us off the shared supply with next door, and the sparky is coming to check on downstairs. So, hopefully we'll be able to get some of the downstairs ceilings up this weekend and get the plasterer back.

Still a lot to do, but we're definitely making progress little by little each weekend!