Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Rick]

Hi all,

Obviously we all have an interest in matters vehicular, but has anyone taken on the restoration of an old building?

RJ
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[colwyn500]

[peter scott]

We have also restored several houses but perhaps our last house was the one requiring the most work.

It was a 3 storey Georgian end terraced house in Edinburgh that we bought in 1974 for £11,000. It had been let out previously and was in a poor state. The kitchen had been fire damaged and lots of the rooms had Yale locks on their doors. In our first few days we had a 5 foot high pile outside of disgusting carpets and hardboard sheets that covered the paneled doors.

When we moved in we lived initially on the middle floor to avoid the roof leaks on the top floor and rising damp on the ground floor. After getting an injection DPC we had moved down to ground level but we hadn't reinstalled the skirting boards and the place was generally a mess with plaster dust.

On approach to our first Christmas in the house I noticed someone pass the front window but they didn't walk back even though we were the last house in a cul de sac and they didn't ring our door bell. I thought this a bit suspicious so went to look out the front door only to find a down and out sheltering in our doorway.

It was a bitterly cold day and sleating so I invited him in. He didn't want to sit on our chairs lest he dirty them so he sat on the floor. We offered him food a drink and got his unfortunate life story. Then he turned to me and said "Should that telephone not be on a table?" (It was on the floor in the dust.) Needless to say we thought this was hilarious.

I won't bore you with all the work we did on the house but one thing that took me a bit of effort was to replace the astragals in the windows that had been cut out in the Barry Bucknell era. This involved taking the frames apart and reglazing. I rather fancied having old ripply glass like it would have had when it was built in 1811 and I bought a load of glass from some old green houses that were being demolished. This provded to be a mistake as apart from the ripples greenhouse glass is not as clean looking as original old glass.

As a Christmas present for our daughter I built a doll's house for her. The real house had some nice Georgian features internally. A dining room with semicircular end, sitting room with alcove and cupboards each side, dado rails and an oval staircase connecting the three floors. I painted the doll's house using the same paint that decorated the actual rooms and I also recreated the staircase. Our granddaughters still play with it to this day.

The street only had 11 houses in it and over the 20 or so years that we had the house quite a few of the houses were restored from very sorry states. A further 20 years on since we sold it most of the houses in the street look quite good. I pieced together a panorama fairly early in our period of ownership.

Peter


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[kevin2306]

I'm a construction director Rick so done loads, need some advice?

Kevin

[Rick]

[peppiB]

Best advice I have is know what you have before you start.

I bought a 'house' in the late 1980's and started to 'restore' The house was made of riverstone (ie, pebbles) set on sand. According to the deeds, the last work was done in 1733.

There was a tall chimney which was unstable so I took it down, discarding the bricks. I then found a Priest Hole and decided to ask for help. Chap from English heritage came, was in raptures and informed me that the property was 3 cottages combined, with the earliest part dating to the 12th Century. He had sketches showing the cottages on a drawing dated circa 1400. Hinges on the cellar door had been untouched since about 1550. When I told him about the chimney he asked what I did with the bricks and nearly passed out when i said they went in a skip. Allegedly those bricks were very early examples and worth about £50 EACH. The ones I had thrown away would have been worth over 5 grand
In the loft he showed me the original beams which would have held the thatch. He also knew of an additional escape tunnel which used to link the property to a church owned palace. As I said, check what you have first.

Really sad when I had to leave that place, but wheelchairs and narrow doors atop stone steps are not condusive to wheelchair use