by Chris Newson on November 7, 2009
It’s been too long since I blogged but I couldn’t miss this one….our planning permission for the next 2 phases of work….officially Phase 1 and 2 (you may remember Phase Zero was never meant to happen)…has been approved. Happy days.
If you want to know the details, here’s the planning documents and decision.
In short, we’re knocking down the garage, widening the drive, replacing the roof tiles with slate, redoing the dormers, and enlarging the kitchen and opening it up onto the garden…in 2 phases.
8 weeks of waiting, no objections from anyone and 1 small request for a change from the Conservation Officer, and now we’re full steam ahead for Phase 1 building works to start on the 1st February 2009. That’s the theory anyway.
The only change the Conservation Officer wanted related to the wall at the front of the house. We thought the swirly plasterwork circles in between the pillars had been added after the original railings had been removed, but the Conservation Officer reckons they are original.
We’ve had another look up and down the road and there is 1 other house with the same plasterwork, so he could well be right. Anyway it’s a minor change that we’re happy to go along with.
Now for the small matter of getting all the detailed drawings done, building control approval, and a full schedule of works drawn up…not to mention going back out to tender to find a new builder….don’t ask….let’s just say we have still not found builder paradise yet…maybe I’ll explain more one day. For now though suffice is to say that:
1) we won’t be using GT Developments again
2) If I ever ran a building firm I would have my own retained, reliable and competent plumber
3) if you ever think about using Hodges & Marten as plumbing subcontractors then contact me for a reference first
That’s a story for another day though.
I would add though that JJ Hatfield’s project management has been excellent throughout and are as highly recommended now as they were at the start of the job. I am beginning to get the feeling that in the building world this is praise indeed.
by Chris Newson on July 25, 2009
Oh Radiator of Beauty, I love you so.
We all remember leaning against chunky old school radiators on a cold day…perching on top of them until you could take the heat no more.
They really are things of great beauty. Why oh why did 150 years of progress end up with horrible white tinny things screwed to the wall?… and radiator covers…no thanks.
There are a lot of beautiful Victorian cast iron original radiators out there in reclamation yards. You need to make sure they have been well reconditioned.
However after a bit of digging we decided to go with newly made Carron cast iron radiators. Carron have been making the same radiators since Victorian times and are still going strong now. They had some great designs, we could choose any finish we liked, and best of all, my Dad could get them at trade prices. Happy days! ☺
Victorian Cast Iron Radiator - Carron, The Victorian
I’d be lying if I said putting old Victorian cast iron radiators in was a cheap exercise, but they are beautiful and really do make the whole Victorian feel of the house come alive. If you’re working to a budget, then maybe try and squeeze one or two in where you’ll love them most. You won’t regret it!
P.S. For your info, we went for the Antiqued Finish (which is basically a distressed French Grey). It looks lovely on both The Daisy and The Victorian models which we went with. I think it would fit with pretty much any colour scheme.
by Chris Newson on July 25, 2009
A lightswitch of joy!
If you didn’t know that light switches could make you happy, then you have led a deprived life and need to get out more. Actually that’s me isn’t it. Hrmm, well, if you’re reading this, then there’s a fair chance that light switches can make you happy too, so I’ll go on…
Working out what light switches to put in a Victorian House is not the easiest of things to do, as the light switch only really came into existence in late Victorian times, so most of our houses would have been built without them, and pretty basic first generation light switches would have been dodgily retro-fitted by inexperienced electricians soon thereafter. Building control would have a fit.
This was one of the parts of the job where we tried to make a nod to Victorian ways without returning to exactly what they would have done.
After a bit of research, it soon became clear that the dolly switch (a stick with a little knobble on the end) would have been what would have been used for the switch itself. This would probably have been mounted on a dome sticking out from the wall. They would most likely have been made from UNLAQUERED brass (don’t get me started). Some of the domes would have been plain, some more ornate. They’d probably have been mounted on a block of wood.
Although I’m sure some people would be happy to go with something along these lines, it was a bit much for us, but after a bit of hunting around we managed to find some flat brass plates with a dolly switch on from Broughtons…and we love them!
by Chris Newson on July 25, 2009
So after many a soul destroying hour of searching for a simple curtain pole to go in the bay windows in our lounge and dining room, we have finally given up looking.
We do not want fancy finials (another new word we’ve learned – the bits that go right at the end of a curtain pole), or tracks, or any other fancy shenanigans.
We didn’t really mind whether we got wood or metal. Apparently the Victorians used either – obviously metal’s easier for a bay though. They did like them simple as well though apparently.
We knew we needed something with just 3 fixings to the wall. 1 at each end, and 1 in the middle – The only way of getting curtains off the windows and still able to close without using any fancy modern tracks.
Our friends, Pete and Mog recommended The Anvil Iron Works – local Brighton blacksmiths with an artistic bent – who made their rather nice bed for them. We went to see their work at a local Open House and decided to get them on the case.
Hey presto, we’ve got exactly what we wanted. They look great and sound awesome when you open/close them (you didn’t know that the sound of closing curtains could make you happy now did you!)…and they weren’t any more expensive than a lot of the hideous modern options either. Result. Good find Mog! 
by Chris Newson on July 9, 2009
- Shepherd’s Hut Garden
To get a bit of inspiration, on tuesday I headed to Hampton Court Flower show. I’d never been to a flower show before, so I was interested to know whether i’d enjoy it or not.
I did. A good day out with my mum and sister. It was really nice to see some amazing gardens and plants, as well as some fun/interesting garden furniture and bits and pieces for the home.
We had to dodge a few thunderstorms, but generally the weather didn’t cause us any problems. I felt distinctly middle-aged, but hey i’m getting used to that now.
Paul Dyer of WaterFeatures.co.uk had a stand there…we’ve decided to use him to put a stream into the garden next spring. (Slightly awkward use of the the Royal ‘we’ there – still trying to get the missus bought in!).
Dyer's Show Garden
Check out his website WaterFeatures.co.uk to see an enthusiastic rant about how streams should be done!
You can see my photos of the show here, and using the wonders of social photo sharing you can see other peoples’ too in this Flickr Group.
by Chris Newson on June 25, 2009
OK, so there’s a million jobs to do which will cost a King’s ransom to get done. If we do them all at once we’ll be buried in builder’s dust for a year, bankrupt and probably divorced…a plan is required…
There’s the inevitable weighing up of things that really need doing…fixing that leaking roof for instance, and things that make you smile…reinstating cornices, decorating, that kind of thing. Heart vs head..that old struggle…head never seems to win with me…
So here was our initial conclusion:
Phase 1 (Spring 2009):
- Kitchen Extension
- Sort out leaky roof in dining room
- Ground floor decorations
- Replace rotten cellar window
- Split cellar into rooms and dig wine cellar
- Merge loo and bathroom on first floor
Phase 2 (Spring 2010/2011)
- Replace concrete roof tiles with slate
- New dormer windows
- Decorate exterior of house
- En suite bathroom
- Decorate the rest of the inside of house
It begins to dawn on us that Phase 1 is going to get held up with changing our mind over the design of the kitchen extension, and getting planning permission. If we want to live in a house that doesn’t resemble a squat, then we’re going to need to break phase 1 up a bit….hark the sound of the heart beginning to edge a lead over the head!
So Phase Zero is born (January 2009), the kitchen extension and cellar can wait a year…
- Ground floor decorations
- Cellar window replaced
- Dining room leaky roof fixed
- Proper steps put in between kitchen and diner
- Cast iron radiators to replace horrid white ones (how did that sneak in there!)
So everything was set for a January 2009 start, all decisions made, no need for further prevarication or change… when on New Year’s eve the cooker decided to blow up…damnation, Pandora opened her box once again…
De Dietrich Range - A thing of great beauty!
There seemed no point in getting a temporary cooker, so we undertook a quick but extensive bout of research (and agonising) to decide what would fit in the future kitchen extension. It had to be Pyrolytic, it had to have 2 ovens, it had to be gas on top….well that limited us to a De Dietrich range as they are apparently the only people in the world who make such a thing.
Nice and easy you might think, but typically the beast, although a thing of beauty, was 20cm bigger than the chimney opening it had to fit into, so suddenly a bunch more building work was added to the job…oh yes and then there was the stripping of the bay windows and the replacement of the 2 fireplaces, and the sudden change of mind from doing a doing a temporary repair on the dining room roof to a full blown lead roof.
The lessons learned…give the plan time to mulch before locking it down, and keep flexible. Have a mechanism for revising the project plan once you’ve got going – in other words have a good Project Manager. No matter how much you plan not to, you will change your mind.
Enough for now. Until next time.
by Chris Newson on June 17, 2009
Always a tricky one this…do you use those builders you’ve used for odd jobs over the years? do you go with the one recommended by a friend? do you use an architect? a project manager? do you even do some of the work yourself?
Super Surveyor Jim Hatfield
As chance would have it, my sister had some bad luck with a house a few years ago and met Super Surveyor Jim Hatfield. He does actually have his own super-suit.
Jim and his crew (JJ Hatfield & Co to be more polite – and one feels one should be polite around Hatfield’s) do surveying for legal cases and building surveys, and they also do architectural design and project management. Jim is a restoration nut – he even has is own steam engine – so he seemed like a good person to have around for a project like this.
Anyway, i’m jumping the gun, we actually got Jim involved to do our building survey – for which he wore the famed super-suit – 9 hours of crawling around in the rafters, and a whole bunch of report writing later, we benefited from 2 inches of pure weapons-grade building survey joy – identifying every single problem with our future baby. For the first time in my life I actually trusted a building survey. Needless to say we bought the house.
Now Jim was so familiar with the house, and having been so impressed with him, it seemed folly not to give Hatfield’s a crack at project managing the renovation.
OK, so you could easily think that it would cost a bit more because of their fees, but actually it meant we wouldn’t go over-budget, we wouldn’t get any surprises, we’d have someone totally on top of the builders and we wouldn’t need to engage an architect separately.
We figured that in the end the costs would work out about even and we would get a much higher quality, and less stressful, job done. Much more importantly, 6 months in I still believe all of this to be the case.
David Witcombe - Project Manager
So having got Hatfield’s on board, they specified every tiny detail of the first phase of the job – down to how many times to stir the paint in the morning (leave nothing to chance!) – and then put the job out to 3 builders to quote on. 2 of the builders they had worked with before, and 1 wildcard.
The wildcard came in cheapest, but their references just didn’t make us feel good, so we ended up deciding on builders no.2…
Ladies and Gentleman I present to you…the builders all our hopes are pinned to…. GT Developments.
So Job Done (well for this blog post anyway). Builders for phase 1 selected. Building work to commence January 2009 and last 3 months. Project manager, surveyor and heir to the supersuit, David Witcombe, was assigned.
by Chris Newson on June 15, 2009
Crikey, so where to start…so much to say, but nobody even knows this blog exists yet…I guess I have to imagine lots of people excitedly hanging on my every word, and hope that one day somebody will come along and read it, and hopefully find it either interesting or useful – either would be nice
OK, so off we go…it all began when we got the keys at the beginning of September 2008…yes that’s right, just as the UK housing market peaked…but hey ho!
I should introduce you to our baby…she’s a big old Victorian House in Brighton…6 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a cellar with lots, and yes I really do mean lots, of work needed.
In the beginning...there was a lot to do...lots and lots..
You can see from the outside that she needs some love. The previous owners had done a great job of converting the house back from bedsits to a family home. They also redid the plumbing and electrics – saving us two big expensive (and boring!) jobs, but then ran out of steam (or maybe it was money…judging by our depleting bank balance that was almost certainly it).
So what we start with is more than slightly rough round the edges, but at least it still has most of its original plaster cornices, roses, fireplaces, stripped pine doors, beautiful stained glass, sash windows, high skirting boards etc..and it really is a lovely layout, with great open halls and landings, high ceilings and a lovely established garden….. but…..and it’s a pretty big but to be honest…
Pretty much the condition of the whole house...ouch!...
As you can start to see from the picture in this post we’re going to have to get rid of those concrete roof tiles which are squashing our baby as each day ticks by, rip out the horrific dormer windows and the dodgy DIY velux (which our surveyor reckons was from an old camperan!), replace the nasty plastic guttering with cast iron ones, repair all the windows, clean off the bricks, overhaul the front garden, recondition the old victorian tile path, banish the concrete drive…and that’s just what you can see from the front of the house!
Once you get inside we’ve got to restore the cornices and rose in the living room – they were lost in a fire - Strip the artex off the walls, remove 120 years of paint from the cornices and ceiling roses, put a proper staircase in between the kitchen and the dining room, make the bathroom on the first floor habitable, move the airing
A fine example of a DIY dormer!
cupboard from the landing, put in a decent cooker and kitchen units….in fact we’re going to extend the kitchen – but more on that later.
In fact really the only way you can get a good idea of the scale of what we have to do is through photos – i’ll get snapping. But hopefully by now you have the gist. We have bought a lovely house, but it needs a hell of a lot doing to it.
As we go through the journey, it is my intention to update victorianjack.com with the story as it unfolds, and build it into a mine of useful resources for anyone else doing a similar job…we’ve already uncovered hundreds of really useful sites and books that I wish I’d come to know about without quite so much digging. So hopefully you’ll find the end product useful, and I hope it might even give someone some encouragement to take on a similar challenge. Enough for now though…in the words of the immortal Governator….”I’ll be back!”
