The kitchen ceiling is going in.

Lately we seam to be doing one hundred jobs at once and not finishing the previous, to me this feels like we are just making more and more mess and nothing looks like it is getting finished but i'm assured by my other half that this is the way with renovating and we have to do a little bit of every job for it all to come together in the end. Whilst the plasterer cracks on in the front room we attack the kitchen, With the recent new roof everything was removed and so we are tasked with recreating a ceiling inside. Here you can see the new beams in place ready to receive their plaster board, however we can't get the plaster board up until the electrician runs the electrics for our lights so onto another job in the house. 

Our electrician has put a temporary light in place to tie us over, at least we can see now when it's dark!

New network of beams making the ceiling under the new roof.

The Range and the Emulsionator paintball gun.

Doing up a house on a budget we are always looking out for bargains to keep the cost of the renovation down. Seeing the Ranges' new TV advert for a deal on paint and wallpaper caught my attention but the video is hilarious to.

So that's where we are going wrong with the decorating we don't have an Emulsionator paint ball gun! Or Laurence Llewelyn Bowen....... Maybe that's what I need........ Mr. Bowen are you free???? Wishful thinking.

Preparing for plastering

This feels like an incredible day, the day we are ready for some plastering in the house. I know there is still a long way to go elsewhere but the downstairs is coming together really quickly now.

The first job was to get the two fireplaces straight. Being old and Cornish the chimney breast was all over the place, wanting a modern sleek house this needed to be flattened out. However this wasn't within out skill set and had to get professional help in.

Having two fireplaces is lovely but does mean twice the amount of work needed. We aren't planning to use this fireplace and have it as a funky feature area with lanterns and candles in the bottom. The fireplace in the front room will be the working fireplace.

Although there isn't a lot to show you today a lot of the time has been used as preparation time, all the corners in the house have been covered with edge beading ready to receive plaster. I can't wait for the plasterer to do his handy work and really see our home transform.

Creating a modern fireplace

Another item we were desperate to change in the house was the fireplace. Although at first glance the fireplace doesn't look to offensive on closer inspection it has it's downsides. The bottom of the fireplace is made up from concrete slates, and these just look ugly. The tiles used inside the mantle look like bathroom tiles and the mantle itself is broken and ghastly!

Our first job was to then remove the old mantle piece and tiles. Luckily we weren't wishing to retain any of the old features so no careful removal was required and we could literally demolish and smash the lot out.

Next we removed the concrete slabs that were creating the hearth

For the new fireplace we wanted to create a rustic country cottage effect with a simple wooden mantle. During the demolition of the other internal walls in the house we actually found this massive chunk of wood making the corners of an internal wall so thought we could use this. (Yes we know this looks like an old skool scaffolding gauge, and it probably was knowing some of the half measures that have been used in the past on our home)

Sanding off the red and white paint we were left with a substantial chunky piece of wood for our mantle, cutting away the gnarly broken bits we were left with a fantastic piece of wood perfect for the mantle piece that we imagined in our heads. The best bit of all was that it was free and utilizing what we found in the house, Plus the wood was far to nice to turn into firewood!

Next job is to fix the wood in place and create some little supports to make the mantle look more complete and less like a floating lump of wood on the wall!

Moving the man hole.

Now for the big job, where the old porch was there was a manhole slap bang in the middle of it. However now that we are moving the porch forwards this area now becomes part of our kitchen and we certainly don't want a manhole in our kitchen.

This is the outside of our house in the back garden where we plan to move the manhole cover to rather than in the kitchen, It's only a few feet away from the old manhole but it's outside!

Exposing the existing pipe work to determine where the new manhole cover will sit. Why oh why is it always torrential rain when we have outside jobs to do! as if it's not bad enough working with poop, but working in a flood isn't great either.

Removing the old manhole area to expose the pipe work

Reconnecting the old pipes so that they now run straight through this area now, The last thing we wanted was a manhole in the house, again can't believe people actually rented the house in the state that it was in. We don't mind buying it as we can do the work and get it all straight but i would not rent a house that potentially could flood with raw sewerage. And being on a cesspit this is more likely than you think around these parts.

One area of the house concreted over never to have raw sewerage floods ever again.

Building a new porch

With a new section of roof in place we can now build the new section of the porch. With a small Cornish cottage we wanted to maximize the space we had and that meant extending the kitchen into the original porch and building a new porch in the alleyway of the house. Moving the front door by a few feet will make such a big difference in the house and give us the big kitchen that we both really want.

Looking at the new front porch, OK so it needs a lot of work, some rendering and painting but here's the rough template that we can work on.

Removing and replacing a staircase

One of the first things I noticed when I moved into our new house was that the staircase was horrible! It was steep with narrow steps and I would regularly fall up the stairs. With a bit of thinking and working out we decided to the detriment of our second bedroom we would replace the staircase. 

Not only were we replacing the old staircase, but we were also changing the direction of the staircase and changing the width of the staircase. This makes a much safer staircase but makes a much thinner walkway up on the landing. The next plan is to make the landing wider again although the space has to come from the second bedroom but i'll sacrifice bedroom space for safe stairs.

Cutting the floor upstairs ready to take the new wider staircase.

With more help from fantastic friends the stairs slot into place

Smashing up our Cornish House!

With the steel in place and the concrete either end set the next job is to remove the internal concrete walls. You can see from the pictures that this wall was originally the back wall of the house with the door frame on the right of the picture and a window over to the right. These walls have got to go as this space will soon be my kitchen and beautiful island..... OK so it takes a lot of imagining but this will be my beautiful kitchen soon!

The boys work hard and remove the concrete, it takes all day, a lot of graft, a lot of energy and a lot of DUST, but we are there and the vision for our ultra sleek modern open plan Cornish country cottage is finally starting to take some shape.

New RSJ fitted and the begining of open plan living

Now it's time for more demolition and making the house more open plan. This involves getting another steel in place across the living room and kitchen area. The only problem was getting the steel into the house, the only way in was through the window!

With the steel in the house and a selection of our fittest strongest friends and the help of a Jewsons winch the steel is roughly in position to go in.

To get the house ready for the new steel we need to remove the old rotten beam and get the area ready to accept the beam. First we need to make the area safe and support the existing beams whilst the old supports are removed. 

With the area made safe it's time to get the area ready for the new steel to go into place, this means knocking out the for the beam to sit on.

The steel is now lifted into the space created, with a little wiggling it sits perfectly level exactly where we wanted it.

Now the next job is to remove the remains of the internal chunk of concrete wall and our house is becoming one big room rather than three little rooms. I can't wait until the house is a little tidier and a lot less dusty!!!

New Roof is finally complete

In the daylight we can get out and finally see the new roof in all it's glory, it still needs a few finishing touches but it is very nearly there and definitely a lot less rotten and a lot more water tight than what was previously left to us when we moved in.

From the outside the house is beginning to take shape if only the inside was starting to look slightly less building site and more homely.