DAY 2 -30th January 2020 Early start, met a builder at the house at 8am, to look at it thorougly and work out what to do. It looks like it needs to be divided into 4 separate projects:

  1. inside of house - rewire, redecorate. Involves lots of stripping of wallpaper and removal of carpets, plus removing a large ornamental fireplace (150cm high by about 3m long, stone held together with concrete). We’re also going to move the door to our bedroom, as otherwise, it’ll just be a matter of time before one of us falls down the stairs in the middle of the night.

  2. Outside of house - the render is in a mess and there are various cracks due to ‘differential movement of walls’. As I understand it, when the extension was built, there weren’t the appropriate ties put in place to stop this.

  3. Other extensions - there is a utility room, loo and conservatory at the back of the house. Unfortunately, these have all been done cheaply, and today’s builder reckons that it’s cheaper to knock them down and start again, rather than attempt to bring them up to standard.

  4. Stairs up to attic - the attic has a velux window and the roof has been insulated. However, it’s not a proper conversion, and needs proper flooring, proper lining of ceilings and walls etc. It also needs stairs rather than a (currently broken) loft ladder.

Needless to say, we probably can’t afford to do all of this at the moment. We need quotations for each bit, and then to work out what we can do.

However, in conversation with the builder, he reckoned I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the workmen if I were to start stripping paper myself, so he would factor in the cost of removing wallpaper too. That was a definite challenge to me - so I put in a request to a local mailing list for the loan of a wallpaper stripper - and had one promised an hour later and then delivered to me before teatime! I’ve only ever stripped wallpaper by hand before, with a spray bottle of vinegar and a lot of effort. So this will be interesting…