Tiles

[TdC]

wow Tom, nicely done I love woods of all kinds myself, and consider painting a sin in some cases. As I intend to be getting a new house shortly, I'm looking at what people have been doing with theirs. Since your house and my target house are approx the same age you can imagine I'm quite interested.

 

[Tom]

If you're buying an old house, and you're a bit handy, you'll need tools.


Lots of tools.



Anyway, I tend to buy most of my wood from reclamation companies, you know, the kind that rip all the panelling and features from buildings that are being knocked down. The wood is far superior to the timber you get from B&Q (if you have somethign like that over there), or even your local timber merchant. The fireplace surround in the bedroom was originally a piece of wood that framed the top of a doorway, when I cut it down, the middle bits 'clank' rather than 'clump' when you knock them together. The uprights are mahogany planks, and are rock hard. I broke a few screws while fixing it together, simply because the wood is so hard.

 

[TdC]

aye, good wood is 'teh win' indeed. problem is, I'm not diy versed at all. replacing a leccy socket is about the furthest I can push my skills. sure, I can clean paint off or sand somehting down and whatnot, but taking something out, making holes in walls et all is beyond me.

 

[Tom]

Anybody with building experience here? I've posted in quite a few forums, but want a wide range of opinions before I do anything else.

I'm installing a working cast iron fireplace in my front room, to replace the non-working decorative bedroom fireplace that somebody so thoughfully installed

The fireplace you see below is the one I'm removing. The one I'm replacing it with is much larger.

This is a good example of how old houses can often cost more than you think.

You can see beneath the arch the previous owner has put a couple of courses of brick in, to make the existing fireplace fit, obviously these aren't load bearing, but if you look at the other pictures, you can see that 5-6 bricks are physically loose. Most of the arch will move 1/4 inch or so if you give it a gentle push. Amazingly, the depth of the plaster on that breast is over an inch! No plasterwork in the loft on the chimney stack, so I wonder why they laid it on so thick?

So, I'm thinking all it needs is repointing, and then I can remove the 2 courses of bricks from underneath the arch, and carry on installing the fireplace? Whats the correct material to point it with (not that it really matters, because it will be plastered over, but I'd like to stick with tradition). The house was built in 1910.

The other option is to point the bricks and then install a metal lintel below the arch to give it extra support, just in case any other bricks in the breast are slightly loose. Of course, when the new fireplace goes in, none of this will be visible, so I don't want some poor soul in 20 years to have to completely rebuild the entire chimney breast because I didn't do anything to strengthen it.

 

[Tom]

Oh, and the link below is the bathroom bits I'm about to order. Any comments? Will be a waxed oak floor.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.jeffs4/house/bathroom bits.jpg

 

[Tilda]

Bathroom stuff looks ace, im not sure which I prefer, slate or waxed oak floorwise, both look and feel ace.
I'm not sure about your fireplace problem, i'd ask my uncle to have a look at it but I dont have his email addy here at uni. Will the fireplace fit in if you remove the two courses under the arch? It looks like the courses under it, the arch and the bits above it might need all sorted out which could be expensive. I'd be tempted to go for the metal lintel option, as the stuff above it looks quite dodge.

Tilda

 

[Tom]

Well the wall is quite strong enough to stay like that for probably another 20 years or so, but I might as well sort it out. I don't think I need to get a builder in, if its just a case of repointing the brickwork I can do that myself. I have to remove at least one of the courses, otherwise the fireback won't fit in the hole. I'm wondering if, to accomodate the courses of bricks, the original bodger hasn't knocked out a couple of half bricks that would normally go under the left/rightmost bricks in the arch.

The thing is, even without mortar, that arch would still quite comfortably support the weight of the loose bricks above it, so the extra bricks underneath the arch aren't doing anything really.

 

[Tom]

Meh new fireplace:

Its very bloody heavy, took 2 of us to shift it out of the van and into my house. I've whacked the bricks around a bit, they only need pointing now, don't have to rebuild it thank god

 

[Tom]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.jeffs4/house/brickwork.jpg

I aer bricklayer! (a shit one though)

 

[mookie]

shouldnt this be at http://tomshouse.blogspot.com or something?

 

[Tom]

Yeah, but about 2 people would see it (myself and a random fart).