Terraced House Restoration Project

[Doc]

Earlier in the month (July 2012) we sold the farm, moved into rented accommodation and purchased a 2 bedroom + attic terraced house in Barnoldswick from a repossession company for £65,000, I got the keys from the estate agents today, so the project will commence tomorrow. The idea being that I will gut the place and totally rebuild it to how we want it. I've created this topic so that I can keep a diary of the progress made and also publish any suitable tips, snags etc. that I come across.

At the end of the project I will get the house valued, publish a set of accounts detailing the costs involved and to see if it was worth all the effort (and the money).

I will be doing most of the work myself and where I need help I will get the professionals involved. There is no time pressure involved, however paying a monthly rental premium is dead money in my mind so the sooner its complete the better. I'm estimating that it will take approx 6 months, I've given myself a £20,000 budget with an additional £5,000 contingency fund. I'm hoping that this will not be exceeded otherwise I'll be spending more money than it will be worth on the open market. Time will tell.

I've taken some "Before" Pictures for reference and I will post these later also I will continue to post new pictures as the project proceeds.

Turner Street 001.jpg

[Stanley]

Doc gave me a viewing yesterday and it's a solid house, mind you I think the plumber may have been slightly deranged! As for market value when it is finished, remember there are very few completely refurbished houses on the market and they commend a large premium.

[Wendyf]

We bought a very cheap 2 up 2 down terrace house in Colne a few years ago for our son. It came in at under £25,000 with legal costs etc. (We reckon it was the last cheap house in Colne, the prices jumped to 50 or 60k soon after) It had a bath and toilet behind a curtain in the back bedroom, and very little else had been done to it since the 1950's. Col (with a little help from said son) did all the work himself apart from the damp proof course, gutting it completely and spending every evening and weekend at it for almost a year. We spent about £5000 doing it up, reclaimed the stone flag flooring (which has made a fine patio up here) a magnificent drying rack and the shelf & brass towel rail from over the stove in the kitchen. The stove was gone unfortunately! It finished up with a grand, solid, warm little house.
We were amazed by the amount of soot everywhere. It was inches thick in the loft, behind the built in cupboards...everywhere.

[Tizer]

Doc, good luck with the renovation but beware anything that might involve Planning or Building Control. As I've mentioned elsewhere on these forums, in the last year things have tightened up dramatically and they are sticking their noses in everywhere. Planning are beginning to move into structural issues and there'll be some turf wars between them soon. We've abandoned our self-build project because Planning set impossible conditions. I hope you have better luck - at least it's renovation and not a new build!

[Doc]

Thanks for the heads up Tiz, the only thing structural I'll be doing is taking down a supporting dividing brick built single story wall and putting a girder in to support the joists above, I am expecting to either the planning or building dept to get involved, but I am about to make some tentative enquiries whether Planning Permission or building control approval will be required or not, I'll let you know how I get on.

Turner Street 002.jpg

This is the dividing wall with the doorway in that I will be removing.

[Stanley]

Doc. Another heads up for you! The pic you have posted doesn't enlarge if you click on it...... It tries but comes up with the same size.

[PanBiker]

I think that is the full native size of the image Stanley. It's not very big to start with and it has been inserted as an attachment as opposed to a gallery object.

[Big Kev]

Enjoy your restoration, Doc. The terraced houses here are grand places. Looking at your picture you're not far from me; give me a shout if you need a second pair of hands for anything.

[Gloria]

Looking forward to watching the progress of this.

[Whyperion]

I am not really a fan of through rooms ( less walls to hang pictures on or place bookcases against ). Anyway don't think planning permission is an issue , unless in conservation area. Building Regs will need a set of structrual calculations , particulary end support detail ( lintel or padstone in wall for steel to rest on , RSJ size - is it large enough to support the wieght of the walls floors etc above including the share of the weight of the roof bearing on any upstairs wall. I think the cost of Building Regs approval is about £250ish and the same again if you use a structural engineer to do the calculations - you might be able to calculate yourself ( its standard kg to assess ) or a builders merchant might do it for you if that is where you are sourcing the steel from.

[Doc]

I thought it was about time I gave you an update on the progress of this project. To be honest my original time scale went out the window more or less at the start because of other unforeseen commitments I had to make. But there has been some progress albeit a bit slower than anticipated.

Below are some pictures that I took when we first got the property.

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If I'm going to bring this house forwards into the 21st century I will need to strip everything out, and I mean everything.

First of all I will start at the top of the house and work my way down starting with the attic ceilings and floors then the floor joists and stairs then jump down to the first floor and make a start in those rooms.

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I tried to save the floor boards throughout the house so that I could reuse them, however they were so dry and that well nailed down that they all split and snapped when I took them up.

About four of the floor joists were also showing severe signs of old wet/dry rot so they will also need replacing.

Here am I with my son Alan who gave me a hand one day dropping the ceilings (A very dirty job)

2012-10-04 16.46.54.jpg

Once the first floor was completely removed I took up the first floor joists which were resting on the central supporting wall and then demolished the wall and removed the staircase to leave the house very empty indeed.

To say it was an empty house when we bought it I still managed to fill up seven skips (at £170 per skip) to this stage of the project.

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And that is where I am up to at the end of November. The next thing to do is to calculate, measure and order the RSJ beams ready for fitting.

[Tripps]

Wow! That' s quite a start to the exercise. I've been waiting for an update , and wasn't disappointed. Looks dreadful now, but I remember a TV programme where something very similar was done in Manchester, and the final result was quite amazing. Problem is - your house ends up so much better than the others on the street, and there is only so much people will pay. Still if you're doing the work yourself - you'll be OK.
Remember that wine I told you about yesterday - well it's very good.......

[Stanley]

That's the way to do it! I know you've thought of it but one mistake we made here was that we omitted to take out the concrete floor in the kitchen and replace it with a level one! Don't trust the original levels, make your own, amazing how builders got it wrong and how much settlement and movement there is over the years. (The fat in my frying pan always settles to the North!)

[Moh]

The previous owners certainly liked colour.

[Sue]

Oh wow, you really meant it! Good luck with the venture

[Tizer]

It takes hard work and a big dose of courage to start that way, Doc, but it lets you find out exactly what condition the `skeleton' of the house is in and provides the opportunity to correct problems, like those joists. Take care - a man renovating his house in this village a few years ago had a ceiling collapse under him and he suffered severe damage to his internal organs from the fall.

Stanley, you should see the levels in our old concrete-floored house! A previous owner around 1980 knocked through a wall to make a long lounge but one floor was a few inches higher than the other so instead of making them both to the same level he created a slope in the middle. Furniture looks strange on a the slope and ornaments can roll of a table if placed there. In some of the rooms the corners are not 90 degrees, which can puzzle carpet fitters etc.

[micktoon]

Hi Doc , I have just seen this thread now .............................. what can I say .........if a jobs worth doing eh , you have certainly blitzed the place , I hope its still progressing ok , you are probably too busy doing it to faf on taking photos and posting them
It should be a cracking house once its done and no doubt that it wont need any work for a good few years too .
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Time we had an update......

[Tripps]

I second that.
Where is our leader emeritus? How's the Turner Street project doing?
Reminded of this thread after reading about the Welsh couple who sailed away for a week's holiday, and came back 16 years later.

[Stanley]

He's been off the radar for a few months, must make sure he is alive and well!

[chinatyke]

It is amazing how small the footprint appears when you look at the bare shell photos. Yet it looks like a large terrace house in the first pictures.

I like this project, I hope Doc posts an update when he has time.