Confessional

[Zebra]

I would like to know what other folks on here have done to their houses, either by mistake or before they knew better, and then later repented - what historical fabric have you destroyed that you now wish you hadn't? What conservation blunders have you committed?
I'll start. I am ashamed to confess, the internal walls of the timber frame part of the house and the downstairs ceiling had all their laths intact, with haired lime plaster still attached, and now they're gone, and it was me that did it! In the first few weeks of taking ownership, I stripped off all the tanking, expanded metal lath, cement render, plaster, polystyrene tiles, etc, which had been applied over the top, I wanted to get back to basics, to see what the house was made of, and in stripping it all bare I just kept going. My house isn't listed so there was nothing stopping me. I removed all the laths, bunged the whole lot in a pile in the garden thinking I'd use them for kindling one day, then months later, ashamedly realised what I'd done, went and rescued what I could, and stuck as many as I could back on, although not in their original positions.
Forgive me PP for I have sinned!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I confess too - in an ignorant state and before I found PPUK, I removed the lath & plaster ceiling in the lounge and what is now the utility room. To be fair, the modern horror of exposing the the beams has now made the rooms taller by about 6 inches and much nicer and lighter to be in. I also removed the poor haired lime plaster from the stone walls.

I also moved the Heather Browns laid direct into the soil in the lounge and relaid them in the dining room.



In my defence I have re-lime plastered the walls, and removed all the 1970s plasterboard, woodchip wallpaper, polythene tanking, fake shiny beams, vertical patio-stone fireplace and softwood joists. I have replaced with oak, lime plaster, cleaned the original beams, exposed the original stone/oak inglenook, replaced the modern windows with hand-made oak sliding sashes, repaired a 17C stone fireplace by removing the RSJ that had been inserted across it and having a new head cut to match the old uprights, etc etc.

I have learned many lessons, not least from the good folk of this parish, and on balance I think I am well in credit with my previously knocked-about but unlisted house.

 

[Feltwell]

My big sin is the survey on this house revealed the roof covering was at the end of it's life, repair was possible but really it was at the point of needing a new roof. We started work on it as soon as we moved in, and I went with the roofer's opinion that concrete plain tiles - the same style as the originals but made of concrete not clay - would look fine, be cheaper and last longer. They are after all "designed to look the same and are pre-aged".

They do look fine on the main house roof, 3 storeys up, but on the single storey old scullery that projects from the back of the house where you can see them up close they don't look anything like as good as clay tiles, which has now been re-inforced if anything by my using reclaimed clay tiles on the garage!

I don't regret using new tiles, as I had to replace the odd reclaimed one on the garage in it's first winter, which is fine on a single storey garage but no good on a roof where you need scaffolding to gain access. I just wished I'd spent that bit more and used clay tiles, they do weather in better.

My other sin, though 'tis a minor one really, was removing the broken remains of a fireplace from one bedroom - and accidentally damaging it a bit further in the process. It's been a useful source of spares to make up complete fireplaces for other identical ones I've managed to get off Ebay though.

 

[robgil]

Sometimes you have to do things that make you cringe, but you still have to do them.

 

[Feltwell]

To be fair, the modern horror of exposing the the beams has now made the rooms taller by about 6 inches and much nicer and lighter to be in.

I saw a lovely house near Shrewsbury whilst house hunting that I would have seriously considered, had it not been for the room heights. They had exposed beams - but in the 2 main reception rooms, where you could see the original ceilings had been removed, the beams were still so low that I could only stand up straight by standing in between the beams. I am tall, but not exceptionally so.

I did consider lowering the floors but the whole house was over-priced really for a place that would have needed a lot of work. The owners thought their standard of work was fantastic - let me give you an example, their "en-suite" in the bedroom was a toilet just placed & plumbed in the corner of the room, with a flimsy Chinese-style free-standing screen shielding it from view! Who knows what horrors would have been found in time from their "renovations".

 

[Lime]

I make mistakes all the time but they are smaller and less important ones than they used to be.
Tidying up and making something acceptable after much neglect and mistreatment is always a balance between destroy or keep.
I attempt to produce what was once in place originally but it cannot escape from being new.

However my young days were formed in the Barry Bucknell DIY era (on TV).
He advocated plastic replacements for ugly old iron work because they would never need painting.
In the house he suggested covering good ceilings with polystyrene tiles, cutting off/out ugly old cornice etc or completely replacing the ceiling in its entirety with tongue and groove wood.
Absolutely everything was improved by a covering of brilliant white paint or some of the bright colours then available.
Doors should covered over with hardboard to modernise them and any protruding wooden decoration should be hacked off to fit it.
Fireplaces were smashed out and the rubble carefully left behind a hardboard or asbestos sheet covering the hole.
Hardboard was THE wonder material that could be transformed into anything you wanted.
For instance the old worn stair treads could be rejuvenated with a covering of hardboard and then painted brilliant white with matching hardboard covered banisters.
Walls were painted rather that papered.
Hardboard could cover up the blemishes on walls and anything else on the wall you did not want to "do" anything about.
In some instances this included covering over telephone cables and juction boxes, electrical wiring and even doorways that were no longer in use.
I could go on almost forever.

So it is hardly surprising that I made some mistakes.
Fortunately the price of polystyrene tiles never fell to 3d a tile which I had decided was the trigger-price to completely ruin the house I lived in.

The biggest mistake I made (as opposed to deliberate-decision-to-destroy) was to assume a dirty heavily-painted fireplace was made of wood and nail a hardboard cover over it.
The first nail eventually split the white marble fireplace from one end to the other.

 

[MdB]

I guess the worst I've done is have the original stone front stub wall ripped out of our house. I would do the same thing again today as it was covered in very stuck on cement and it was in a generally poor condition - it just wasn't possible to save it. About half of the stone was recoverable and that will turn into a garden wall at some stage so the materials at least will get some reuse.

I've also fitted a concrete floor and built concrete block walls covered in cement render but as they were just replacing a 1970s concrete floor and concrete block walls, I don't feel bad about this.

 

[skier-hughes]

My greatest PP sin was making friends with Family Wiggs and going to a Take That Concert with them

 

[FamilyWiggs]

My greatest PP sin was making friends with Family Wiggs and going to a Take That Concert with them

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[middi]

Have you all gone raving mad ( admitting to PP sins)

" NOT GUILTY MY LORD " ( not enough space for confessions on this page anyway :wink: )

Middi

 

[Feltwell]

going to a Take That Concert

That's some confession!

(Although I did once see Rolf Harris doing Stairway to Heaven).

 

[Feltwell]

However my young days were formed in the Barry Bucknell DIY era (on TV).

He was in print as well - just look at this wonderful guide, I bet he can't stop going on about the importance of breatheable finishes and the evils of cement and gypsum :wink:

I'm sure many on here would find this valuable guide to this most popular of old house topics indispensable. The scary thing is, many of the previous owners of our houses did.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bob-a-Job...0792331962?pt=Non_Fiction&hash=item2a18100eba

 

[philpjuk100]

I took a blue bathroom suite out of a 1970 bungalow and replaced it with a white one,so sorry! but I kept the woodchip! phil.

 

[Penners]

My greatest PP sin was making friends with Family Wiggs and going to a Take That Concert with them

Well, I think that confession draws this thread to a natural close. Nobody is going to top that one.

Just in passing, Graham was it at that concert that FW laid Heather Browns in the soil? Or have I got confused somewhere?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Just to be clear, we only agreed to go with them, so we could meet Mrs skier-hughes... and quite unlike Graham, she was delightful. :wink: 8) :lol:

 

[Penners]

I notice that you studiously avoided answering my question about Heather Browns. Or was Mrs FW perhaps looking over your shoulder as you typed?

 

[skier-hughes]

How do you know it was Mrs S-H, she wasn't in her pink dressing gown!!!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I'd recognise those 2 discreet moles anywhere!

 

[MatthewC]

Back on topic: Last summer I felt like a criminal when I removed an 11 ft section of an 18 inches high, 150 year-old wall for our driveway, even though I had LBC to do so! Like MdB I shall be re-using the squared limestone when I re-build a wall elsewhere, so then perhaps I'll feel better about it.

I will admit to using some plasterboard in this house on the downstairs ceilings which we belatedly found were very poor. One had previously been plasterboarded over (or under if you know what I mean) the laths but we had the whole lot down and replaced with plasterboard. On the other two, I admit, we plasterboarded over the previous ceilings which were lath/plaster and some cement-based covering. I justify myself on the grounds that (a) they are internal ceilings so breathability is not an issue and (b) if we had replaced the lath/plaster, we would have been prevented from going upstairs for a considerable time afterwards, thus delaying our moving in.

On the other hand, I have removed or repaired so much poor and inappropriate work that I feel justified in cutting a couple of corners, plus I have reused old bricks, doors, glass, casement windows and loads of bits.

Matthew

 

[Penners]

I will admit to using some plasterboard in this house on the downstairs ceilings

There's nothing wrong with using plasterboard, provided you (a) don't destroy any conservable original fabric in doing so, and (b) don't change the breathability characteristics of the structure, where this is important.

In my view, using plasterboard for a ceiling does infringes neither of these principles.