Diy and motivation

[lizziecupcakes]

Hi all

Just a random post by me again.

Our bedroom has taken months to sort out. Just the bedroom. We have a whole house do to!

In this bedroom: New ceiling. Fixing cracks and gaps in lime plastered walls, cornices, and around windows. New radiators (throughout the house). A lot of time researching things before making decisions (example: we finally decided to invest in the Festool floor sander). Still need to sand the floor and use oil on it. Need to find furniture too. Why is it so expensive??

It’s taking ages. We have full-time jobs but I feel like it shouldn’t take this long.

Is this normal? It’s just me and my partner doing the work too. Often feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

It’s not just us, right? One good thing though is that we have a sense of pride that we did something ourselves, bar the roof work (If it wasn’t that high, i’d do that work too!).

So much to learn, but so interesting and fun too, and also so draining.

Sorry. Just ranting. I think.

 

[paulc]

In this bedroom: New ceiling. Fixing cracks and gaps in lime plastered walls, cornices, and around windows. New radiators (throughout the house). A lot of time researching things before making decisions (example: we finally decided to invest in the Festool floor sander). Still need to sand the floor and use oil on it. Need to find furniture too. Why is it so expensive??

It’s taking ages. We have full-time jobs but I feel like it shouldn’t take this long.

Is this normal? It’s just me and my partner doing the work too. Often feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

Started redecorating the front bedroom here last March (it might have been late February). New ceiling, insulating external wall. New skirting, architrave, and picture rail (all cut to replicate the original mouldings). Walls, ceilings & most of the woodwork painted (still have window board & reveal to do). Sockets & light switch still to sort, and haven't even thought about furniture yet.
Currently have a tabletop milling machine set up in there on a workmate, and the scaffold tower is being used as an impromptu workbench. Got sidetracked with a vintage camera, and now need to fix a burnt out motor on the mill.

Torn between fitting the room out as a new darkroom, or putting a bed in there for the cat. Or may be a sturdy bench for the mill and a mini lathe.

 

[fernicarry]

I'm coming up on a year on the room I'm working on having started last July. Just me but full time usually 7 days a week. Have occasional help for two-man jobs. It was apocalyptically bad but we think its shaping up to be the best room in the house.

- removed disgusting damp and black plasterboard on external wall
- opened up bricked up fire opening
- removed lining paper on other walls
- repaired cracks in ceiling, walls, cornice
- removed rotten window (just pushed it out with no effort....)
- formed up cill under window opening with lime mortar (previous owner made the window by knocking the back out of a cupboard and that was about it...)
- repointed stonework around window opening
- parged external wall where the plasterboard used to be with insulating plaster, fitted hemp insulation between the studs, resheeted with wood wool board, plastered wall (first time, not completely horrible, might try it again), reinstated picture rail
- made new "mock sash" window and its frame
- parged around window opening with insulating plaster
- made beadboard to line window recess as well as soffit board, window board etc. to match other rooms (previously just plaster boarded, no period charm at all)
- cleaned up old skirting boards (found entombed in old kitchen), cut them down to make architrave for the window opening (the "cheap" rooms back of house use the same profile on the skirting boards and the architraves)
- removed rotten door into garden and its frame (originally this was a window opening)
- broke up the concrete slab immediately outside, including the 9" or so of it that extended into the room(!!) -- this nearly ended me...
- removed the original beadboard from around the door opening (amazingly without damage), stripped of all paint, repaired as needed
- reconditioned two reclaimed french windows, dipped to remove paint, removed the old glass, cleaned up the glazing rebates, had them reglazed (near disaster!), added 6" to the overall height, trimmed off the recess where they meet (had been hacked to bits, presumably they didn't close properly in their old home), made new meeting rebate and machined decorative bead along the meeting edge, squared them up as best I could (not very, because they weren't very)
- rebuilt the stone courses below the door opening where the slab used to be incorporating two air bricks, set large stones into the ground like flag stones
- planed down a huge piece of oak I got off another reclaimed external door to use as a threshold
- extended joists all the way into the door opening where slab had been, laid floor boards up to threshold
- made new door frame to suit the doors (5mm wider at the top than the bottom, hinges in different places on each side), stands on the oak threshold instead of direclty on the ground like the old one did (hence why it rotted), attached to the stonework with wooden wedges skelped into gaps
- fitted weatherseals all around the doors (room is virtually silent with them shut)
- made new fan light to go above the doors
- fitted all the locks and catches on the new doors and windows
- made external cappings to finish off the door frame with decorative beads, made a decorative piece to go across the transom, previously this door opening was plain as plain can be and screamed 1970's, now its something that could have been part of the house when it was built
- parged the door opening reveals with insulating plaster and packed with hemp insulation
- packed the area above the soffit with hemp insulation, extended soffit board to meet new frame
- made two new sections of beadboard for the door opening from douglas fir (door is more shallow than the original window would have been so the boards weren't wide enough any more, previous owner just nailed a bit of pine on to cover the gap), 3.1m long, many times through the planer, many times across the router table, I don't have a gym membership
- reduced size of fire opening to match the cast iron surround we found in a yard and get it centred in the wall
- lifted the infill floor boards where the hearth used to be (about 25% survival rate...)
- removed countless bucket loads of debris from under the floor through convenient hole in floor where hearth used to be
- insulated under the floor -- breathable membrane stapled under the floorboards, hemp insulation fitted between joists, another membrane, battens, OSB slats to support it all -- this also nearly ended me, barely enough space to get my head under the joists in places, every single piece had to be templated to fit as no two joists are same distance apart or parallel
- sistered a floor joist that had been engulfed with debris and rotted out
- trimmed the floor around the narrowed fire opening and patched in the floor boards
- built up the constructional hearth again to floor level, built up the superimposed hearth from cement board
- cleaned up the fire surround with wire wool and re-blacked it
- rewired -- two new socket positions cut into wall, external light outside door, media plate with coax and CAT cables, alarm contacts rebated into the door frame (invisible when closed), inter-connected heat alarm on ceiling (which meant clearing out the room above and the top landing to lift floor boards...)
- sanded old finish off of the floor boards (horrible opaque red finish) -- also nearly ended me...
- repaired various holes where wires and pipework for old radiator used to go through floor
- removed about a million floor tacks, filled the worst defects with coloured wax
- changed the leaves in the internal door lock case (didn't have a key for it), adjusted strike plate so that it snicks shut in a satisfying manner
- sanded down all other wood work, repaired obvious damage (but left knocks and dings from previous life)
- hung lining paper
- painted woodwork, sanded, painted, sanded, painted, sanded, painted ... bare wood takes a lot of covering and there was acres of it because of the beadboard, cutting in around window panes takes forever and there were many of them
- painted cornice, ceiling, frieze, walls (3 coats)
- back dated ceiling light -- wooden pattress (NOS), bakelite rose (NOS), fabric covered cable, brass lamp holder (sadly brand new, the ones found entombed in the old kitchen were past their best)
- refinished floor -- water based stain, shellac, polish, gorgeous now
- painted new door and window externally

Still to do:

- put fire surround into position
- line fire chamber with cement board
- attach closure plate above fire chamber (still a research topic...)
- fit chimney liner (mate of a mate has promised to come around to look about 4 times now!)
- make mantle
- tile fire chamber and hearth
- paper feature wall
- acquire stove
- acquire and plumb in cast iron radiator

Might just squeak in under the 12 month mark. Probably not though.

Furniture? We have enough of that to fill 10 houses...

I have done a few other things along the way. I did part of the stairway (lots of plaster repair, stripped old gloss from some of the steps, lining paper, paint, sand, paint, sand, paint), stripped and repainted a little stained glass window on the landing inside and out, stripped down the main stair window and painted it externally. Kept the garden ticking over including disposing of the tree that blew over in January and digging out its roots (nearly ended me...), rehung the power cable to the garage that the tree took down, fitted an EV charger now that the cable was capable of supporting it.

Executive summary. Its slow and painful, but if you want it done right do it yourself. Every job takes 5 times longer than you imagine and usually spawns another 5 jobs you couldn't imagine. But you'll get there in the end, just keep chipping away.

 

[Lacan07]

Hi all

Just a random post by me again.

Our bedroom has taken months to sort out. Just the bedroom. We have a whole house do to!

In this bedroom: New ceiling. Fixing cracks and gaps in lime plastered walls, cornices, and around windows. New radiators (throughout the house). A lot of time researching things before making decisions (example: we finally decided to invest in the Festool floor sander). Still need to sand the floor and use oil on it. Need to find furniture too. Why is it so expensive??

It’s taking ages. We have full-time jobs but I feel like it shouldn’t take this long.

Is this normal? It’s just me and my partner doing the work too. Often feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

It’s not just us, right? One good thing though is that we have a sense of pride that we did something ourselves, bar the roof work (If it wasn’t that high, i’d do that work too!).

So much to learn, but so interesting and fun too, and also so draining.

Sorry. Just ranting. I think.

All perfectly normal Lizzie, I'm sure everyone here can relate. I'm afraid DIY does take time even though it feels like it should all be happening much quicker, especially fitting it in around FT work. At least there's two of you, try doing it alone (not recommended).

As I've said on a previous thread the more skills you learn the faster you get but conversely it can slow you down as you decide to take on more jobs! Its swings and roundabouts.

The whole 'research' thing can be a pain but is unavoidable unfortunately and one of the few good reasons for the internet. It can also be beneficial in the sense it slows you down and prevents you from making rash decisions you regret later. Its not nice when things / jobs take forever but I can point to numerous occasions I've been thankful a task took so long I ended making better choices or I approached it with more skills.

 

[DaveG]

Rome wasn’t built in a day as they say.
I think it’s perfectly normal to get the “what have we done” days too as we tend to look at everything to do rather than everything we’ve achieved (at least I know I do).
We’ve just made it to the 1 year mark here and the room I initially started on has no floor and half its wall plaster missing. It’s just a shell.
But as others have alluded to, these houses throw lots of curveballs your way and you end up having to divert time and funds into other things like storm damaged roofs or broken appliances or leaking, plumbing.
Me and my wife get albums printed occasionally, mainly for holidays where you design the album online page by page with side notes and they make the book up and post to you.
My idea is we have one for the house year by year so we can see just how much has actually changed each year to help us not lose sight of the fact we are getting somewhere!
When you finally crash for your dinner I also find series like “The great house revival” on bbc iPlayer a bit of encouragement given you’re watching others in similar positions usually with a far worse property, bring something back to life. It’s also where I get a lot of my ideas from for my own place!

 

[phillc]

Yes, all perfectly normal. There's a phrase along the lines of "all plans fail on first contact with the enemy". That applies to DIY timescales too...

I suffer from running things through in my mind again and again before doing it. This means that I have mentally solved the problem and assume that actually doing it must now be quick. I've recently been replacing rotten window sills on a set of sashes. Having planned my attack in my head, I budgeted about 30 minutes to take the old rotten ones out. Then, about an hour to render down a piece of Accoya to a replacement, hour to fit.

Reality: It takes a day to get the old sash out (unless you want to hit it with gunpowder), about a day, maybe two, to plane out a new one and a day to refit. This includes derating time for my actual work rate. My brain says I can easily clear 25 hours a day, maybe 26, 8 days a week. In reality, after about 4 hours I need to board it back up and take the dog for a walk.

The trick is to be immensely proud of what you have done. And learn to enjoy the journey as, once it's all done, the fun journey of discovery ends.

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, all perfectly normal. There's a phrase along the lines of "all plans fail on first contact with the enemy". That applies to DIY timescales too...

I suffer from running things through in my mind again and again before doing it. This means that I have mentally solved the problem and assume that actually doing it must now be quick. I've recently been replacing rotten window sills on a set of sashes. Having planned my attack in my head, I budgeted about 30 minutes to take the old rotten ones out. Then, about an hour to render down a piece of Accoya to a replacement, hour to fit.

Reality: It takes a day to get the old sash out (unless you want to hit it with gunpowder), about a day, maybe two, to plane out a new one and a day to refit. This includes derating time for my actual work rate. My brain says I can easily clear 25 hours a day, maybe 26, 8 days a week. In reality, after about 4 hours I need to board it back up and take the dog for a walk.

The trick is to be immensely proud of what you have done. And learn to enjoy the journey as, once it's all done, the fun journey of discovery ends.

Well, I wouldn't call it suffering, but I certainly recognise this approach. Some people might call it prevarication, which I suppose it is in a way, but I find it invaluable to work things through and 'solve the problem' - in theory at least - before beginning the task. To this end, I find that mowing the grass is very helpful. This can take me up to two hours, even with a ride-on mower - and I've worked through many a problem while doing so.

I also thoroughly agree with the point about the journey of discovery. I've learned many, many things during our project and developed many new skills, which is gratifying in itself quite apart from the practical achievement of actually doing the job and the enjoyment gained by creating some sort of order out of chaos.

As for things taking longer than anticipated or planned, well yes, but I'd argue it's the end result that really matters, not how much time it took.