House Restoration - We shall start in the smallest room.

Eager to make a start on the house restoration and believing it would be done in a year (3 years later I think I underestimated something) I decided to tackle the porch, why? because it was the smallest room, the front door wouldn't open, the door was letting in so much cold air, and because I had no idea what I was doing. My controlling ex husband would have never let me attempt such a fete yet here I was with the love of my life believing in me and I hadn't the heart to tell him I was winging it. To make the situation worse my Dad was off on his jolly days so I really was clueless.

First I removed all of the many, many layers of wallpaper. Then I tackled the issue with the floor as this was preventing the door from opening, the engineered wooden floor had parts that were lifted so I made new ones out of veneer, filled and sanded. After that I stripped the wood around the door and promptly discovered the bottom half on the left was rotten, great Dadless and with no adult supervision I cut the rotten piece out and replaced it with a new piece and filled.

I couldn't work out why the skirting board on the right was so much thicker than the left so I did what any one would do and attacked it. Turns out the original skirting board was behind it as it went through a door frame added later. To remove it was no easy feat if you have ever seen the nails used in the 1800s you will understand, literal blood sweat and tears (not mentioning the words that came out of my mouth).

I stripped the rest of the wood around the door, cursing to the person who elected to paint every piece of wood white in the house. Stripping wood is the worst job I have had to tackle in the house, B and Q have less white paint!

Yes that's right I have a feature fire panel along with shower cables on the outside of my wall, so that was the next job, luckily I removed most of it but my Dad came to the rescue to ensure it was disconnected and I didn't electrocute myself. The shower wires were concealed in the wall as they should have been originally (I love seeing the old lathe and plaster) We even discovered the old bell pull for the servants.

I added additional trim to the door sanded and stained that and the floor (oh and myself) Dad plastered I painted. I even made a coat hook out of scrap timber, there was no stopping me.

I was happy with the way it turned out and then I changed my mind (Woman's prerogative and all that jazz) the wooden door was becoming a fun game of if it will open so I can get my parcel, sometimes I would have to run out of the back door around the house in my slippers. So I changed it I caved and paid for a shiny plastic one, it didn't stop there I also decided I wanted it to be tiled so armed with my new multi tool I removed the floor which revealed the old area for the door mat (yes I'm a geek and I love that kind of stuff).

I'm in love with the way it turned out and there is only one thing outstanding a ceiling rose but I'm having to wait to install that as there a bit of wiring to do.

Ta da look what I discovered I could do!

Until next time remember you can do anything you put your mind to.

Vicky x