Tuesday 3 July 2012

Home Sweet Home

It's now three years since we moved in and a whole year since we started renovating so it's about time that you saw some results. Over the next few days and weeks, I'll be posting some before, during and after posts so that you can see how the house has changed - and, hopefully, improved. The best place to start is probably outside.


This was our first impression of the house. Orange garage doors, green front door, pale cream asbestos fibrolite cladding with a patch of fake brick. Amazingly we decided to buy it when it looked like this but the vendor painted it before we actually signed on the dotted line.

This is how the house looked when we took possession - a definite improvement but still rather toxic - the asbestos had to go. 


One of the first things to happen once the building works started was the shrink-wrapping. Our house disappeared and it would be another six months before we saw it again.


Finally it was unveiled just before Christmas in all its weatherboarded glory. Double glazing, new roof, solar panels and a chimney!

We'd hoped to match the old colour - the one thing we actually liked about the outside of the house - but it was too dark for the weatherboards to take. We settled on this paler colour which still looks pretty neutral.

 

So what do you think?  I think it's the colour that makes the biggest difference visually - the one thing we didn't want to change! But from the inside the effect has been dramatic - the house is warmer, drier and quieter. We know that it's going to last for years, with just the odd lick of paint to perk it up. Success!

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5 comments:

  1. COR18 December 2015 at 23:08

    Hi I am considering buying a fibrolite clad house. Was it massively expensive to remove and reclad the house. I presume you insulated at the same time?

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  2. Unknown19 December 2015 at 07:52

    It was massively expensive and it may be worse now as OSH rules are tightened up and may affect work with asbestos. We did negotiate a discount off the price of the house to cover the work - easier because the whole house was in its original 1960s state and was being sold as a "do up" - but even that didn't cover it. We took the entire house back to its skeleton and may as well have built from scratch for the cost. But we're happy with what we've got and we have a minor dwelling downstairs now too which we wouldn't have got for the price of a new build. We did insulate too with ecowool and it's made a massive difference together with HRV and double glazing. Good luck with your decision!

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    1. COR19 December 2015 at 09:11

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    2. COR19 December 2015 at 09:11

      Thanks for the info. Intregued to know if you had to take the gib of inside. I only want to remove the skin and replace and liNE with wool. Don't really want to do an internal decoration.

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    3. Unknown30 December 2015 at 08:44

      That was one option that we considered but we ended up replacing almost all of the gib as it looked very shabby by the time that everything else had been removed. We moved a lot of internal walls too.

      You'll probably need to think about the weatherproofing too whilst you have the outside open to the elements - how will that affect the gib?

      Best of luck!

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