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When we were looking for our first house we knew we wanted one that we could put our own stamp on. We wanted something that we could live with but we weren’t happy with. We ended up buying the house we live in now. It’s an ex council house that had been rented out for quite a long time. It’s in a perfectly liveable condition; it had to be for the tenants that lived here. However it hasn’t been properly looked after for a long time. Renovation was on our minds as soon as we were looking around. R and his dad were knocking on walls and were tearing things down and rebuilding in their heads from the moment we stepped through the door. DIY is just a part of normal life in their family. And not just casual DIY, serious DIY!
DIY can only go so far
One of the changes we wanted to make was to put in a fireplace. There was a very obvious hole that had been badly covered in the chimney breast. .When it came to knocking out the hole for our fireplace, it was discovered that the chimney breast was actually non supporting. Down it came. The only thing was that although R and his Dad are great at DIY, there are a couple of things that they need tradespeople for. It started out as “two weeks start to finish”. However, for various reasons it has taken a lot longer. Part of that reason being time and the other cost. We’ve now reached the point where we can’t go any further without hiring a tradesperson. We’ve repaired all the bits that need fixing. We’ve put plasterboard up. We’ve created a mock fireplace and put our mantel in. Now we need a plasterer.
Finding a tradesperson
R’s parents have a few good tradespeople that they regularly use, however they can be quite expensive. We then have the option of paying their rates or seeing if we can find a tradesperson ourselves. As we’re new to the area we were looking at the different websites to find tradespeople like priceyourjob.co.uk. Once we post our job and get quotes we can then make a decision and weigh up options.
Looking forward to it being finished
It’s been a year now since we started ‘the fireplace’. I’m so looking forward to it being finished. Once it’s done we can really decide how we want our room to look long term. We are thinking about making it changing it from living room to dining room and from carpet to wood.
Of course, once that’s finished, we have plenty of other rooms to get stuck in to…….
*This post contains sponsored content, however all words and experiences are my own*
Oh gosh it’s a nightmare isn’t it? We’ve tried to do some bits ourselves with the help of my dad but it’s such a slow process and there have been a few things we needed to get trades in for. We’ve got a long way to go still but on the plus side, at least we haven’t got a wedding to plan 😉
Nat.x
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