Gracie House

My sister and her family started to rent off us about a month ago. It's really exciting to have them living in the same town as us, but also so nice to see our house furnished. It looks great, so homely.

It is still missing coving (whoops!) and hopefully we'll get around to putting that up for them soon, but other than that, we love it!

This sounds like it's really bad news, but honestly, it isn't!

Matt got a job we'd been hoping for, but it includes accommodation, which means we are now just trying to finish the house so that my sisters family can rent it off us. It's been a strange time for the last few months, not really sure how to finish the house (to my taste, or generic in case someone else rents it) and this way has worked out perfectly. Not only are we financially better off, but my sister and I have fairly similar taste, and with us being close, it's not like I won't get to visit the house. She might even let me help her in the garden...

So now it's the final push to try and get the house finished before they have to move in September. Matt, whose idea it was to start this blog, hasn't really posted much, but he has done LOADS of work, so I'll get him to update as soon as it's summer and he has some free time.

The first thing I did in there was to buy a lovely mushroomy coloured paint (taupe kitchen and bathroom by dulux) from wilkinsons.

I know, I know - painting before taking a wall out was silly, but I so desperately wanted to see a difference in that room. I'm all about instant gratification!

So the first thing I did was paint the walls. Next we took up the tiles on the floor. They were cheap vinyl that hadn't been laid properly and all the gaps had gone orange where the water had leaked in.

They were incredibly well stuck down though, and my attempts to lever them off with screw drivers and knives resulted in shattered bits everywhere.

In the end the best thing for the job was a wall paper scraper. Use an old one though, it blunts them very quickly!

We managed to get tiles for the bathroom and downstairs WC for free as my mum had left overs from having her kitchen re-modeled, and Matts mum kindly bought us a builder to lay them as a birthday present for Matt.

We only had to buy tiles for the wall around the bath and shower. It turned out to be a total nightmare though, with the company we had ordered from dispatching 12 day late and then sending a mixed batch of tiles that were completely unusable!

Fortunately there are loads of tile shops in Bedford, so we managed to get some nice ones fairly cheaply and then bought travertine for the border.

We actually bought large sheets of mosaic tiles and cut them into strips for the border (much cheaper than buying border tiles) but I hadn't realised when I bought them that travertine needs to be sealed before you get it wet.

Luckily we could scavenge some sealer from family, as it turns out that is pretty expensive too!

I'm pleased with the results so far. Next jobs are to grout, fit new taps, new toilet seat and rain shower!!

- Kj
Xxx

Actually quite liked the floor, cupboards and work surface, but the tiling had to go!

The oven was also not great for me. It works, but it's gas and I personally believe it's impossible to bake anything evenly in a gas oven.

The problem was we didn't have any budget for replacing it, and in a panic we bought it from the previous owners for an extra £150 because we were scared we wouldn't have any. That was a little hasty, because ovens come up all the time on freecycle, but I panic bought. So a little prayer and a short wait and in a little less than a month later we had a double electric fan oven with a gas hob and matching hood that was less than two years old and in perfect condition. All the lady asked for was a £50 donation to her favourite cancer charity in exchange, which I was more than happy to do.

Unfortunately gas ovens and/or hobs are not really 'plug and play' like I'd hoped, so it turns out I'll have to hire a gas engineer and an electrician to put my new oven in, so at the moment it's relegated to the garage :0(

In the meantime, I decided to get on with replacing those tiles! We found some really cheap and inoffensive black tiles in wilkos which had been reduced and worked out at about £4 a square metre, and using their matching adhesive and grout we ended up paying about £30 total to re-tile the whole kitchen.

The first stage was to sand the original tiles with a coarse grain sand paper to remove their gloss finish. Apparently this was going to help the tiles stick to them (I decided against removing the tiles as we might damage the walls and it would be more trouble than it was worth. Apparently this is pretty standard practice according to the guys at DIYNot. So I began to sand away.

Then I borrowed an orbital sander because I wasn't getting anywhere by hand.

Then I used a detail sander.

Then I used a hammer.

Yes, that's right. You read that correctly, a hammer.

Sanding was getting me nowhere, so the only way to make a dent in these ridiculously hard-wearing tiles was to take a hammer to them. I'm pretty sure you won't see that advice on any DIY forums, but it did the job quickly and effectively.

Following the instructions on the adhesive was easy and I was soon pretty proud of how well the tiles went up. They come in squares of nine tiles joined together, but even the joints in between were easy to get square, and the great thing about easy tile is that you can cut the tiles with a sharp stanley knife, so no tile cutter required. Easy peasy.

The next stage was grouting. This is not so easy peasy. It should be, but it isn't.

I used a mastic gun to put grout and sealant between all the lines and we had a few 'flow' issues.

i) it was incredibly hard work to keep a constant pressure on the trigger and I quickly developed RSI!

ii) because the flow wasn't very even, there was lots of blobbing (easily smoothed with a wet finger) and holes (had to go over again the next day).

But although the job was incredibly frustrating, it wasn't rocket science and my confidence quickly grew.

For a first tiling effort, I think easy tile is a great option. It isn't difficult to cut, but you still get to practice using real adhesive and grout.

And here is my (almost) finished result:

Much nicer. I just need to do a line of sealant along the worktop join and we are done.

The bad news is that I tiled behind the oven, and we are probably going to have to take that all off again when the electrician and gas plumber come to fit the oven.

Whoops!

We are really excited and have got loads of plans for it. We've done plenty, but before we get on to that I thought I'd best do an initial post to show it as it was when we got it.

So here is the front garden. You can't really see, but most of it is gravel. I'd like to make it a bit more productive, but it's low on our list of priorities at the moment.

The dining room looked like this

although obviously no furniture. That belonged to the previous owners. In fact, here is the picture I took of the room on the day we got the keys

It's a lovely big mirror that we found left in the garage. We haven't decided where it's going yet, but we'll definitely be using it.

The upstairs bathroom was turquoise with dolphins and shells stencilled everywhere.

So that's a little snippet for now. We'll do before and after photos at each stage of the renovation so you can see what's changed.

As far as possible we will attempt to detail, what we did, how we did it, what we could have done better. Hopefully we will inspire you, but you can learn from our DIY disasters and avoid the same mistakes in your home!