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Victorian house renovation – living rooms and starting hallway
It’s been 6 months now since we moved in and we are slowly but surely getting there. I am now ready to take a bit of a break from DIY as it’s now the builders turn to take over.
Middle room – dining room/ living area at the moment
The middle room has had a ceiling rose added and over the top fancy light fitting! Andy has had ongoing knee problems for the last 4 months or so, so this means the wooden floor in there is going to take a while till it’s completed.
Hallway
The blue old wallpaper had to go. It had peeled off in places and was looking very worn. The whole hallway ideally need to be plastered, however I feel the new extension might take up more funds than planned, so for now we have painted it with a coat of magnolia. It feels so much cleaner and fresher the instant you walk in now. The carpet on the stairs was extremely worn and dirty, so has now been removed and for now, I have painted the floorboards. It seems pointless laying carpet when I have builders coming in the next couple of months. However the floorboards look fab to me, so we might be keeping them now. It’s a lot easier to keep clean with a 4-year-old and lots of people in and out of my house. The floor tiles have had a linseed oil and white spirit mix applied and scrubbed. I am not doing any skirting boards until the winter now until again I sound like a broken record the builders have gone. I don’t want white gloss, so need to decide what I do want for these.
Jessica’s bedroom
The outside wall on Jessica’s bedroom really needs to be insulated, so again I have just got her room clean and tidy for now. The outside wall collected mould when it wasn’t ventilated. Not a big problem though, I just haven’t put any tall furniture there. The ceilings in this house have that awful artex, so I think next year hopefully we would have saved enough to have the whole house skimmed. For now I have painted her walls in magnolia and painted the floor white, which has worked out fab in her room. Jessica is only 4 years old and brings in all sorts of ‘important’ things from the garden and if she had a carpet it would be long ruined already! I have also filled the gaps in her floorboards with filler from the Poundland. No more posting toys down there now.
Jessica’s window lock is broken, so if anyone has a recommendation for a window fitter would could fix this that would be fab.
Our bedroom
The walk-in wardrobe (large cupboard!) turned out to be a bigger job than I thought as there was a massive hole into the loft from in there. Also holes in the floor from where pipes have been moved. The wallpaper has been stripped off in there now and all holes filled. Again I have sealed the floorboards and painted them white. I got a cheap curtain pole from Ikea (about £2) and a black voile from eBay (£5) and it looks sooo much better in there now. I have put up two clothes poles for our clothes. I have some cheap shelves from Ikea (£3 each :-O) and have put them above the window in there. I have also had the electrician in to add a light to this room and more plug sockets around the house. Most rooms only had one plug socket.
With so much storage in the cupboard, this means we can have less furniture in the bedroom. Our room had a very old possibly 90’s carpet in there, which needed to be removed as it was filthy and very worn. I don’t mind a project though, so still happy with brought this house. The bedroom I wanted a light grey, but the colour we got from B&Q just isn’t what I wanted. However there is no way I am repainting it now!! The artex in our room is awful, so I think next year our bedroom will be one of the first rooms with getting skimmed and finished off to a high quality. For now it feels bright and clean. I have chalk painted some of our old furniture in there to match.
Garden
The project over the Summer is to get the front wall down, so we can have a driveway. We can’t afford brickweave at the moment, so are going to do two strips for the car wheels to drive onto for now. There is no point in doing a lot to the back garden until the builders have finished the kitchen extension. Window sills need a good paint too!
Borders for flower beds going in
Current kitchen
The old kitchen tiles and green wood cladding is going to be put in the skip, so please message me if you would like them. We plan on having a very light kitchen.
We are on the hunt for a second range style oven for the new kitchen, so let me know if you see one at a good price.
Extension!! Eek!
Planning permission has been approved and we are currently waiting on builders quotes. I really can’t wait for the kitchen extension to be completed as then it will be our ideal house. We now need to plan our kitchen. I like the idea of free-standing units and lovely old Victorian dresser, but to be honest I really can’t visualise how it will look at the end. All suggestions welcome! It’s hard to have individual nice bits of furniture in kitchens though because of hiding things like washing machines, so I am thinking of having downstairs toilet slightly bigger and putting them in there.
The planning officer believes our house was built for the Victorian / Edwardian George White school on Silver Road opposite our house as posh teachers accommodation. I personally haven’t seen this style of Victorian / Edwardian style house anywhere else in Norwich. The George white school was finished I believe in 1901 and our house in 1903. There is a row of houses like our on Crome Road in Norwich. My Granddad currently age 97 remembers this area being built! I would LOVE to know more about the history of this area, so please do feel free to comment on this blog post… also don’t be afraid to correct me on anything!
Because of when it was built, I’m not sure whether it’s classed as Victorian architecture or Edwardian, so if anyone knows, please tell me!
Long term- upstairs bathroom
Long term I want to replace the bathroom, again this room hasn’t been correctly insulated and when the cold walls mixed with steam from the bath it makes the tiles an ice rink in there. I can imagine we are going to have to keep painting the ceiling white until the walls are insulated properly too. There is just too much build up of condensation on the walls. However with the new extension, we are losing the single glazed window and replacing this with a skylight, which will help with removing all the condensation build up. I have had to wire shut the bathroom window at the moment as it’s it doesn’t have a lock on it and I worry about Jessica climbing out. She is a very active slightly crazy 4-year-old! I would like to redo the bathroom Victorian style with roll top bath under sky light and dig out the old fireplace in there, which has been covered up.
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Hi Liz
This all looks great. You can always ask Trevor about kitchens if you need any advice. I have some notes about the building of the school I think, although not about your house. I am not so sure they would provide posh houses for teachers as they were not too highly thought of at that time. Lots of teachers were working class kids who became pupil teachers in their school and then did day release to get qualifications. This started to change around the time your school was built.
I will try to remember to look for my notes but probably not till after the wedding.
That would be amazing if Trevor could give us some suggestions on the kitchen. I am really stuck on what to do for the best. I really like the idea of a lovely old dresser, but not sure how I could get that to work. Also no idea on how to get modern and Victorian kitchen to blend. There is no fireplace in the kitchen. Is that normal for Victorian houses?
If you could find up your notes on this area that would be great. I’ll see you just before the wedding for nails! I wonder if these houses are linked at all to George White School then? They are different to the other style Victorian houses in Norwich as they don’t have the box room off the bedroom.
I wonder what this looks like on my bedroom. Thanks for this blog about Victorian house renovation.