Northumbrian House Renovation Thread - This may take a while

[Pwig]

Well at the ripe old age of 34 I have finally bought my first house.

Bit of back story. After searching around on right move on a whim I found a house that didn't seem to be advertised particularly well, a detached 3 bedroom house with substantial 'mature' gardens. However in the photos there was no pictures of the garden whatsoever. It also seemed cheap for the area. (Advertised at 175k)

A bit of digging found that it was between a pub and a social club. However spying on google maps it appears that it did indeed have a very large garden.

So we booked a viewing one wet October morning, had a builder friend come and look with us. We got a bit of back story to the property. It had been owned by the Duke of Northumberland property estates for most of it's life, and had been a tenanted property. The Lady who had lived in it before us had been there 20 years, and before that it was her parents who lived there for around 30. To that end, it had been empty for about 2 years after she died. It had been maintained, however just to the bare minimum. The gardens also looked like a jungle.

The roof looked good, the windows looked recent and the boiler was a fairly modern affair, also the outside stone structure looked to be in a good order. The only immediate obvious issue was some damp in the corner of one of the rooms.

Anyway, we thought the property had a lot of potential so we put a cheeky bid of £160k in, which was accepted!

Next came the mortgage, we had been approved in principal for the money. However come valuation time the surveyor took one look at the house, and due to it's location decided it was 'unmortgageable'.

Ah nuts, so I contacted Liam at LT-Mortgages after doing some digging on PH, it seemed he was the man to help (Can't find his username on here but will edit post and put it in when I do)! Help he did. He got us an approval, and after 5 months, Me, Mrs Pwig, Pwig Jnr and Mrs Pwig's Mother finally moved in last week!

The coronavirus has given us some time to start work on it.

Here are some 'before' photos:

The house itself:


A couple of the garden and outbuildings:



The main part of the garden (Mrs Pwig waving in the distance):


Inside this the room with the damp corner (You can just make it out on the photo):


A few others of the rest of the rooms:
Front Room:

Kitchen:

Bathroom:

Stairs:

Bedroom 1:

Bedroom 2:

Bedroom 3:


I'll do another post for what we are doing next...

[JuanCarlosFandango]

Looks like a lot of house for the money. What is the first job?

[Lotobear]

Out of interest what was the surveyor's issue with the 'location' - mining?

......I'm guessing it's in the SE Northumberland area, east of the A1

[8-P]

IS this PWIG of Scoobynet fame?

[Harry Flashman]

That has loads of potential! Garden especially looks ripe for a properly beautiful retreat?

[Kompressor89]

You're brave living with your MIL

[TheJimi]

This has LOADS of potential!

Also, for the newbs - a prize if you can guess (without searching) what the OP's username means

[MOBB]

Mortgage guy is the legend that is Sarnie

[princeperch]

I expect a lot of mainstream lenders were a bit sniffy about it being next to a pub and social club.

Looks good tho. Good luck with the mother in law. I'd pay 160 grand not to live with mine, but perhaps that's just me.

[TheJimi]

princeperch said:

I'd pay 160 grand not to live with mine, but perhaps that's just me.

Ditto. I'd be a basket case

[Skyedriver]

TheJimi said:

This has LOADS of potential!

Also, for the newbs - a prize if you can guess (without searching) what the OP's username means

That's easy, was wondering where he'd gone

[Skyedriver]

Lotobear said:

Out of interest what was the surveyor's issue with the 'location' - mining?

......I'm guessing it's in the SE Northumberland area, east of the A1

Wondering the location too, you thinking Sleekburn sort of area? Not sure the Duke owns anything there. Was thinking further inland but the social club bit puzzles me. Bedlington Station?

[TheJimi]

Skyedriver said:

TheJimi said:

This has LOADS of potential!

Also, for the newbs - a prize if you can guess (without searching) what the OP's username means

That's easy, was wondering where he'd gone

You're not a noob tho!

[Pwig]

Ok well the first thing I wanted to do was find out the cause of the damp. With it being a stone built property, I did some research and found that it needs lime mortar, and if it is plastered, then special plaster or wall paper to help the walls breathe.

Two of the walls were plaster board, and one was plaster straight on the wall. So I took the plaster board down first of all on the wall with the window (you'll have to tilt your head I'm afraid):


This all seemed pretty dry however both air bricks had been sealed up

So next step was to remove the 'damp' wall plaster, which is the to the side of the blocked up fireplace. Taking that down revealed the breather pipe for the chimney stack was also blocked up. The wall itself was also pretty dry though, so I thought hmmm, could be worse. The flreplace could well be made into a nice feature going forward:


There was only one wall left I wanted to remove, as it was plaster board I had no idea what secrets lay behind.

I was amazed to find this:


So someone in the past had not only cemented over the wall, they then put a plastic sheet over it. Sealing all the moisture in.

I have started to take this off now, which I am nearly complete.



It looks like parts of the wall has been pointed with mud!



The wall was soaking, so we are going to have to leave it exposed for a while now to let it dry out

The hosue needs repointing anyway, someone I was going to do, however it looks like It will be a job that needs doing in this room sooner rather than later. Best get learning off YouTube

This is the perils of buying an ex rental property I think, everything done on the cheap.

[Pwig]

Lotobear said:

Out of interest what was the surveyor's issue with the 'location' - mining?

......I'm guessing it's in the SE Northumberland area, east of the A1

The house is between a Pub and a Social club, however since we bought the property the pub has been sold and not as a 'going concern'.

Hopefully it will turn into a strippers

[Pwig]

8-P said:

IS this PWIG of Scoobynet fame?

Certainly is

[Pwig]

princeperch said:

I expect a lot of mainstream lenders were a bit sniffy about it being next to a pub and social club.

Looks good tho. Good luck with the mother in law. I'd pay 160 grand not to live with mine, but perhaps that's just me.

That's exactly it.

Regarding the MiL. She's full time childcare, a great cook and doesnt' speak much English. It's a win win

[Pwig]

Skyedriver said:

Wondering the location too, you thinking Sleekburn sort of area? Not sure the Duke owns anything there. Was thinking further inland but the social club bit puzzles me. Bedlington Station?

Nope, further west

[JuanCarlosFandango]

There are clurbs north of Bedlington. I was thinking somewhere around Amble?

Will be interesting to dig that fireplace out. I've heard stories of people opening them up and finding cast iron ranges that were buried in the wall.

[Pwig]

Ok so the next bit was to get started on the Garden,

Here is an idea of what we have to work with (You can see the Club and Pub either side):


Mrs Pwig and Mother-in-Law Pwig are both very keen on gardening, and back in their homeland they had a farm so I am leaving them to get on with it mostly.

However it was an excuse to buy some toys

Bought a 5 in 1 Strimmer, chainsaw, hedge cutter jobbie and a Jet wash for now.

The rear yard was very overgrown with moss:


So some jet washing had it coming up looking much better:


Next stop was the front garden, we decided that we should do that as one of the first jobs to make the property look 'lived in' after being vacant for so long and to stop people chucking their litter in the garden as they walk past.

Before:



After:




Today the girls have mainly been working in the rear garden, and have made some amazing progress. I'll get some pictures tomorrow.