I went to view a repo house earlier today. It is a 1900's end of terrace. It is an "L"-shape house - the type with the kitchen and upstairs bathroom in a small "extended but original" part out back.
On entering the house, you walk straight into the living room, which has had the chimney breast "decorated" with funny shaped recesses. I dont know how well this work has been done, but above the chimney breast outside there is no outlet - it has been capped in the loft or within the house. There is no fireplace.
Through a doorway to the stairwell bottom (stairs run up the middle of the house), and another door to the kitchen. A step down to the kitchen. Kitchen is bigger than the lounge. Nothing much wrong with the kitchen visually. It is fairly modern, though a little run-down. And there is an abundance of sockets.
The chimney breast in here has had the opening widened and raised to accomodate a feature cooker hood above a gas range cooker.
A (plastic folding) door on the same wall, opposite the stairwell door, leads to the understairs area (with gas boiler which vents onto next doors land), and stairs down to the cellar. I had brought a torch, knowing it was a repo and thus no electric. The cellar under the kitchen was raised up, and the ceiling lower, due to the step down mentioned earlier. The cellar under the lounge was about 5ft8in height, and unfinished apart from a plasterboarded ceiling, and some old fixed workbenches around the sides. Nothing unusual about the cellar.
Back to the kitchen, and an archway and 2 steps down lead through to the "extension" part, which is described as a "breakfast room". On first inspection it appears a pleasant space to eat, although only big enough for a small table and 2 chairs. There is a set of french doors to the garden. Garden is very long and narrow.
The french doors, bizarrely appear to be set in a single brick wall. There is a bulkhead above the doors which houses 3 halogen downlights. On thinking, I can only conclude that this bulkhead also houses a lintel supporting the other skin of wall above (the bathroom window, above, is definitely set into a double brick wall). The single wall is showing signs of damp around the doors.
Outside, evidence of DIY is clear to see. The concrete lintel above the french doors has been very shoddily mortared into place, and the brickwork around the doors is awful. To the lower side of the doors is a 32mm waste pipe emerging from the brickwork, but inside it is not to be seen, and it goes nowhere.
Outside the french doors is a decking area, raised from the garden level. A rainwater downpipe stops 2ft above the decking level. Below the deck is a gulley, just visible. Now the fun starts.
There is no other window inside the breakfast room. Yet to the side elevation outside is a window and door. These have obviously been bricked up and nicely plastered over inside, yet left in situ.
Also worthy of mention is the UPVC glazed DOOR set into a FENCE, which borders off the area inside the area formed by the external side elevation of the breakfast room. This small area is simply concrete and very very damp. There is a 40mm waste pipe which comes from below the kitchen window, straight down, and across the concrete floor to the gulley under the deck.
Enough of the garden. The rest of it is just grass, with 2 iron gates at the bottom and a "hardstanding" for a car (it has rear vehicular access)
Up the (very steep but nothing unusual) stairs, there are 2 bedrooms. At the top, turn right and immediately you are in the master bedroom. No chimney breast. My previous thought was correct. It has been removed.
The corner of the bedroom, the alcove above the stairs, there is an opening to the loft, which has clearly has a ladder there at some point (its been painted around where it would have met the top), visible in the loft was that it has a boarded roof. Based on what I saw outside, I dont expect this work to be much cop. We couldnt gain access to the loft, due to lack of ladders. There was no fire door etc.
Back to the landing, and the first thing that hits you is that the stairwell actually cuts into the "walkacross" at the top! That is, miss your footing and you'll end up taking the shortened trip to the bottom of the stairs! I doubt this would have been like this originally, but cant see why it would have been changed to this either. I'd want to fit a door or something there to prevent such accidents.
Anyway, across the stair top, and straight ahead is a second bedroom. Small, and there was another "feature" recess into a wall (the wall to the bathroom). Only one socket (compared to the 20 in the kitchen)
Turn right out of this room and theres a corridor, which snakes round the outside of this second bedroom, to the bathroom at the back of the house. Again, I'm not sure that this corridor would have been like this originally, it seems very odd! It almost appears like the stairs were supposed to raise from in front of the front door. This would make much more sense in this house.
This diagram is a simple floorplan, I hope you can see what I mean about the layout upstairs. It is wierd. I would love to see the adjoining house to see its layout, and confirm or dispell my suspicions about the stairwell.
The bathroom is down 3 steps, above the breakfast room and simply contains bath, shower, toilet and sink, packed in very tightly into a depressing little room. The roof above this section continues at the same pitch as the rest of the house, so it finished up at about 5ft above the bath.
The house is priced to sell (£69950) but I dont think I'll be taking it on as my first project Thought this description would give you guys some amusement! Sorry no photos, but here is a link to the brochure:
http://www.dezrez.com/DRApp/Search.ASP?WCI=Particular&WCE=001692540 (if this is not allowed, please delete mods, but its no benefit to me, im not advertising it)
On entering the house, you walk straight into the living room, which has had the chimney breast "decorated" with funny shaped recesses. I dont know how well this work has been done, but above the chimney breast outside there is no outlet - it has been capped in the loft or within the house. There is no fireplace.
Through a doorway to the stairwell bottom (stairs run up the middle of the house), and another door to the kitchen. A step down to the kitchen. Kitchen is bigger than the lounge. Nothing much wrong with the kitchen visually. It is fairly modern, though a little run-down. And there is an abundance of sockets.
The chimney breast in here has had the opening widened and raised to accomodate a feature cooker hood above a gas range cooker.A (plastic folding) door on the same wall, opposite the stairwell door, leads to the understairs area (with gas boiler which vents onto next doors land), and stairs down to the cellar. I had brought a torch, knowing it was a repo and thus no electric. The cellar under the kitchen was raised up, and the ceiling lower, due to the step down mentioned earlier. The cellar under the lounge was about 5ft8in height, and unfinished apart from a plasterboarded ceiling, and some old fixed workbenches around the sides. Nothing unusual about the cellar.
Back to the kitchen, and an archway and 2 steps down lead through to the "extension" part, which is described as a "breakfast room". On first inspection it appears a pleasant space to eat, although only big enough for a small table and 2 chairs. There is a set of french doors to the garden. Garden is very long and narrow.
The french doors, bizarrely appear to be set in a single brick wall. There is a bulkhead above the doors which houses 3 halogen downlights. On thinking, I can only conclude that this bulkhead also houses a lintel supporting the other skin of wall above (the bathroom window, above, is definitely set into a double brick wall). The single wall is showing signs of damp around the doors.
Outside, evidence of DIY is clear to see. The concrete lintel above the french doors has been very shoddily mortared into place, and the brickwork around the doors is awful. To the lower side of the doors is a 32mm waste pipe emerging from the brickwork, but inside it is not to be seen, and it goes nowhere.
Outside the french doors is a decking area, raised from the garden level. A rainwater downpipe stops 2ft above the decking level. Below the deck is a gulley, just visible. Now the fun starts.
There is no other window inside the breakfast room. Yet to the side elevation outside is a window and door. These have obviously been bricked up and nicely plastered over inside, yet left in situ.
Also worthy of mention is the UPVC glazed DOOR set into a FENCE, which borders off the area inside the area formed by the external side elevation of the breakfast room.
This small area is simply concrete and very very damp. There is a 40mm waste pipe which comes from below the kitchen window, straight down, and across the concrete floor to the gulley under the deck. Enough of the garden. The rest of it is just grass, with 2 iron gates at the bottom and a "hardstanding" for a car (it has rear vehicular access)
Up the (very steep but nothing unusual) stairs, there are 2 bedrooms. At the top, turn right and immediately you are in the master bedroom. No chimney breast. My previous thought was correct. It has been removed.
The corner of the bedroom, the alcove above the stairs, there is an opening to the loft, which has clearly has a ladder there at some point (its been painted around where it would have met the top), visible in the loft was that it has a boarded roof. Based on what I saw outside, I dont expect this work to be much cop. We couldnt gain access to the loft, due to lack of ladders. There was no fire door etc.
Back to the landing, and the first thing that hits you is that the stairwell actually cuts into the "walkacross" at the top! That is, miss your footing and you'll end up taking the shortened trip to the bottom of the stairs! I doubt this would have been like this originally, but cant see why it would have been changed to this either. I'd want to fit a door or something there to prevent such accidents.
Anyway, across the stair top, and straight ahead is a second bedroom. Small, and there was another "feature" recess into a wall (the wall to the bathroom). Only one socket (compared to the 20 in the kitchen)
Turn right out of this room and theres a corridor, which snakes round the outside of this second bedroom, to the bathroom at the back of the house. Again, I'm not sure that this corridor would have been like this originally, it seems very odd! It almost appears like the stairs were supposed to raise from in front of the front door. This would make much more sense in this house.
This diagram is a simple floorplan, I hope you can see what I mean about the layout upstairs. It is wierd. I would love to see the adjoining house to see its layout, and confirm or dispell my suspicions about the stairwell.
The bathroom is down 3 steps, above the breakfast room and simply contains bath, shower, toilet and sink, packed in very tightly into a depressing little room. The roof above this section continues at the same pitch as the rest of the house, so it finished up at about 5ft above the bath.
The house is priced to sell (£69950) but I dont think I'll be taking it on as my first project
Thought this description would give you guys some amusement! Sorry no photos, but here is a link to the brochure: http://www.dezrez.com/DRApp/Search.ASP?WCI=Particular&WCE=001692540 (if this is not allowed, please delete mods, but its no benefit to me, im not advertising it)
