First house - looking at general decoration

[masamune]

Hi,

I am buying my first house and want to have some decoration done before moving in. I only have theoretical understanding of the work, so I will have someone do the work for me. There are a few plans stopping me from getting the whole picture.

The place is around 80 sqr meters, with ground and first floors. I am planning to break this project down into two phases, first the top floor, then the ground floor (living/dining areas). Upstairs we have 3 beds and a bathroom. I want to do the bathroom and decorate the 3 beds and corridor/stairwell. I want to remove the old wallpaper and repaper and decorate, plus ceiling, plus all the woodwork, doors, skirting board need redoing.

There are two chimney breasts, one in each of the two large bedrooms from the living room and dining room respectively. I don't have a clear picture yet, one of them is inside the wardrobe (which I want to keep). The second one from the dining room is thinning up as it comes through the first floor. This is the one I want to remove to make space for a large wardrobe.

I may remove it in two phases, besides first floor needs to go first. How messy and costly is the removal job?

And to the actual decoration questions, starting with upstairs. I would like wooden floors. In what order should I plan the work if I want wooden floor and wardrobes?

Phase two, the same work will be done downstairs, except the living and dining rooms have a wall between with two door wide opening. I want to open up completely and that will probably require a support beam across. Am I right in saying that I can't go ahead with decorating and fitting wooden floors downstairs till the widening job is done first?

I understand it is all a bit ambitious and abstract, any thoughts and cost estimates would be much appreciated.

 

[blightymam]

You need to get some builders in, and then some decorators. I'd not paint either upstairs or down until all building alterations/renovations are complete because of dust. It get's everywhere, trust me on this!

If you want to keep costs down, remove your wallpaper etc yourself. Cannot give you an idea of costs because I have no idea on the real state of your property, size is only part of it.

To remove chimney breasts, you need to make sure any other part of the chimney is supported & made safe. To do this properly and above board you should get a structural engineer in to draw up plans, which are to be later submitted to the council. The builder you have in follows the plans and the council sign it off. You don't need planning permission to do this, unless a listed house or something. Fairly quick and easy process, just have to spend more money.
This is rather important for when you need to sell your property on later as buyers are getting more savvy, and if you share a chimney breast with a neighbour. You should also get a party wall agreement if you have a neighbour.

Good luck, you've a lot on.

 

[masamune]

Thank you, I have called a builder and decorator for quotes.

The chimney breast upstairs is about 50cm x 40cm and 2.5m tall (do these go into the wall? I have no idea, hopefully not).

How long does it take to ask a structural engineer to come around and then notify the council for their building regs to approve the work?

I am just trying to add the extra time to the project before deciding, but it will give me a good space for the wardrobe.

 

[blightymam]

Trying to remember when we did ours.. The engineer will come around your house fairly quick, after all you're paying him/her. I think we waited 3 days for the drawings. Then we just booked a guy from the council to come around (this isn't the structural engineer's job to inform the council - it's yours). The council came along when the builder was half way though to make sure all was going well. We did pay the council too, can't remember how much but it was low.

Chimney breasts, well, yes, they do form part of the wall, and they go all the way up to the chimney on top of your house!! This is why you have to support the weight of the bricks from the point you remove some, normally done by a gallows bracket. The engineer will be able to tell you about this and the best way to go about it. The wall that is left behind after the bricks have been taken out will need to be replastered.

We paid a builder about £1k to remove the chimney breast, fit the gallows and then replaster. Think this is about average for Southern prices.

 

[masamune]

Thanks, was this done within a period of a week or something?

I am very new to this and while reading around I also found out about the party wall agreement (it is a semi-detached). If I understand correctly this will set my plans back a little, because it would require two months notice to the neighbours. And if the neighbours are not happy then it's another story.

I also understand that I have to notify the neighbours for expanding the opening at the living/dining room wall and adding a beam. Not sure of the council fees as their list includes wall opening and not expansion of existing opening in living/dining rooms.

Can I also ask what other costs are involved, e.g do you need a structural engineer and a surveyor? I read that you need two surveyors but you may agree with the neighbours to have only one, to visit before and after the works at both properties. Sounds like a lot of work...

 

[OwainDIYer]

Council Building Control fees are usually based on the commercial value of the notifiable work; they'll use a commercial pricing book eg Spons or their surveyor if they think you're undervaluing the work to try and get into a lower fee band.

Therefore it can be worth 'saving up' your jobs to put in one larger application rather than two small ones.

 

[masamune]

Can you file all the works under one notification with a single fee?

The council I am under seems to have fixed fees, although some of them look silly i.e there is notifiable work if you move your toilet or washbasin within the bathroom.

The other thing is that cavity wall insulation is also notifiable and the seller has not provided any docs for his work or a notification (afaik) to the council.

How can the council find out and would I be liable to the notification fees or a fine in that case?

 

[blightymam]

I am not sure about the cavity wall - a lot of councils do not need notification if the work was done by someone who is registered with the 'Cavity Wall Insulation Self Certification Scheme'. How you find that out, am not sure and to be fair, am not sure how important it is retrospectively and I wouldn't bother with it and the council myself. I think too with the things like moving a toilet etc, if it's done by a qualified and registered plumber, then you probably don't need to notify the council.

Going back to party wall - we spent a couple of months trying to get a party wall agreement from the council - the property that shared our chimney is council owned. Got pushed from pillar to post before we gave up and did the work without it. Our neighbour himself said he didn't mind at all, so at least the noise etc wasn't going to upset him too much. You cannot get retrospective party wall agreements, but if I remember correctly, it does leave you open legally to put right any problems in the neighbours property. As this sounded fair to us anyway, plus we were doing everything right with the drawings and buildings inspector bloke, we didn't worry too much. We didn't have a surveyor.

The actual work from start to finish was 2 days, but there were three men doing the work. We booked the builders as soon as we had the drawings and I think we waited a week for him to be free. So once everything is in place, it's fairly quick. Oh, and I nearly forgot, had to submit the designs to a shop who made the gallows bracket exactly as needed, and I drove into London to pick it up to save some costs & speed things up.

 

[masamune]

Thanks, this is very useful to know.

I agree about the cavity wall, it's not that important retrospectively. I called the council and they said unless I am changing the soil pipe connection to the ground I won't have to notify them.

I am focusing on extending the wall opening between the dining room and living room, it doesn't seem to take long and there is no party wall agreement involved from what I understand. The council needs 48 hrs notice with the engineer's plans.

The chimney sounds like a pain and involves a lot of paperwork. I may not have enough time to deal with it prior to moving. If I were to build wardrobes, would it be sensible to make them around the corners? The breast is pretty narrow, so placing wardrobes left and right of it is not looking very nice.

Can I do the room, add wooden flooring and do the wardrobes later?

 

[masamune]

This is the layout of the two rooms, roughly showing the chimneys in red crossed lines.

View media item 80226

 

[blightymam]

Can I do the room, add wooden flooring and do the wardrobes later?

Can do in any order you like really! If you're building fitted wardrobes I personally would fit them after the flooring. It's neater, it's a better job. If you removed the chimney breast after the floor - well, it will make a heck of a mess but if your builder is worth his salt, he will make sure there's no damage, but you will have a little bit of flooring missing where the chimney breast was.

Going back to your plans and your pic, it seems a lot of work in order just to fit wardrobes. Personally speaking I'd build one to fit the gap. It really is a messy job, and you're going to be adding a lot of cost to your wardrobe!! We only did the chimney breast for a couple of reasons - bathroom too small to have a bath without the removal of the breast, and because a previous owner had removed the part downstairs and going by the rest of the rubbish he'd classed as DIY, we were worried. And good job we did - he'd not supported it.

Edited: Just a thought - What about seeing if your chimney breast is suitable to be corbelled out? May be a happy middle.

 

[masamune]

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts, you may be right, it's too messy and pricey for just doing the wardrobes. I will discuss the corbelling option you mentioned with the builder and see if this would be an option.

Just a last question about the work, it's the first time I am having someone do all that work and I am not confident on how to plan so that it stays on budget and schedule. I may do some work after moving e.g wardrobes, if there is not enough time. Any pointers or advice in terms of planning with the builders would be most welcome.