Victorian Beauties

On to the next.....


So following the long journey of the bathroom, I began the renovation of my bedroom expecting a relatively easy time, not so! The problems began with the ceiling. 
  As with every ceiling in this house, and most houses across England in the 70's, ceiling tiles had been used to cover a multitude of sins! I spent a whole weekend removing the tiles, no easy feat when the guy who had applied them had used a LOT of adhesive! So one weekend down, and lots of knuckles scraps and cuts later (!!) a very wonky, badly damaged and fairly scary ceiling was revealed!
  Now me being me, thought hmmm, wonder if that can be skimmed straight (WTF?!!) Got plasterer round, and no surprise to myself, ceiling had to come down! Oh Man! The most frustrating part was losing a weekend to ceiling tiles when could have just kicked the damn ceiling through!


So that's where the real fun began! Three friends and I later, kitted out in orange boiler suits, began the demolition of the ceiling! This was not a pleasant job, because although the loft was not full of someone else's rubbish and left off's as is this case with most homes, it was however full of 100 years of black soot and dust beneath the insulation! 
  We tried to brush, hoover and collect as much of this as possible, but to my distress, there isn't much you can do about the dust, and this sticky dust lingered and roamed around the house for months later! No matter how much cleaning I did! 


The ceiling was relatively easy to kick in! And the easiest way to do it was to hang from the beams and just kick down! (not recommending this, A&E visit may follow if beams not secure!) Thankfully no injuries here, just a LOT of ceiling, and dust to tidy up! 


A long and painful day it was, and how glam we looked when walking to a friends house to get clean!  Lots of head turning and curious looks as we looked like we had just appeared from a mine or a gas explosion!

The good point was just how quickly the new ceiling went up! Then began the the fun part of making a house a home! I hired a sander to reveal the original floor boards, which cleaned up really well. I stained and sealed them to protect the new wood. 


 Having previously started the fireplace clean up, whereby I stripped back the plaster to reveal the brick work. I continued by cleaning up what I believed to be a cement hearth, but to my delight, it was in fact a beautiful Victorian tiled hearth with bold greens and yellows. These beauties cleaned up exceptionally well considering they had been cemented over and had a gas fired placed on top for who knows how long!!

Not sure why people always rip out and cover up the original features of properties, when actually they can be the most beautiful part of the home!

And now to my favourite part, the end result!!

Best feature in my bedroom are the large original sash windows that have been renovated to fully operate. I love the sheer size of them, and the colours of the stained glass which change colours and sparkle in the sunlight, beautiful x