[ N O C T E R N I T Y ] Contributing to the general pollution of the internet

The house: origins

So far most posts which we have written and were related to our house were posts regarding the garden. Of course, it was way easier to write them: I had already written them for a gardening forum and all was required was simply copying them and translating them into English. At some point we had to start with the repairs inside the house. However, before getting into that, it is logical to present what we started with. So here are picture we took in Spring 2009 while the former owners still lived there. The idea is to introduce the extend of the work we have to do...

Hall

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I expect I'll be able to post a few plans to accompany the pictures at some point. For now we only have paper versions and I'll have to scan them first...

Regarding the repairs we intended to do we chose to get some help from a general contractor to help us define exactly what we intended to do, choose the companies who would do the work and manage the day-to-day oversight of the project. In the end here is what was planned (roughly):

• earthwork:
• install a rain water collection tank
• joinery:
• change the kitchen French window, which wasn't of the same model as the others on the ground floor of the house
• install insulated doors in the basement
• install new doors on the 1st floor
• plaster works:
• in the basement, insulate the ceiling and create a new room which would become the server room
• on the ground floor, remove the wall between the hall and the living room, add walls to create cupboards in the hall and the 3 rooms
• on the first floor, line the vertical parts of the walls to increase the insulation and add new walls to fit with the new plan
• electricity:
• replace completely the whole electric installation of the house
• add network cables to connect the whole house for either computer network, phone or TV
• install a network distribution rack in the future server room
• plumbing:
• change completely the heating system (boiler, heaters and network)
• install a new bathroom on the first floor
• connect the house to the town gas network
• set up the rain water network
• replace the old water pumps in the basement
• tiling:
• replace the ugly tiles in the hall, living room, dining room, kitchen and ground floor corridor
• tiling of the toilets and bathroom on the first floor
• tiling of the new server room in the basement
• painting:
• repair and painting of the walls and ceiling of both staircases

We asked for the estimates in July 2009, signed them in September 2009 and actual work by the various contractors started in October. So you can guess there are plenty of opportunities to describe how it went !