The Last Sash Window - Pictures

Well, at last I've done the fiddly bits on the last sash window,and so the job is effectively finished and I can now post a few photos. Firstly, here's what it looked like before we bought the place (first seen in August 2010).

Then, here's what it was like after removal of the ivy (and we moved in - July 2011):

Here's what it was like after a quick coat of paint on the (concrete) cill and the fake stucco (probably later in 2011, or else in 2012):

Finally, here's the finished product (2018):


 
As you can guess, I am pretty pleased with the result, especially as the old wavy glass can really be appreciated when it catches the reflections and, of course, the fact that both windows work as intended!!

I am now certainly qualified to give advice on refurbishment of Victirian sash windows, having started with absolutely zero knowledge.

Edited 25 Aug 2018: I just found that I made a miscalculation. I added a nice brass latch and a solid brass handle to each of the windows, and then found that one of them wouldn't stay in place as it did before. Clearly my weighing to make my lead weight was too accurate as it didn't take account of the brass handle, which has now been removed. Drat!

Ivy is The Enemy (and Fun with Joists)

Apologies to anyone called Ivy - I assure you that this is nothing personal.

When we bought our house, there was a very large growth of ivy up the front corner and over a good part of the roof (photo left).  This growth, reckoned to be over thirty years old, had damaged the gutters and filled them with compost so that no rainwater flowed at all in almost half of the roof's guttering.  The ivy was so thick that it had actually protected the stone wall which was in great condition, but at the edges of the ivy the wall was green and damp (well, that rainwater had to go somewhere!).  This ivy has been removed (photo right), leaving only a large stump of multiple stems about a foot high beside the corner.

This week, inside that corner of the wall, I have recommenced work on the floor joists.  I already knew that the joist beside the wall was rotten due to damp as a result of the concrete path being too high.  However, I was surprised to find something which, at first glance, appeared to be a 1.5" iron pipe, right in the corner.  Closer inspection showed that it was, in fact, a root of ivy!  Somehow this has penetrated the 18" thick wall, and then it dives down underneath the end supporting wall for the joists (see photo, right).  Happily, the root was easier to cut than the trunk of the ivy which I have been trying to remove for ages.

You might think that ivy looks pretty on the side of your house but, believe me, you need to treat it as the Number One Enemy - get rid of it.  Given half a chance, it will do all sorts of damage, by growing into (and through!) walls, under lead flashing, between junctions in gutters, under slates/tiles, and so on, causing damage which will probably be seen first as dampness.  By then it is TOO LATE and you are already into expensive repairs! 

More Fun with Joists

Continuing the joist work, I then removed the floorboards in the rectangular bay window; this was a known problem area which I had been avoiding for some time.  I fully expected to have to replace most of the six joists, as I had previously found all the skirting board very rotten.  Of course, I should have known better: whilst removing the boards it was clear that there were bigger issues, as some of the joists were not attached to anything except the boards!  The joist at one end of the window (lying on its side on the right of the photo) was the worst, as the wall plate on which it was meant to be resting had also rotted into oblivion at that end.  The photo (right) shows (top left) the remaining piece of the wall plate and a surviving joist (centre).  In fact, the whole wall plate was rotten and pretty useless so I lifted that out, together with four of the joists.  I then could see that the two brick-high supporting wall was actually pretty bad as well; the bricks were all loose and, in its 1.75m length, there was a gap of about 50cm.  It also suffered from being built too close to the outside wall; the gap was about 5cm at most.  Consequently all the stuff which falls down the end of the floorboards (like plaster and rotting skirting boards) had been trapped between the two walls, even covering the wall plate.  As the outside wall was damp (high ground and the rainwater falling from the broken gutter), the dampness had been allowed to invade the inside and this is why the wood had rotted.

Thus it was today that that I found myself mixing a load of hydraulic lime mortar in my own mixer (for the first time), rebuilding the supporting wall and fixing a new wall plate, instead of just using the same bit of 4x2 to replace some joists.

I decided to improve the design by building the new wall three inches further in, thus allowing space for any future debris.  As with joinery, I find this sort of thing quite satisfying, even though it wasn't the task I intended to do.

As part of this job I realised that I had not seen evidence of the air-brick; a long time ago I had ensured this was clear outside to encourage ventilation.  Closer investigation revealed that there was a large clump of cement covering it, which I then removed with a couple of taps with a club hammer.  Presumably it had been blocked because it was causing a draught, but whoever did it seemed to be entirely unaware that its function is exactly that!

Plaster, plaster everywhere

More plastering this week.  I have underestimated the amount of time that it takes to get the scratch coat on - he works really hard, but even so by the end of the day there is still so much left.  The signs of progress are most welcome - at last I feel that the house is going back together.  There is a real delight in seeing a uniform covering over walls and ceilings where there used to be damp patches, peeling wallpaper and, in the case of the bedroom ceilings, actual holes with real daylight.

A job next week will be to remove the plaster in the bathroom - at least there is a benefit to having a very small bathroom! - and this should be the last significant amount of plaster to be removed, apart from the kitchen ceiling which I think is doomed.

Having failed to publish this at the weekend, I can add that we have now removed the plaster from half of an internal wall in the kitchen-to-be.  This has had the wonderful effect of revealing the quoins which formed the corner of the original building; in the photo (right) this structural wall extends to the left and also goes directly away from the camera where it forms the front left corner of the house.  The bottom stone is the plinth which stands proud by about 3 cm, in exactly the same way as the wall at the front. 


Also, further along the same wall there is squared limestone (left) which matches the front wall of the house.  All this proves that this thick internal wall along the centre of the house was originally an exterior wall, when the building was first erected as a school, I understand (in 1834).






I have also found that another external wall, which is lined with brick, was originally just painted white on the inside, not plastered.  You can see where the builders have created a pattern by chipping the paint to provide a key before plastering.  Presumably this was the cheaper surface finish on the wall when the building was a school.

Teetering on the brink of progress

Awaiting exchange of contracts to buy, but still expect to complete on Oct 22nd simultaneously with our sale.  I have a contractor ready, and the LBC application is going in, so hopefully the work on the roof will start immediately following completion.  Every time it rains I have been in total frustration at the thought of the holes in the roof...

However, I have to confess that frustration got the better of me last weekend.  I had seen on one of my frequent visits that the dead ivy was coming away from the wall in some places.  Then, lying awake one night, I realised that if it ALL became detached from the wall then there would be a huge weight of ivy hanging from the corner of the roof where it is entwined with the gutter, slates and rafters.  This could only be bad news, so to protect my intended investment I decided to have a go at the ivy without delay. It took me just over two hours, including the left side and tidying up, using my loppers mostly as it was mostly too thick for secateurs.  The following photos show the before and after:

As you can see, I have hacked a line across the ivy back to the wall about ten feet up (OK, I know it's not horizontal), and also removed the ivy from around the bay window and along the bay roof where it was growing under the lead flashing. The cut channel will reduce the weight of potential "hanging ivy" by a good amount if it does decide to fall off, and it also pleases me to see the shape of the windows revealed!

I'm sure the vendor won't mind (or even know), so I'll probably have another go next week.  I didn't want to stand on the flashing but I'll take some boards next time so I can get around the bedroom window.  I will cut another line about five feet higher up on the left and round the corner but I can't go any higher as (a) my ladder won't reach and (b) there are unprotected electricity cables running to the top corner.  (I have already asked the electricity supplier to protect them so that we can put up the scaffolding to do the roof.)

Meanwhile, back to waiting for the good news.  Just how long can this sort of thing take?

UPDATED 12 OCT: Here's a later photo of both halves (ours is just the left hand) after a large part of the ivy just fell off last week (well, I gave it a slight helping hand):

It's all in the name

Why the "House in the Enchanted Forest"?  Wanting some early advice, I described the house to the Council's Conservation Officer: "it's the one which is set back from the road, opposite the church in the town centre, the left hand of a pair of Victorian semis".  Her immediate response was "ah, the one in the enchanted forest!"

The house as we first saw it

It was quite an appropriate description really; the right hand half of the two-storey house looks lived-in, well-maintained and loved, but the left hand half, which had attracted my interest, was anything but.  The front left hand corner of the house was covered by ivy which extended over a good deal of the front roof, but the vendors had just chopped a foot or so out of the base of this greenery, revealing stems as thick as my arms, and leaves were just starting to yellow and fall.  The front garden on the left was full of impenetrable shrubbery and trees, including laurel, fir and ash.  This extended back past the side of the house where, surprisingly, the garden widened across what should have been next door's garden.  This area was so densely covered that the far wall was not even visible, but it appeared to be perhaps 10m away from the house.  Holly, apple, pear, blackberry, buddleia and elder all mixed with vicious hawthorn and, in the distance, some species probably unknown to man.  In order to display the house to "advantage", the vendor had paid someone to go along the side of the house with a chainsaw, rather like an explorer hacking his way through the African jungle, thus permitting access to the back.

After finding this "opportunity" on a property website on a Monday evening, I tried Google maps but the aerial photo just showed a roof and lots of greenery, while Streetview did not have a discernible house at all! The next morning I looked around the outside, guessing that there was no-one resident. Externally there was evidence of poor maintenance and much damp, if that is the right word for actual holes in the slate roof. One downpipe was fractured and rainwater had been pouring down the wall; the other downpipe was intended for a water butt which had been replaced by an old and corroded galvanized cold water tank, and the water just went straight out again. Peering through the original (?) sash windows, however, showed an attractive hall and dining room with red and black floor tiles and high ceilings.

Suitably encouraged, I walked up to the market place to find the agents for more details. Before I had really grasped what I was doing, I had booked to view inside. Come Thursday morning, we were pleased to find that the interior was actually better than we had guessed. Upstairs, there's a lot of falling plaster but the floorboards seemed to be in good condition (OK, I know the joists might prove to be a disappointment); there were three good-sized bedrooms and a small bathroom as well. It was also true that you could see the sky through at least two holes in one bedroom ceiling!, but the missing plaster did show some nice riven laths, probably chestnut.

Our dream house?

Other than being listed and not detached, the house was everything that I had ever dreamed of as an old property project; we wanted somewhere stone-built in the centre of an attractive village, but with space to the side and set back from the road as we wanted off-street parking. We didn't fancy front doors opening directly into the living space - Jane likes a good hall as an entrance - nor were we too keen on small rooms with low ceilings in the typical cottage. We also wanted decent transport links, and Jane still has to travel often to London, and she likes having good shops readily available. Here we were minutes from the shops in the town centre with the station for trains to London not much further.

It was time to make up our minds and put our money where our dreams were taking us.