Ivy Villa Revival

the phases

Early 2008

let tlc commence...

Phase 1 - April 2008

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This PHASE 1 involved new windows replacing the old Victorian sashes. We live in a conservation area and love our old house and wanted to retain its 'look'

We were therefore happy that the builder called Brian had some wonderful new windows for us that looked just like the old style, and indeed push up and down too - but are actually PVC double glazed AND swivel over to allow cleaning on the outside too! Needless to say in Phase 1 we only had half the house done so that we could move things around to make space and avoid problems. Brian and John do work skilfully and quickly, and are very good at keeping the mess down.

They cover things up. Plus wherever possible they take rubble out of the house via windows and not down the stairs or through other rooms, and they vacuum up any dust whenever they can.

In 2007 we had replaced our flat roof on the garden end of the house, and now it was time to take the old house on and give it some proper help.

The plan was to do some work and then more later in the year; the following slide show shows the work done on the front and part of side of the house so far in April 2008.

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DIY Summer 2008

This next bit was a DIY job done by us! Although we initially thought we might have ALL rooms replastered, and it would have been nice to be able to do so - practically it was not really viable. As we were not moving out we needed the space to move things before the second major phase began - we had to have somewhere to put things!

So, after the lovely new attic windows were installed (see Phase 1 above) we did some amateur plastering in the front attic and painted it and repaired a bit by the fireplace and painted it etc. etc.

Then we put our attic things back (it is going to be used for arts and crafts and sewing) BUT then had to temporarily 'spoil' the effect by filling both attic rooms with the items we needed to store from the back bedroom on the first floor and other items from dowstairs.

Required some planning and effort but we did get there in due course!