Strip paint from door frames & skirting boards, go over bare wood with Danish Oil
Wash ceilings & walls with sugar soap: one coat of polycell basecoat, another of ICI Dulux Dog Pure Brilliant white (or in the loo, bathroom & kitchen, a washable substitute)
Start in the downstairs loo, may remove paint from window ledge as well. Replace carpet tiles on floor with vinyl that looks like wood blocks. Replace silly no-grip taps with proper lever taps.
Whatever is learnt from that exercise to be applied to elsewhere in the house.
Other possibilities:
The internal doors are all cheap'n'nasty wood-alike. I'd like to replace them with those ol' fashioned kind that look like vertical planks held together with Z-shaped battens on one side, and a proper Suffolk latch.
The carpets HAVE to go. But only after I've finished sloshing paint about. And most of the curtain rails are horrible, and half-hanging out of the wall, I want them replaced with round rods that have wooden rings sliding along them.
I have no immediate plans to sell up - can't afford to move anyway - but I'm hoping that doing the above will move the property from being at the bottom of the price band applicable to its type & area to near the top of it. Better external doors & windows would help but they're not broken ATM and while I'd like better than white plastic (brown wood-alike plastic would be so much better) I can't justify changing them.
Can't do all the mods at once, but I think I can do it one room at a time
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Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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Buy yourself a decent mitre saw and a table saw. Rip all the architraves out. Buy a load of new ones, pre stain / oil them and fit new throughout. Wait for ome decent used on ebay or make your own oak ones.
Make a router table, make your own sash windows or whatever and mouldings or architraves too.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Then I replastered the old artexed ceiling, repainted the whole lot in white, ripped off the old tiling and have new ones ready to fit in the new year. Lastly I fitted some new lino.
The transformation is massive, it just proves that you don't need to spend thousands to improve on what you already have. Shop around, be thrifty and do it all yourself, Phil. Sounds like you have the right idea anyway.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
But I kind of like the stripped wood look when there is the odd bit of paint and unintentional scorchmark
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I'm sure I could rip out architrave - using a crowbar? - but putting it back: where would I start?
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
(Not that you need it), but my tip would be to shop around for absolutely everything you need before you buy it and make a proper list of essentials and stick to it. Good luck in transforming your place in the knowledge that you're adding value on a shoestring. It's extremely satisfying
Ceiling paint. Buy trade emulsion. I've just started using it and it's seriously a revelation. It covers brilliantly, dries quicker, has so much more body to it and actually works out cheaper than the normal Dulux/Crown domestic stuff. I used Crown Trade because it was on offer at a local paint shop but the builder we had in to do our extension swears by Leyland, which you can get from Screwfix.
Phil - stripping is hard work! I'd just repaint in a bright white satin.
Natural wood doesn't always look good - very much depends on the character of the house.
What criteria decides whether to use chemicals or a heat gun?
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Although there is one surface, on the left of the thing that contains the sink/drainingboard, that goes over the washing machine, and I'm not too happy about it. In fact I'm not too keen on the sink/draining board OR the cabinet that contains them: the sink has a mixer tap (I HATE mixer taps), and the drainingboard doesn't drain because it is flat and water sits in a puddle on it rather than flowing off into the sink. I'd like a proper butler sink with separate (lever) taps and a draining board that sits at sufficient angle to drain the water off it. I like the shelf space under the sink though.
I haven't yet worked out a timescale for working on the kitchen. All I know is that I'll start with the downstairs loo, which will take as long as it takes.
However if it would help you to move a cabinet or two on in my direction such that my kitchen can be improved by doing so then I'm more than happy to cooperate, by exchanging measurements or even a visit in either direction (accompanied by a sociable pint), so let's stay in touch on the subject
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
All the ones I've looked at look are, shall we say, not looking very good for that price. I 'can' get a brand new Les Paul for £150 too, but would I want one? Thanks for the advice, all the same.
EDIT *
It's an early 70s chalet-style semi with a kitchen at the front (good idea, that, I prefer it to having my music room on view to the rest of the street) and a garage protruding from the front in the middle where it joins onto Mick's gaff next door. He's turned his garage into an extra room.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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