End to end
What we did:
- Strip back the wallpaper (or attempt t0)
- Lower the ceiling
- Took out the chimney breast and supported in the loft
- Add the MVHR piping
- Plasterboard the ceiling
- Replaster the walls
- Sort out the windows
- Find the electrics for the light
- Paint
How it started
Like everywhere else we had good intentions of stripping back all the various wall paper.
What we did
This bedroom looked out onto the road and the room started with 2 terrible uPVC windows, a radiator that didn’t fit the space and cut into each of the windows, and a chimney breast along the left wall (looking in) neighbouring with next door. A lot of this work was structural including putting steel beams across between the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the loft so was driven by the builders, who removed the original ceiling so that the ceiling could be lowered.
The new windows were installed and the supports around the windows filled in before a thick layer of modern standard insulation was added to keep the room warmer in winter.
We then added an edging to each of the windows which were set deeply into the cill with the additional level of insulation so that they could be plastered. We also had to find the electrics for the light fitting. One of the benefits of taking lots of photos was helping to identify where this was in the ceiling.
On the left side, there seemed no reason other than aesthetics to keep the chimney breast and we needed somewhere for all the new MVHR pipes to go.
So we removed the chimney breast which was already being supported (the correct way) in the loft to make the space available and then created a conduit for the MVHR pipes that were heading all over the house to the different rooms and still had some way to travel.
Conclusion
This room we removed the wallpaper that came away easily but didn’t have a fight with many other layers that were more solidly attached which was good.
I wish we’d put another plug socket behind the bed as we initially expected to put the bed back where it was so you were looking out of the window but actually it fitted far better facing the wardrobes and left ample space for this to become a dressing area. Even having measured this out, we didn’t decide this until we put the actual (king size) bed into the room.