Author name: jenjones

We were ready to move from our first place and had been looking for a suitable property for about 12 months when we found a run down mid terrace. The main criteria was price and no more than 8 miles from the centre of London (so we could both still cycle to work), which left

Stripping back wallpaper is easy. Stripping back wood panelling is easy. Stripping back ancient paint to the original plasterwork without damaging it too much IS NOT. We have spent months of weekends on this and the progress is painfully slow. We started with a regular scraper for the paint… This one was the best one!

We decided to start by stripping back the third bedroom. The wallpaper came off just fine using a wallpaper steamer. Then it got interesting… The radiator was removed and it appeared to have been supported by a wooden post that had somehow been added to the wall and there was a fair hole behind it

There’s something to be said about being one of the worst looking houses on the street because of the monstrosities of the 1970s and 80s and it isn’t anything good. Apparently these heavy blocks were stuck on to the front of the beautiful brickwork to make the house look more like a countryside Cotswold abode.

You know it’s not going to go well when you start stripping wallpaper and the wall starts moving. That’s exactly what happened when we moved on to stripping back the middle room upstairs. Didn’t take long from peeling back the generic featured magnolia wallpaper to realising what was underneath wasn’t necessarily solid.. Tapping the wall

So we packed up our lives into a zipvan and spent the day moving our stuff into the new place. Turns out a zipvan can hold quite a lot. Lessons learned We learned a number of lessons from this experience: You should hire the zipvan for longer than you expect to need it and even