This house was neglected for so long that it's difficult to choose a most depressing room, but I think it was probably the hall and landing. The hall looked like this:
It's quite a big house but the hall and landing were very pokey, partly due to the layout but mostly due to some highly questionable interior design. Similarly to the dining room one of the previous owners had lowered the ceiling and added fake beams, but also gone one step further and vaulted the ceiling.
Taking this ceiling down was quite easy as we were able to overboard the original lath & plaster above.
Right after the rewire it look like this.....😞
Summer 2020 was banisters. There was a lot more head scratching and despair with the downstairs banisters than there was upstairs because the house is a bit wonky and there were lots of awkward angles to work around but after three days the last spindle was in and it looks bloody lovely.
Then came the carpets!! Time for an official before and after:
As of 2022 we still need a radiator. We are sort of wondering about going electric after finding out just how expensive it is to heat a creaking old detached house so we haven't committed yet. We are keeping the flags but at some point we need to have them professionally cleaned and sealed.
We'd also really like a new front door because it's horrible, but since taking this we've given it a bit of the old Frenchic paint action and it doesn't look so bad now.