Return of the slum

We've been off the radar for a while.


We haven't given up on the slum and sold it (although we considered it).


We haven't relocated to the Cayman Islands (although we considered this too).


We did move into a skanky flat, employed a design company, realised the design company were pretty useless, sacked the design company, went out to tender for builders, received pretty useless tenders back, had (and are still having) a protracted argument with our freeholders about planning permission... and to be honest, both got pretty fed up with the whole thing.


Several sense of humor failures later, we've propped each other back up and we're back in the slum.


We've now employed a lovely, efficient, sensible friend of Rob's to do our project management - more of him later.


So - some discoveries.  My parents visited the slum for the first time a few weeks ago, and eagle eyed Dad pointed out that the fireplace in the kitchen is surrounded by tiles.  I hadn't bothered to remove the woodchip from here before - partly due to woodchip-removal-fatigue, to be honest, but also because we are planning on getting rid of the whole fireplace anyway.


Now from here on, I'll admit my imagination might have slightly run away with me.  In my head, underneath that yellow wallpaper was something like this:

Or maybe even this:

Now, I'll admit, the reality was somewhat disappointing.  Here's a before and after.

So unless glossy, brown, 70's style tiles are your thing, this wasn't a particularly exciting discovery.  In case they are your thing, here's a close up: 

So, moving on - Daddy Gee also spotted this:

Ur, yes Siobhan, a horribly painted blue sink?  Ah ha, NO!  A lovely, stylish, Belfast sink!

See?!  Just needs a bit of paint stripper.  


We've also realised that the fireplace in the scary-cat-mask room is cast iron...

... and therefore presumably worth something to someone.  Although it may be haunted.


And finally, a blog post wouldn't be complete without a bit of wallpaper removal.  There was one room we forgot (because we'd filled it with carpet) - the downstairs soon-to-be-bike storage.

This room has life.  The wallpaper, in parts, has become one with the wall behind.  Together they are growing, spawning, breeding, and spreading.  YUK.  That big black patch is some sort of mould, and if I become Wheezy the Penguin after this, you'll know it's because I've caught some hideous fungal chest infection.

The other walls, as if in protest at the relative ease with which I was able to scrape off the mould/paper hybrid, hung onto their woodchip with ferocity.  We couldn't find an extension lead long enough to bring the steamer down, so I was back to fabric softening the walls instead.  This is a wet, messy operation, and I was getting woodchipped hair, so I had to improvise a shower cap:

Apologies to the other pharmacists working at the same Trust as me.  It should be a Sainsbury's bag, I know.


Removal of the paper in this room uncovered more distressing evidence that the house is mostly being held together with wallpaper...

Wallpaper, and cement - which seems to have been applied with about the same amount of skill as I'd have to contribute to the job:

Lovely.  And if purple, orange and turquoise doesn't say stylish to you, then you are clearly reading the wrong blog.

The end of the beginning

WE'VE FINISHED!


By which I mean - the flat is empty of rubbish, finally!  Rob found some nice Polish men to get rid of all the detritus for us.  I wasn't there, but I understand he was kindly helping them out with the removals by leaving them to it and going into Nunhead for a fry up.  


All those months of scraping, stripping and steaming are over - now it's over to the professionals.

No, not Rob - he's just enjoying walking on a patch of floor we haven't seen in three months.


Here's another room we haven't seen the inside of since we started this project:

That's the manky-carpet storage room.  


Hang on a minute - what's that I see?  MORE WALLPAPER?!


Before you all start hyperventilating on my behalf (not the best idea here as those walls are covered in mould) - this is a type of wallpaper that is actually coming off very easily (helped by that mould).  I am an expert in this now - I can tell from ten paces away exactly what level of difficulty a particular paper patch will present.

The reason this room is so damp is because daylight is coming up through the floorboards:

You can't really see from that photo - you'll have to trust that wind was blowing up my trouser legs whilst taking this.


So.  Our thoughts are now moving on to the fun bit of this project - the interior design.  We've had some ideas:

This is the kitchen, and we are thinking of having a breakfast bar under the window there - it's too low for a worktop, and it looks out onto the garden (which is currently full of dog poo, but that's another story).


The former bathroom will be a library (yes, A LIBRARY!):

I want to get rid of that cornicing (?) at the top of the arch first, and we are going to remove the walls and the doorway:

Our architect is getting builders into tender for the project on Tuesday - hopefully we'll be off and running soon!


We have also recently learnt that the slum is in the Nunhead Conservation Area - oh yes, we were shocked too.  And apparently the area had this status before we decided to move in.  So that's all very lovely, but it means that replacing the windows is going to be an expensive problem, as they have to match what is there already:

Presumably not down to the peeling paint job.


So now, blog fans, I'm off to put the overalls in the washing machine, re-patriate the dust pan and brush to our Peckham flat, and disinfect three months worth of Rob's tea mugs.


Hurrah!

Some unfortunate discoveries and a step back in time

I can't go as far to say that the plan for today was misogynistic, but it was certainly gender specific.


Rob was planning to knock down a wall, and I was detailed to sweep up after him.


The wall in question needs to come down because we've realised that it is concealing banisters at the top of the stairs - and otherwise we'll have to pay to get them replaced.  So down it was coming.

Here is a close up - so it's a many layered affair:

Step one was easy - and there are the banisters!  Hurrah!

But wait - what's that?  MORE SHINY WALLPAPER!  Nooooooo.....


Rob then reminded me that this was the only bit of wallpaper in the house that it wasn't necessary to remove because we were taking the wall down anyway.  So I stopped sobbing.


It also turned out to be the only bit of wallpaper in the house that was actually easy to remove, of course.

The next steps were trickier, mostly because there is an electrical wire running up one side of the wall, and Rob had his sensible hat on and didn't want to split it accidentally.  So he spent a considerable amount of time staring the wall out, like this:

Unfortunately he proved unable to topple the wall using only the power of his mind, so he used the claw hammer instead.

Now we started to wonder at this point whether those grey stone tiles (why would you use what are apparently floor tiles to create a wall?) were asbestos.  After establishing that we couldn't tell (asbestos doesn't smell of anything) and that although we did commission an asbestos survey they wouldn't have been able to tell either (this wall was hidden when they did the survey) we took a deep breath and carried on anyway.  Then we realised deep breathing might be a mistake.


Anyway, it's gone now, leaving this:

Whilst taking the photo above, I noticed this hole in the ceiling which wasn't there before Rob starting messing around with that claw hammer:

He assures me that it's fine, because that's going to be a sky light anyway.  Or at least it is now.


The last bit of this quadruple-layered wall was dispatched with brute force:

And now we have light upstairs!  


Whilst Rob was throwing himself at the wall, I continued sweeping.  And discovered more newspaper, this time stuck to the walls inside the eaves cupboard in one of the bedrooms:

Yes, that's Friday 2nd September, 1932.


Goring and Hindenberg were in charge in Germany, and whilst we (and the French) seemed worried about it, the Yanks apparently weren't bothered:

Going further back in time, the other walls of this cupboard seem to have been created from wattle and daub:

According to Wikipedia, this either means that our cupboard was built in the neolithic times, or is very forward thinking and eco friendly.

Having swept the room out, I then noticed another section of wallpaper we'd missed.  So I pulled at it.  And the wall came off in my hands.

Oh dear.  That's another fire place.  And it's full of dirt/soot/mud/bricks.  And, I could see daylight coming through...

I was a bit concerned that I might have discovered the hiding place of the body that belongs to the concrete-shoe we found, but fortunately not.


I began to wonder if we'd missed anything else - surely not?  But we had.  We'd forgotten all about one of the cupboards in the green bedroom, because we'd piled a whole load of wood outside it.  And guess what was inside?


The rest of that body!  


No, just joking.

A whole load of mid-90's children's toys.  Such a haul would not be complete without a Mr Frosty:

And I was very pleased to see this, as I could do with a new laptop:

Who needs a Mac Book Air when you could have a pre-computer 2000?!  All you people with just 'computers' are so out of date.  I now have a precomputer.


We also found this philosophical essay:

Deep.  I would have asked my pre-computer for the answers but its batteries weren't included.


Thankfully the answers were provided inside the booklet.


What am I?  = Father Christmas.  
The child who wrote this was clearly clever enough to understand that Santa is not a real person, but a myth and therefore 'what' not 'who'.


Who am I? = signs.  
This confused us, but perhaps we are just not on the same intellectual level as the author.  Clarification was given - this is apparently signs such as road signs and 'supermarket' signs.  We are none the wiser.  Perhaps helpful notices that guide you in life should be viewed as a benevolent presence, and so a 'who'.


What are they?
No answer was given to this one... spooky.  Where has that cat-mask got to?!


All that philosophising tired Rob out, so he had a quick break, settling down for a bit of a read:

I had to tear him away from the ribbeting (!) tales of Toad and Mr. Hedgehog, because we still had clearing to do.

So we are finished.  But we are left with this:

This:

This:

And all this:

If anyone would like a large amount of smelly, dirty carpet, 27 bags of woodchip wallpaper, or an enormous quantity of lino in various shades, do let us know.

A Retrospective

 Hi all,

These are the pictures I promised weeks ago.

Here's the upstairs area which will be the main bathroom.  As you can see, I've ripped out all the cupboards.  Also, check out my pants.

Remember those cupboards in the eaves which are accessed from the upstairs bedrooms?  I thought I'd climb inside:

Among the items I found in the cupboard was this:

Yep, that's a shoe embedded in cement (just a shoe, there's no foot inside).  Mum and Dad were so puzzled, they had to have a cup of tea.

Anyone who can offer a credible explanation, please do so.

More soon....

Tiresome jobs come in small segments

Dear blog readers, it has been some time.


We have been occupied over the last few weekends with a stag do (Rob), birthday party (Siobhan), illness (Siobhan) and third world non-existent country (Siobhan).  So little work has been done in the slum - obviously whilst I was away, Rob was indisposed pining for me.


We have done a little - and when I say a little, I mean that little was achieved over a very, very, very, very long period of time.  Not because we weren't trying - the last sections of wallpaper to be removed were obviously papered by Beelzebub.

See those tiny, 5mm by 5mm squares of paper?  That's what we were managing to scrape off.  It took me four hours to clear a one metre square area of hallway wall.  I might mind slightly less if the paper was less offensive to look at for all that time - but it's dried mustard coloured, furry, 60's, and horrible.


And it's glued on with super glue.


The only way, and I mean the only way to get it off was to basically melt it.  I've never felt so close to a wallpaper steamer before.  Unfortunately I can't recommend the wallpaper facial as the latest in beauty therapy - too much risk of burning the extremities with very hot bits of wallpaper.  (You'd be surprised, dear reader, to know just how hot those tiny squares can get.  The scars on my legs can testify to this.)


The walls themselves don't think much of the melting strategy either - they start crying, see - 

Something else you'll notice from this photo is that large patch of no-plasterboard - the most galling part of this process is when large parts of the wall you've just painstakingly stripped of paper then falls away in your hands.  I feel like crying as much as the wall is.


Anyhow, away from the downstairs steam bath, the architect we have employed has started to renovate the upstairs bedrooms.  This appears to involve knocking holes in our walls and ceiling...

Oh dear.  And we loved that wall colour so much.