We’ll be documenting the refurbishment of our house from shed to finished article here.

At this stage of the project (before anything has happened) it’s time to think about major alternatives and question some of the obvious choices one makes… for example we’d like to make the house energy efficient…
(from the Energy Saving Trust)

There are some grants and subsidies for doing good energy-saving stuff with your home.
So we should go for lots of insulation (between the floors and in the roof)
We should wrap our hotwater tank carefully

Could we consider a sustainable heat pump or will that be too expensive?
Should we go for underfloor heating so we don’t have to use radiators throughout?
How should we arrange our plumbing to get the best water pressure and hot water?
We should definitely renovate the sash windows
Should we have long-drop toilets with compost outflow (joke)
Lots of choices.

We are now the proud owners of a house (well, shed). A shed which needs months of work to make it habitable but one which we will one day be very proud of.
Amazingly (and in contrast to my previous experience) buying this house was pretty much painfree – this was mostly because we knew up front that buying it would be like opening our wallets and emptying the contents every day forever – so we put caution to the wind and worried not about tiny details. Actually it’s structurally sound – it just needs a lot of “internal modernisation” – and since we plan to do everything to it – it’s current state was unimportant.
So now we’re holding talent shows for builders – so we can pick the right man for the job. The list of work is long: rewiring, replumbing, new boiler, new central heating, plastering throughout, wood stripping throughout, new windows, loft extension, kitchen extension, new patio doors, new bathroom, new kitchen, new flooring, new tiles, refurbishment of fireplaces etc etc
This is the kind of thing we’re hoping to achieve within:

Walking into the place on Thursday we felt a mixture of relief, intrepidation and joy – there was a bit of jumping around on the dirty carpets and peering into old drawers, still containing a few trinkets from their previous, now-dead owner – but mostly we went around bashing things with a hammer to see if there were “period features” behind. We found two original fireplaces, in the front and rear bedrooms, long since boarded up with cheap 1960s wallpaper on hardboard – and other places where the fireplace had been completely removed.
It’s going to be an adventure.

More renovation information

Some interesting advice on refurbing environmentally: http://www.msarch.co.uk/ecohome/

Since we’re at the start of our renovations of our house, here’s some advice taken from http://www.how2pull.co.uk/

Always get at least three quotes and insist on paying against specific jobs completed to your satisfaction. [Yup, we did this]
Always check past workmanship. [We phoned previous clients]
Trusting a single-line quote is a recipe for disaster. Quotes should be detailed. Break the job into logical components. [We were told to be aware of this from our friends]

, and our neighbourhood profile.

Often, many of the people who live in this sort of postcode will be well-off professionals living in larger houses and converted flats. These are known as type 13 in the ACORN classification and 0.87% of the UK’s population live in this type.

They enjoy the arts, including theatre, classical music, opera and the cinema. The most widely read newspapers are The Guardian, Independent, The Times and Observer. Foreign travel and skiing are popular leisure activities.

Grosvenor Gardens, a sleepy quiet street in East Sheen. Watch this space for more.