In October 2011 HarriDec Ltd were appointed as the main contractor for this domestic refurbishment in Brentwood Essex. The house had originally belonged to an elderly gentleman and was looking rather tired and dated but was bought by a family who gave us eight weeks to modernise the house before they moved in just in time for Christmas.
Because the property was vacant while the refurbishment works were being undertaken were able to entirely gut the place and we started by stripping out the old kitchen, bathroom, fireplace, carpets, furnishings, fittings and wallcoverings. Several skips later and we had a blank canvas to start from.
Once the gutting and demolition works were complete our electrical subcontractors Aneco Ltd rewired the entire house and added television points in all the bedrooms, more sockets, down lights and designed a new electrical plan for the new kitchen that was to be installed.
We then plastered all the existing textured ceilings and installed coving in every room except the bathroom. We replaced skirtings and architraves throughout the house before making good to the existing plaster walls and lining them with 1200 grade lining paper; using a lining paper before painting or hanging wallpaper provides a perfect base for decoration.
We installed a new bathroom suite and made some adjustments to the layout of the pipework to provide a better layout for the new bathroom. We battened the ceiling and installed a tongue and groove timber ceiling with flush down lights and a timber cornice and retiled the walls around the bath with a mosaic trim. We then made a bath panel to match the ceiling and a new natural stone tile floor was laid before it was decorated.
All three of the bedrooms were painted using Dulux Diamond Matt; Diamond Matt is a highly durable matt paint for walls and ceilings that is ideal for use in family homes, it is fully washable and grubby hand prints etc. can simply be wiped off. The new woodwork was knotted and primed before receiving three coats of acrylic satin paint Sikkens Rubbol BL Satura and we hung feature wallpaper to one wall in every bedroom before installing a solid oak floor throughout the upstairs rooms.
In the hallway we had removed the beaten old handrails and lined the walls before painting with Dulux Light & Space Diamond Matt; Light and Space is great for use in rooms with no natural light as it contains microscopic glass beads that make rooms appear bigger and brighter. We stripped the existing paint from the staircase and then repainted it with acrylic satin before laying a carpet runner with chrome fixing rods.
The living room had originally had a back boiler in a chimney breast which had since been replaced with a gas fire. However the gas feed had been shut off years before and we installed an ornamental cast iron fireplace in the hole that the original fireplace had been in. The fireplace was bought second hand and we sprayed it with matt black paint to make it look like new and laid a granite slab at the base before laying solid oak flooring throughout. We also sprayed a bronze light fitting to match the fireplace and our electrical contractors rewired it before fitting it to the ceiling which you can see below.
This refurbishment in Brentwood was completed in just less than 9 weeks and the family moved in in plenty of time for Christmas.
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