It’s grim up north.

So a month or so later I came back up to finish off.
I checked in with Harold and he was very happy with everything and was getting on with it all just fine.

My dogs made themselves comfortable with Harold whilst I cracked on.


I painted the ceilings first, then I did the bathroom floor. It had some of that foil bubble wrap underlay under it, and the tiles were all free as they came out of the mrs. friends kitchen when she redid it. She’d seen my efforts and offered it if I wanted it which of course I took up.


The kitchen floor was then done the same was with the same stuff.

There was more tidying up outside to do so this happened again. I think me mam possibly enjoys this more than me 😂



Next day I gave Harold a colour chart and told him to pick some paint.
I soon regretted that, he picked a truly awful colour, but hey it wasnt me living there 😂



Tiled splashbacks and handles were added, along with kickboards.
Then worktop end cappings and everything was sealed.

In the bathroom as well as painting in a colour not that far off bare plaster I boxed all the wastes and added a shelf under the window.


Other utiliities like gas pipe and electric feed were also boxed where they came in over the shower.


Skirting and architrave were also added.


I did all this over the course of 4-5 days, plus loads of other daft little bits like window beading, putting a bathroom mirror up, and no doubt loads of other things I’d forgotten.

Harold was so pleased with this lot and his ‘posh new kitchen’ he’d decided to pay the cleaners who used to do my grans to come in once a fortnight to keep it nice for him. It was only £15 or so, But was quite surprised tbh!

And with that, the job was complete. A council dogsbody came out and was genuinely shocked at what I’d done and how quickly- I guess they were used to dealing with landlords that didn’t want to spend any money to do anything. He asked if I had any other properties to rent as it was better than his flat!

And with that, the council paid up.


Great success!

Great thread, story and build! the latter especially in such a small time frame. As I'm not a UK resident I also have something I wonder about as it's just so different from what I'm used to seeing, if I may ask? Why are the water lines and the toilet/vanity drains not in wall and under floor?

Quick access in an emergency.
With it being a rental and me being 150 miles away, if I needed to call out an emergency plumber to sort a leak I want them to just be fixing a leak, not tearing a wall down first to then fix the leak then the wall having to be repaired and replastered.

Also a leak in a hidden cavity will typically be allowed to get much worse before it is noticed, causing more damage than open pipework where it’s spotted immediately. I also find modern plumbing products to be fairly poor quality compared to older stuff, I’ve had a lot of premature failures of parts so I tend to assume something *will* fail and make it so future repairs are easy.
It’s not typically how I’d have done it if it was going to be my house but with a rental, cost in any scenario is the first concern.

Makes perfect sense now. Thanks.

daughter bought a place in Brighton & got a plumber to replace downstairs toilet.He installed one in the understairs cupboard behind which is full of the meters even though it is a fully vented external stack system.I had to remove it all when over last summer.

There I thought it was just cars that got your graft-ethic.

Thats a truly epic project. Good on you for seeing Harold right.

As you were!

Yeah they get round a whole host of problems. I think I’m going to use one in our upstairs bathroom as there is currently no waste stack and it gets around various problems with fitting one.

It was a month or so after I was next up there. We’d decided where the new fence was going to go so I went up whilst it was being done and did a load of things.

First I marked out a bed of sorts to direct the drive around the trees. Having the marker on the floor helps you to notice the canopy of the tree more. My dad needs that as his driving is terrible.


Harold had been in one of his sheds for something to find the roof had fallen in and most of what was in there was ruined (if it wasnt when it went in). This lot was sorted through, mostly disposed of, and the usable stuff spread out to other outbuildings. The remains of the shed were then also disposed of as it was also rather rotten.



Here it is along with some other garden rubbish awaiting its fate. You can see there I’ve cut the front bow of the apple tree down the bottom too, as it was rotten and listing at an alarming angle. I probably saved the tree by doing so, it’s had a new lease of life since. All the trees here has been allowed to get too leggy and needed work. There was a massive (2ft trunk) self-set sycamore in the corner behind the bonfire that seems to have disappeared by now too, after my mum asked me to cut it down. Maybe that’s what the bonfire is made up of given it’s location.


Here is the new fence. In the end it was decided to just go straight down with it ‘til it hit the wall across the bottom of my sisters garden. She lost a small amount of garden and half her drive which went out to the bottom paddock, but she was happy with this as she didn’t want a massive garden and didn’t need access down here. The access to this bit (that was now my mums) went down Harold’s drive instead, so was shared between me and my mum.



It suited everyone and kept things simple as it was a straight line. Same fence guys came back and did the rest.

Then more of this happened.


Whilst I was there I was taking to Harold, and he said he was starting to have trouble with the stairs. He actually asked about a stairlift, but the stairs just aren’t suitable for one so it would be major works to keep his bedroom upstairs. The simple answer was just move some furniture around so he was downstairs and all on one level.
He was unsure about this, but I said why not give it a try and see how he got one with it. So me and my mum moved some stuff, he decided to buy a new mattress when it was found out his was about 40 years old. I ordered it online for him and it was delivered just in time. My mum went through his linen drawers and found some new sheets and put em on for him.



He gave it a go and decided the next day he was actually really happy with it, so that how it stayed.

We found this treasure when moving stuff about, never opened from the ‘70s 😂