How best to hide these electrics above our Victorian front door?
Wendy
7 years ago
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Comments (24)
Wendy
7 years agoRelated Discussions
Need help on style of porch and front door!
Comments (103)Thanks so much everyone - this has been great. Sorry for the lack of response - been flat out!!!! It must be hard for you American guys to work on such old English designs.... The ideas have gradually culminated into what really would look good on the house. Ourfarmhouse - these are absolutely great ideas, and thanks Everything Beautiful for getting the jist and putting the ideas onto the house image - nothing like seeing an actual design on your own home. We've got an architech working on it, and he's keen on the iron-wrought idea... but we're not sure. Basically toss-up with this and Everything Beautiful's design (2 above). Going with a four-pannel door, but would like to incorporate some glass somewhere! Possibly a panel above with the house name engraved on it?? Victoria - absolutely right...! We don't need to sit outside with the weather.......... say no more! Just wanting something to cover yourself while you're unlocking the door. We've also done a tour of the local areas, and found a couple of porches - amazing what you find right on your doorstep! Will attach pics shortly......See MoreHow to make a Victorian house warm?
Comments (24)Hello! We have done two things which relate to some of the issues you describe. However, I should point out that we don't have a cellar; we have ground around 30cm below our ground floor joists. We have wooden floorboards rather than concrete - but I would imagine concrete would be easier to insulate, perhaps from below, in the ceiling of the cellar? Anyway, this is what we did: We insulated under our floor borads on the ground floor. (Note that not every single one has to be lifted, you lift a few every foot or so). Celotex was inserted between the joists. There is a risk the insulation will fall out onto the ground below, so they cut it slightly too big and then hammer it in. It's wedged in very tight and we have had none fall out two years later. As I wrote in my post above as well, we added angled vent covers outside to reduce the draft coming in under the floorboards. We were very concerned about air cirulation when doing all of this, but we have come to the conclusion that the air circulation is already so large under our ground floor, that the celotex and vent covers aren't really an issue. It's not like we have sealed everything shut, there are still plenty of tiny gaps everywhere. We haven't had any issues with mould or anything like that. The other thing we have done more recently is to balance our radiators. We had the problem that our front room was extremely cold relative to the rest of the house (although we had high spec/high BTU radiators in all rooms). We thought this may have been due to low power on the radiators, but in fact after doing a big rebalancing exercise, it's now the warmest room in the house. We're quite surprised how much of a difference rebalancing makes. There are plenty of guides online which we followed; essentially, what you do is you first check how open each radiator is (check the lockshield valve, not the TSV!). We wrote this down on a piece of paper for each radiator in the house (e.g. "fully open", "3/4 open", etc). We then put the heating on from cold and ran around the house checking which radiator fires up first/last. Made a note of this on paper. We then realised that in our case, although the front room radiator was fully open (which would suggest it should get the hot water first), in fact so were many of the radiators that are closer to the boiler. As a result, the hot water was going to those closer ones first (it takes the easiest route). The solution was to close the lockshield valves on the radiators closer to the boiler (not completely, you do it 1/4 of a turn at a time and check the effect). After a few runs we were able to get to a point where the hot water was filling up the front room radiators first. Now it's great. I hope this can help you! Good luck!...See MoreVictorian style in a non victorian house?
Comments (18)Given the sideways chimney and wide window I think this house will always feel kinda mid century or modern and so Victorian adornments probably won’t do what you are thinking. Furthermore a TV over a fireplace is uncomfortable to watch and will likely make you more aware of the ceiling height. Plus adding coving will highlight the different ceiling heights. Do you really want this house to feel Victorian (which it probably never will) or do you just want the decorating style to be fancier than your previous house? Maybe the starting point should be your existing furniture and what you have to work with..... perhaps you already have a contemporary sofa and in this house you choose to decorate the walls in warmer shades..... or use wall paper or wall panelling? Instead of a contemporary floor covering at the last house perhaps you might choose a warm hardwood for this one or something patterned such as a Herringbone woven carpet? Instead of downlighters and a ceiling pendant perhaps you might choose wall lights and walk over lights here? And given that the chimney is clearly to the right you can remove a lot of the current chimney breast replacing it with side by side TV and fireplace which means a well planned wall with electric flame effect fire (so needs no chimney and can be used year round) and TV at eye level when sitting....See MoreConverting our Victorian maisonette into two flats
Comments (20)Absolutely ED. If you are okay with a slightly smaller living space then I would definitely keep the walls where they are as that will help the budget. However... points to consider would be things like how much use the second bedroom would get vs the living space, e.g. if the second bedroom is going to be an occasional guest room and the living space is going to be used everyday would you be happy to loose that space to a room that would rarely get used? If on the other hand the bedroom will be used by a lodger or family member then sharing the space out a bit would make more sense etc. The design, as I mentioned, is quite flexible in that regard. Regarding the extra space under the stairs, You could, depending on head height give that to the bathroom. I think there would be enough space to get the entire bathtub under the stairs in which case you could claw back 1 meter for the kitchen area, which would be quite significant. alternatively you could put a hole through the bedroom wall and give that space to the 2nd bedroom as a built in closet....See MorePamela Langbridge Curtains and Upholstery
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