Hi all,
I am looking to completely gut and refurbish a small room in my house as a test project so I can do further work in other rooms. install spotlights, more sockets etc.
I have been looking around for guides on how to strip everything down and refurbish but cant find any useful guides? Can anyone please point my in the right direction?Also at the moment, the radiator pipes are running outside of the wall, can these run inside?
I am a beginner but very confident and look to make precise work...

Many Thanks in advance.

i can really point you to any guides as such mate but the stripping of everything is the easy part believe me. as for the pipes mate i'd get a plumber in to run them under the floorboards

hi,
thanks for the reply.

If i stripped everything down, would i expect to see plasterboards fixed to wooden struts fixed to the wall or would it be plastered straight over the brickwork?
if so, is it better to rebuild anyway by using struts and plasterboard? its quite a old house probably at least 60 years...

take it it one step at at time and it will be fine.

Just remember to test for water pipes and electrical cables first. Even if the water is turned off, you may hit a rad pipe and flood the place out..

Knock on the wall to see if its plasterboard (or solid).

Also, as a DIYer (like me), spend a bit of time planning where you want sockets, rads etc. Nothing worse that having a nice new room and a socket behind a wardrobe

i really dont know mate almost impossible to say... i mean do the walls sound hollow? if so i'd reakon you'll most likely find old lath and plaster walls, same with the ceiling if no works been done. i would reboard the lath and plaster walls if they are a mess as they are mate, otherwise i'd give it a reskim if its sturdy and sound

As an old house owner, I can recommend wood chip papering the ceiling. I'm no fan of wood chip (actually, I've spent a lot of time/money getting rid of it from the numerous walls it was on), but the ceiling is a good place for it - it covers up cracks, hides unevenness etc - of which we have *loads*. Of course, actually repairing all that would be better - but it's a lot of work, and doesn't really gain all that much.

As for walls - we've got a bit of lath/plaster - the joists behind some of them move a bit, but basically it's pretty sound. We've had them skimmed, and they look great (in the kitchen, the fitters did board over the top before skimming - also very good). The actual solid brick walls are plastered directly to the brick - unless your room's been refurbished sometime recently, you're likely to have the same.

As for sockets and such like - beware the Part P regulations - I know you're only doing one room, but there's no point going to all the trouble of all that work if you're not going to have the magic Part P certificate at the end of it. It means you may need to get a certified electrician in, but you can do all the labouring and just have them connect it up/check it at the end. It depends a bit on what you're doing - so check it out.