...And So It Begins...

So we stared the biggest of the renovation jobs that needs doing on the house last Monday, the replacement of our central heating boiler. Always a messy job, especially as we had decided we wanted it in the original airing cupboard in the front bedroom, it meant most of the floors coming up, furniture being moved and piled in corners, an unholy amount of dust and the company of our very nice neighbour/plumber who fitted the new system.

Above is the offending bit of plumbing, soon to be off to as scrap metal dealer somewhere, when we moved into the house nearly 9 months ago we knew the heating system was a bit old and knackered but we limped through the winter with it as we really couldn't have coped without hot water. When the summer finally arrived we discovered that the pump was shot, the major problem with that being that it wouldn't heat up any hot water without the central heating being on at the same time. Fine no problem just turn the radiators off...except that the sellers re-plastered most of the house before they sold it and some bright spark couldn't be arsed to take the radiators off the wall before doing so, thus plastering the radiator valves in one position! 
Much nashing of teeth and emptying of wallets later we are finally rid of the old system and have replaced with a 90% efficient combi boiler...mmm love that hot water!

Not the cheapest of jobs but well worth it, this should save us qhite a bit on our gas bill as its so energy efficient!

The up shot of finally losing the old style system meant that we could get rid of our crime agains interior decorating gas fire in the living room and that back boiler behind it meaning only one thing...fitting a log burner! but first things first, you need a hole for it to go in. Heres how our living room used to look...

Here it is as of last Monday, arrrr Rich is saying a fond farewell to the gas fire...with a hammer.

And heres the nice big hole once the fire had gone...

And heres an even bigger hole because once a man starts hitting things with a hammer it's very hard to stop...

Seriously, you wouldn't believe how much rubbish came out of this fireplace, old bricks, smashed up roofing tiles, tones of glass fibre insulation and just bags and bags of crap, neither of us could breath for about 3 days.

And finally here it is as of about 10 mins ago, Rich and his dad have poured a concrete base over the weekend which we will cover with red quarry tiles (left over from the last house!). Rich has build the lintel down a bit to make it level, we will then be putting a wooden mantelpiece in place over the fire and will hopefully find the pennies to get a log burner hooked up before winter.
Ok, right now it looks like a bomb site but I think its going to look wonderful when its done, it will give the living room a proper focal point and some much needed character back.
So onward and upward!!