OUR RESTORATION WORK

These lovely old cottages were in a beautiful location on the edge of the Peak District. Although the cottages still looked OK on the surface, the owner was struggling more and more to keep damp at bay.

The owner of an old cottage in Derbyshire wanted to add character to the living room by exposing an original stone wall.

This lovely old building in Macclesfield had unfortunately been damaged by misguided attempts to repair it using modern building materials and techniques. Our task was to remove all the inappropriate modern materials and restore the building to its former glory.

This lovely listed property in Clee Hill was in a beautiful isolated location, but it was in terrible state of repair, and was also quite a small house.

The main bedroom in this run-down listed cottage had the potential to look amazing. Unfortunately, it had been patched up using the wrong materials. A non-breathable paint had been put over the original lime plaster, trapping moisture and causing the plaster to fall off.

This lovely old stone farmhouse near Oxford had been re-pointed some years ago using a mix of cement and lime. This is a popular technique to enable the cement to blend in better with older properties, but whilst adding lime to cement may give it a more authentic look, unfortunately it doesn’t make it any more breathable.

This chimney was on the same beautiful building in Macclesfield which we discussed in the post on rebuilding the brick reveal and archways. The building had unfortunately been damaged by misguided attempts to repair it using modern building materials and techniques.

This is the house featured on the “Restoration Home” episode, Abbey Lane. The lovely timber framed cottage was thought to date from Tudor times, but had never been listed.

This grade II listed cottage near Ludlow was suffering from all kinds of problems. This inglenook fireplace should have been a stunning centre piece for the room, but had become a dangerous mess. The plaster was falling off the walls, the bricks were unstable and subsidence meant there was a good chance the room upstairs could come crashing down into the fireplace!

These stone cottages had clearly been suffering from damp for a number of years. They had been re-pointed externally in cement based mortar, which was falling off, allowing damp to get into the walls.

In the hallway of this old house, the original lime plaster had been patched with gypsum. This didn’t allow the walls to breathe properly and the beams were rotten.