Renovated Cottage in Yorkshire

When David and Hannah Morgan bought an 18th century cottage in East Yorkshire last year, it looked virtually derelict. The external rendering was peeling off and the rooms, with their low ceilings and dark mock panelling, looked small and depressing. But the Morgans could see its potential. They loved the character of the building and knew they could transform it into a light, spacious, modern home.

“The place hadn’t been touched for years,” says David. “Structurally it was very sound, but it needed a complete overhaul.” The original layout included a sitting room with a huge 1970s stone fireplace, which completely dominated the room. The tiny kitchen and dining room were separated by an 18- inch-thick wall and a panelled entrance lobby used up valuable living space.

Upstairs, a long, narrow corridor led to tiny bedrooms and a bathroom fitted with black faux-marble Formica. The water heater, many of the water pipes and lengths of wiring had been left exposed. There was also a badly designed extension on the ground floor at the rear, containing a downstairs WC and walk-in cupboard. “It didn’t really achieve anything, except take up what little garden space there was,” says Hannah.

The extension had to go. So, too, did the entrance lobby, which occupied almost 25 per cent of the dining room. By knocking this down, along with the wall between the kitchen and dining room, they could create one large room with a glass door leading out onto a patio, where the extension had been.

They also wanted to rotate the staircase, knock out partition walls, redesign the layout upstairs and block up unwanted doors to create a spacious landing leading to two large bedrooms and a bathroom.

Work began in February with electrician Keith Storey decommissioning the consumer unit in the extension and making it weather-proof before the walls came down and exposed it to the elements. It took builder Steve Edwards just two days to knock down the extension and reform the reveal. “Within hours he discovered oddly jointed roof joists which were unstable and rotten,” says David. “We wondered whether it was the start of a run of problems. With old buildings you have to prepare for hidden challenges.”

The property had originally been three cottages which, over the years, had been knocked into one and extended to create a new kitchen. The flat roof of this extension was rotten, so the felt and chipboard decking was replaced with a Hartalan walk-on system, comprising a plywood deck and a flexible waterproof rubberised sheet, topped with flagstones. The roof system has a 20-year insurance-backed guarantee.

All the windows in the house were rotten, so they were replaced with double glazed PVCu units which were in keeping with neighbouring properties. This meant enlarging the window opening in the second bedroom to accommodate a door leading onto the flat roof, and half bricking up the original balcony door to create a tall floor-to-ceiling bathroom window.

“When the external render was removed we discovered the three original entrances to the property,” says David. “We were hoping to find a local sandstone surface, but there were too many brickedup windows and doors, so we decided to re-render and give it a fresh, clean look. There was also a downpipe running down the middle of the outside wall which had no land drain beneath. We moved it to the end of the building and diverted water towards a road drain.”

The old rendering had become so shabby that the property had penetrating damp, so plaster was removed on several internal walls, and a sand and cement-based render with a plaster skim was reapplied. The end wall bowed outwards, so the Morgans called in a structural engineer to advise them on whether it needed ties to prevent the wall from moving further.

“It turned out that the wall hadn’t moved for years, but we wanted to be sure that the removal of the stone fireplace and chimney stack in the living room wouldn’t affect it,” says David. “The structural engineer recommended tying the wall to the first three floor joists as a precautionary measure. Steve recommended a self-tapping bolt, combined with resin anchors, which wouldn’t be visible inside the house.”

Once this was done, the fireplace could be removed safely, but it left a huge gap in the floating floor which had to be laid with a polythene membrane and patched up ready for carpeting. Meanwhile, the plumber had decommissioned the old central heating system, removed the tanks, cylinder and boiler, and installed first fix plumbing. “When we bought the house, the gas supply to the boiler had taken a tortuous route round the outside of the building! We wanted all the pipe runs to be as neat as possible inside and boxed in.”

The bathroom, situated where the landing had been, has an Impey shower tray which David packed with timber so that it was 12mm above the existing floor finish. He covered the remaining floor with 12mm plywood and laid a tile-safe bitumen-based matting over the whole floor, including the shower tray.

The last structural job was to knock out the 18-inch thick kitchen wall. Steve installed two RSJs because the wall was so thick that the joists in the dining room ceiling were too short to cope with the new layout. Although the original oak stair treads were used, the Morgans replaced the worn-out banister rail with steel and wood balusters. Indian flagstones were laid in the kitchen, then two glass block walls installed in existing openings to draw more light through the rooms.

By the time the finishing touches were in place – including a Shaker-style kitchen with breakfast bar – the property was virtually unrecognisable from the property they had bought a year earlier. “We wanted to create a modern, open look to the cottage without losing elements of its original character,” says David.

“When we bought Pinfold Cottage it was an eyesore. We loved its character, but didn’t want to be stuck in a time warp. We are delighted with the results. It’s a period cottage with 21st century style.”