u/synthestar

Hi all, first-time homeowner, and I'm getting some plastering done at the end of the month. I'm removing the 1960s coving to give a clean finish to the walls.

When removing the coving, I've found so many problems with the space behind it. Loose bits of plaster, chunks of old brick and plaster coming off with the double 2-inch nails, and the worst was the room I just did today. It looks like it leads to the wall to the neighbours (semi-detached) and is a direct gap to the attic (i can see and touch insulation). It's brick, and it looks like there's some wood placed between the brickwork which is attached to the wood that was attached to the coving that I broke when pulling the coving off. I put an image in which shows how the wood usually sits behind the coving between the plasterboard and ceiling (pic 3 - on the right is the wood that remained).

A few questions

• Is this OK to leave for the plasterer? They assured me that behind the coving it will be a mess, but this is an inch+ deep and a 2-3 inches tall of filling to do where the small piece of wood was that got pulled out
• Should I re-fill with wood (the same way it was before, that the coving was attached to)
  • If so, how do I do this? I'm guessing I can just nail it into the bits of wood there - but is there anything I should know/check to see why this wood broke and the other didn't?
• Is it OK that this was broken? Is this wood important, or have I fucked up and will I need to get a builder in to check this? Dumb question I'm sure, as I don't think coving is structurally important, but I don't want any problems going forward as this house has been problem after problem
• Is it OK to breathe any the space after cleaning? This is my office, and I've not covered it, but will there be any problems for the few weeks ahead of the plastering job to sit here 10+ hours a day?

Any help would be appreciated. I wasn't sure what to flair, so I did building as this seemed beyond a bit of polyfill

Finally, there was what seemed like old soot behind much of this. There is an old covered chimney on the left between two rooms. I'm unsure if this is soot, black mould (ancient) or we did have a boreworm infestation that we got treated (it was not due to damp I was told by the specialist, and the attic has remained damp free so far in the 6 months i've been here). Google suggests this could be boreworm droppings. It's chalky and leaves a black smear like charcoal would. If it is mould, is it likely to be just really old?

Hi there, I'm getting some plastering work done in the next few months, and while stripping the walls bare, I noticed there's some long cracks that seem to follow the windows. Is this just crack in the previous plaster work, or something I should get a structural engineer out to assess?

• It's a 1960's house in Scotland with cavity walls, they seem solid to the knock
• There's no damp issues
• The windows had been upgraded in 2019 by previous owners, I read cracks can potentially appear due to that
• I can't see anything externally as there was relatively new rendering done
• We're still removing wallpaper, but it seems to follow across the wall up and down

Is this something to worry about, or will a new plaster job fix this up OK? Should I get a structural engineer in to look at this before the plastering begins?

Hi there, first-time homeowner here. Wanting to get the wallpaper off and get a nice clean finish paint job in the end. Hoping to do as much as I can to make a plasterer's job as easy as possible, and save a bit on the jobs I can realistically do. I plan on doing the wallpaper removal, priming and painting myself; but I don't want to do the plastering, as I've been told it's a tough job, and i'd rather work on other bits of the house and leave it to a professional. The house is a 1960's build in Scotland, UK. Yet to get a quote, as I wanted to get ahead on as much as I could.

I've attached a bunch of pics of some problematic areas. Still in the process of removing the wallpaper (which I assume is just the white papery bits, not the tanned layer on the board material?), but what would I need to do before getting a quote from a plasterer?

1. Will I need to remove the banister? Would that be worth doing, then re-attach it after a plaster?
2. The coving isn't perfect, but it saves a bit of money to not re-do if I just sand, re-prime and paint. Wondering if it's possible to tidy the edges here?
3. There's a really tough material that looks like a sealant between the wallpaper and the coving, how would I remove this and what is it? If it's a ball-ache, should I just multi-tool it off and re-do it all to save a pain for a better plaster job?
4. What do I need to remove? Some of the wallpaper is on what looks like a soft woody/paper board (no idea what it is). Other bits are on filled plaster. There's what looks like a lighter paper on top of the board- is this something I should remove, or is it a waste of time?
5. Will I need to prep edges with polyfill, like around the sockets, light switches, and gaps in the wall?
6. How do I finish and prep the surface to give the plasterer a chance to do their best work?

Really appreciate any advice here. I wanna make the plasterer's job easy, and do as much as I can to save a bit of money, as I have several rooms I need to do.

Hi there, new homeowner here. Living in a 60's house in Scotland. Previous owners got a downstairs toilet fitted (only upstairs before). We've had a very slight sewer / damp smell in there since buying, and we're unsure where the problem might lie.

Given the state of the connection of the toilet going into the ground here, part of me thinks it might be this? They didn't tile and seal the connection to the ground. Would we be able to fill this space, or is it worth checking if the toilet needs a wax ring replacement? Without taking the whole toilet off, is there any signs that the wax ring has failed? There seems to be no leaking. The toilet is one of those ones that has very awkward access to the back, as the porcelain goes all the way around the base, so the photos show the only access to the waste pipe.

The smell IMO is worst in the evenings and mornings. It's not awful, but it's just not pleasant in the house.

We replaced the plug in the sink right next to this, which had a tiny leak. The P-trap was full when we did this, so unlikely that it's letting air through.

We also found out that the washing machine sometimes gurgles, but taps, showers, and drains run fine. I hear that gurgling can be a sign of a blocked vent stack. There doesn't seem to be any attic access to this, so we'd need to manually inspect from a ladder on the roof.

What would be the best process to start seeing what the problem is? I really can't identify the smell by nose, as when I get close, it's just air + dusty smelling, the smell is more ambient and not direct, so likely a small trickle.

Hi there. First-time home-owner, and I recently took on a lovely 3-corner garden in Scotland (front = south-facing, back = north, side = west). I absolutely love gardening; it's not in a bad condition, but I'm keen to learn about what to do to make it feel my own. I feel a bit too 'chaotic' with my methods and I'm struggling to know where to learn to achieve my greater long-term goals. Ultimately, I'm looking for maybe some ideas, or advice, or to be pointed in the right direction for methods to help me make better choices. I get stuck on questions like "do I keep the stones the previous owners put down, or remove them (and the landscape material under it) and make space for soil for edge plants" (one of the reaons I'm unsure here is there are one or two parts of the garden that when it rains, get big puddles. I have a feeling they added stones to make it easier to deal with), "do i remove 'intrusive' trees and plants growing into the Privet(?) hedge, or leave them and embrace it (I have elder growing in there, and a few young syccamores -> worried about them competing with the hedge, or destorying it as it looks like a really old hedge)", "what plants should I keep and what ones are worth removing (part of me wants to remove the grasses and wild plants growing between the cracks of the old tiles, but they are mostly just messy tufts of grass, not tall wild grasses)". Maybe I'm trying to do too much at once, but I want to commit a lot of time in the weekends on this, but it kind of feels like right now, I'm worried about messing it up. A few of my long-term goals are below:

• A fairly 'wild' looking garden: I love wildflowers, native plants, insects, birds, wildlife - my ultimate goal is to have a garden that's really inviting to nature, but not an absolute nightmare to maintain (difficult is OK, but not wanting to create a mess here). I understand that this kinda means leaving it to do what it wants, but I think there's a balance I want to strike
• Workable: I'm not afraid of it being too difficult, but I also want to grow some herbs, fruit and veg. I'd be worried about some of the wilder parts of the gardens making it difficult for this with how aggressively wild grasses and flowers spread and seed over seasons.
• Pretty: I love natural-looking gardens. Not a huge fan of what the current state of the garden with white stones, old and boring paving, and mown grasses. I want it to look and smell amazing. I'm tempted to break the square paving into uneven segments, re-lay it and fill cracks with creeping thyme, and I want to spend time working in there, as well as having somewhere to lie and chill in over summer.
  • I understand this is subjective, but I love how up here in Scotland a lot of people have bluebell borders + daffodils in spring, heather and alpines borders and tall grasses competing in the outer / hedgerows. I don't want this ultra-trimmed 'pristine' look, but I also want it to be managed and not messy
• Fix the back garden: There are three absolutely huge concrete boulders several feet under the earth in the back. They are where the washing lines used to be. The previous owner took one out, and left a huge hole, it's about 30-40cm deep, and the rest will be the same. They also put stones right next to the grass, and the grass has grown right over the stones, making a nightmare job of removing it. I'm undecided if I just remove all the stones, or just keep it simple first year and see how the garden looks and behaves year-round so I don't make a mess of it.

One of my strategies was to have each corner of the garden do its own thing, which is a technique I heard from other gardeners (such as use the brighter parts for food, lower-quality soils for meadows/wildflowers, etc), but I'm not sure where to start with choosing what. Is there any good reading on basic UK / (or more specifically, Scotland) gardening? I feel like the goal this year is to try to answer a bunch of these questions and get the garden into a nice state (without messing it up) so that I know a whole lot more about it next year. Are there any really good books I can pick up to try pick up as much as I can? I feel like so much advice is so specific to just one aspect of a garden, whereas I'd love to learn more fundamentals so I can make good decisions that help me long term so I can just act a bit more confidently and freely without having to wait 5-10 years for my silly mistakes.

I added some pictures for help. I think it's nice as it is, but it's maybe feeling a bit boring, and could do with some colour + plants + reasons for wildlife to come live (other than the hedge).