Check out all of our new doors! This is by far my best Gumtree find yet… five doors from a lovely house in Morningside which is being refurbished too. All for the sum of £75, then another £45 for delivery. That’s about as much as one door costs, without delivery, from the salvage yard at Holyrood. I’ve been looking for months, since we moved in, but it has paid off big time!
The main thing is, there’s one which is just the right size for the living room, so we don’t need to panic about the boys smashing the huge sheet of 70’s danger glass… The bonus is that we have spares to put a door on each press, one for the bathroom (which also has danger glass), and one for a cupboard which currently has a strange half door, where the previous owner cut it from top to bottom, making the cupboard it leads to pretty useless.
I’m not sure whether we’ll put a door on the press in the living room, or just keep it as open shelves, but it’s nice to have the option.
Superb – rich pickings in Morningside, eh ? But just so encouraging to get a steal like this – one of which even Mr Tight-Project Parker would have been proud ! That is a lovely set of doors. Yes, get those plate glass ones out of there as soon as you can …
The first is on gumtree already, and had some interest in the first half hour it’s been on!
Hi Josh! I just found your blog. I started to refurbish my own tenement flat in Tollcross, a year ago. It has been a roller coaster really, and lots of fun! I’m so envious you found the doors!! I been looking for more than a year now, and no way to find doors to match the sizes I have in my flat. Lucky you!
I let here my pinterest board with the flat works, in case you want to take a look. So nice to see people experiencing the same!
https://uk.pinterest.com/zetitaita/edinburgh-tenement-flat-project/
Thanks Coco! Yeah, finding the right size doors does seem tricky, when I went to the Holyrood salvage yard even they didn’t have one which was right for what we wanted. I definitely lucked out finding so many at once, and they’re gorgeous doors too; I was sanding one which I’ve stripped of paint this evening, and it’s beautiful light oak and so well made. If the original doors in our flat were all as nice I’d definitely want to keep them all as bare wood, but sadly they aren’t so nice and need the paint.
Thanks for sharing your project, and well done on getting on with lots of rooms, we’re much slower than you, only now on the second room, which I need to update about, so lee an eye out. The cornice in your master bedroom looks gorgeous, are you going to strip it of paint? It looks fairly undisturbed by the wardrobe you removed, I hope that’s the case 😊
Hi Josh!
I was thinking about stripping the cornice in the master bedroom, but it’s almost impossible using the common stripper bands, because is not a solid detail. It has a lot of holes from where it would be very difficult to remove the paste. I had to leave it as it is, sadly. At the moment I’m about to start doing the kitchen. Is a fairly big job (I have to throw don a small pantry, move the gas meter, etc…). I been able to find an amazing kitchen (painted wood) at a price that my builder cannot believe! hahaha
Refurbishing these old flats takes a lot of investigation and patience, but they are so beautiful… Now we are waiting for a couple of sunny days to paint the windows with linseed oil paint.
That’s a shame, but I know the feeling with intricate plasterwork, ours was more solid, and I used porridge to strip it, and it took every evening for a month to get all the paint out of the detailed work. Well worth it now though!
Where did you find your deal on a kitchen? (Or was it a one off?) We’re doing that next so on the lookout now for a good deal
Hi Josh, we bought out kitchen here: http://www.diy-kitchens.com/
They have only one showroom in Yorkshire, but they sent amazing samples of their doors to me, their customer attention is impeccable, and the price is amazing. The only con is that you have to design your kitchen yourself. They don’t provide a design service, but they are always there to help you to do it well.
We went to magnet/howdens to have an idea of what we wanted and worked from there for our design. Quite easy to do, they have TONS of different units!
Yeah, I’ve been using their site to price up our kitchen so it’ll be great to see how yours turns out- they do seem very good, though the stone work surfaces are pretty expensive so if you’re after one of those I’d recommend looking for one of the local companies who do it… good luck with the project
Yeah, I’m buying the worktop anywhere else as well as the appliances. ;D
I’ll add pics to my board once is done!