As I wrote at the end of my previous post, K & K, (as in K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín), besides renovating my study-bedroom, have also done work in other parts of the house. This is the promised further blog post describing and illustrating their work.

The ground floor of the house has only three main rooms – my study-bedroom, a kitchen and adjacent small shower room, (completely refurbished in January 2018), and a sitting-dining room.

The sitting-dining room, along with the adjacent entrance lobby, is the newest part of the house. As a result, there was no need to do anything to the walls, other than painting them white to lose the previous ugly dark orange. Likewise, there was no real problem laying a wood laminate floor matching my study bedroom, as the floor is solid, level concrete. One very nice touch was Karel junior, completely dismantling all the power sockets and light switches, thoroughly washing all the parts, before reinstalling them. Now they are as white as the newly painted walls!

A couple of before and after photos to show what has been done. The before photo dates from early May 2017, after the previous owners had moved out, but before I moved in.

The photo below is the view from the sitting-dining room, through the entrance lobby to the front door.

Whilst this is the view from the sitting-dining room into the kitchen with the small shower room beyond.

The tiling on the floor of the shower room is the only part of the refurbishment work, carried out by Elefant in January 2018, with which I have had a problem. Only a few months after the floor was laid, a couple of tiles became loose and uneven. The Elefant tiler returned and relaid them. But in the time since then, a number of tiles have once again become loose with a couple of them cracking.

When I showed the problem to Karel junior and Richard when they came to assess all the work I wanted doing, they said the best thing to do would be to completely take up the floor and relay it with new tiles. So that is what Ivan, Richard’s Ukrainian colleague, did back on Saturday 8^th April. Below are two more before and after photos.

The exterior steps up to the front door are also tiled and a couple of tiles were loose when I bought the house in May 2017.

A few more have slowly worked loose since then. Whilst Karel junior and Richard said that their ideal solution would be to completely strip all the steps and start again, they agreed to re-affix all the loose tiles for the time being. They assured me that it would now be fine for this summer but couldn’t guarantee regarding next winter. Here are the steps following Richard’s repair work.

And with my plants returned to their summer position on the steps.

Another problem on the exterior of the house was this rusted up and non-functioning tap.

K & K together managed to eventually remove it and replace it with this shiny new one which works perfectly and makes watering pots and flower beds much easier.

Finally for this post, the double-glazed window in the toilet, which was fitted back in November 2017, now has a wooden windowsill and attractive surround 🙂

I have now lived in my retirement home in Stará Oleška for six years. During that time the only major work I’ve had done to the interior of the house was the refurbishment of the kitchen and adjoining shower room in January 2018 when, for three weeks, I was living in the middle of a building site. 

At that time, I did ask Elefant, the firm that installed my new kitchen and shower, if they would be interested in carrying out further work on the house. But they were booked up for several months ahead and also were really only interested in work that involved kitchens and bathrooms, installing units and fittings that they themselves sell out of their showroom in Decín.

Over the past five years since then, I’ve had work done in the garden and to the outside of the house, such as the completion of the lean-to. But nothing further has been done inside for two main reasons. Firstly, I’ve struggled to find a person or business, capable and interested in doing the various things I’ve wanted doing. Secondly, I’ve been dreading the prospect of again having to live in the middle of a building site whilst any work was done.

Just over a year ago, I had to have work done to the outside of my house after strong winds blew numerous tiles / asphalt shingles off my roof. As described in that post to which I link, my roof was re-tiled and repaired by K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín, a father and son team, both of whom are called Karel, hence K & K. Karel junior promotes and advertises the business using social media, especially Facebook. Videos and photos of their work on my roofs have appeared several times 😉

More recently, Karel junior has been advertising that he is taking on more people with different trades, so that they can undertake a wider range of projects than just roofs, downpipes and gutters. So in mid-February I contacted him, asking if he would visit so that I could discuss with him, the work I wanted doing.

Two visits followed, the first with K & K together, the second with Karel junior and his bricklayer Richard. Following those visits, Karel Junior gave me an approximate price for labour to which the cost of materials would need to be added. During the second visit, they indicated that they would be able to start work in about two weeks time which gave me a provisional start date of 27^th March.

After hearing nothing for several days, on Palm Sunday 2^nd April, Karel junior messaged me. He apologised for the delay but said he had been waiting for Richard and his Ukrainian colleague Ivan, to be available as their work, particularly on the walls of my study-bedroom, had to be done first before he and his father could do anything. Could they start work on Holy Saturday 8^th April? Despite this meaning that celebrating Easter wasn’t going to be possible, I felt that having waited so long for a start date, I couldn’t say, ‘No’.

My study-bedroom was the room requiring the greatest amount of work and is the oldest part of the house. In particular, the wall at the back of the alcove in the centre of this photograph, was extremely thin. In the top right-hand corner of the alcove, where you can see that a small amount of plaster is missing, it was nearly possible to put my finger right through it!

The photograph, taken in May 2017 just before I moved in, also partially illustrates another issue I wanted solving. The limited electrical fittings within the room were all fitted external to the walls, rather than being within the walls. The two power sockets were also halfway up the wall, rather than being near floor level. There was an identical fitting on the pillar on the opposite side of the room.

On Saturday 8^th April, Richard rapidly got to work building a new insulating wall filling the alcove, as you can clearly see in this photo. He also removed the old electrical wiring and power sockets. The new wiring now goes down behind the new wall and comes out near the bottom where Richard carved a hole in the pillar for two new power sockets.

What this photo also illustrates is the amount of mess this work inevitably created. Yes, that is my bed, covered with a couple of old sheets to try and keep it reasonably clean. And having nowhere else, that is where I had to sleep each night!

With the new section of wall completed, the whole of the wall on that side of the room was rendered, ready to be decorated.

In the opposite corner, Richard carved a channel in the existing wall to both reposition the main light switch and to create four new power sockets, adjacent to where my desk is normally located. Up until now I’ve had an extension cord with three sockets at the end, plugged into a socket halfway up a wall pillar across the room, in order to plug in my laptop, printer and desk light. I have lived in constant fear of tripping over that extension cord and sending a whole load of expensive equipment flying across the floor.

By Easter Monday lunchtime, all the building and electrical work was completed.

And by the end of Thursday in Easter week, K&K had prepared all the walls and completely decorated the whole room despite no work being done on the Wednesday as Karel junior got serious toothache and had to seek emergency dental treatment 🙁

With the room being decorated white, it showed up just how dirty everything else was 😉 This photo shows the difference when a small section of wood beamed ceiling was cleaned. So I accepted Karel junior’s offer of my study-bedroom, kitchen and shower room all being given a thorough clean on Friday 14^th by himself and a young lady called Simona. The transformation was wonderful 🙂

On Saturday 15^th April, as well as giving all the walls a second coat of paint, K&K commenced the final part of renovating my study-bedroom – laying a new wood laminate floor. Unfortunately, progress was not as quick as they had hoped, because of the unevenness of the floor which became clear once all of the disintegrating linoleum covering it had been removed. One half is solid but covered with three different varieties of tiles. The other half is constructed of wooden boards, several of which needed to be more firmly screwed down.

This photo was taken at the end of work on Saturday 15^th April. It shows the nature of the underlying floor with two of the three varieties of tile on the left and wooden boards on the right. It also shows the foam underlay on which the wood laminate flooring was being installed. And finally, my bed was back where it belongs.

K&K completed laying the new floor on Monday 17^th April. So, a month short of six years from when I moved into the house, I finally now have the study-bedroom in the state I have always envisaged, except for bookshelves which is another topic. And K&K have also done work in other parts of the house but that needs another blog post as this one is already long enough 🙂