Donnaidh

Fair enough but I'm hoping this won't be required as I'm not joking when I say it's a tight budget ?. I'll not know for sure what's happening here until I knock through the old doorway and see what level the floor of the house is compared to the blocked off part. Head room shouldn't be a problem, the walls are 8ft+ and it's going to be a vaulted ceiling but I hear what you're saying about the level of the windows/ doors. As for the UFH, it sounds good, but, well, see previous comments re budget!! I'll check it out though. Cheers again

Sorry not had time to reply to this. I know I've got to think hard, trouble is when I start thinking too hard I tend to overcomplicate matters!! I'll try to reply in more detail when I get a chance tonight but these sip panels look the business and would save a lot of time/ heartache without costing the earth. Yes I was looking to have the open rafters but when I sat down and drew a cross section of what seems to be required I realised it seemed to be getting a bit out of control! Have you much experience of installing the sips panels? There is a concrete floor in this part of the building. I was thinking it would need a timber floor installed on top of it (with dpm/ insulation etc. Is there any particular reason it would need a new concrete floor installed if the condition of it appears ok? Thanks again

Yep, looks like it! At one time, long before living memory, there was another cottage on that gable as there's still the remains of a fireplace on the other side

Well, that's the idea just now anyway ?

And this is the floor plan of the property. The blocked up door between the 2 is located at the front corner between "room 2" and the "living room" . Rooms 1 and 2 will be getting merged. The hallway at the entrance will be removed to lengthen the kitchen. I'll need a hallway leading to the door of the outbuilding (through the "living room"), then the living room will be partitioned to create a small office space & 2nd bedroom. Hope that's clear!

Cheers guys, thought I might have landed in the right place! Ok, this one is the cottage and outbuilding. The bit that was joined onto the house stretches from the gable to just to the right of the door, where there is an internal old stone wall. I don't want to demolish this building at all. When I were a lad there were a few old cottages in the village like this but they've all been gentrified these days, I'd like to keep something of the old character of the village. I'm calling it an outbuilding but it's really an old house in itself although no-one has a clue when it was last lived in!!

Hi folks, I've just bought my first house. I wasn't looking to buy but basically got an offer i couldn't refuse! However the bank balance is low and the work needed is (relatively) high. I'm more than happy doing the labour myself but, as I'm not a builder, I could be doing with some advice on different aspects of it. Basically it's an old cottage with an outbuilding attached to it. At one time half of this outbuilding was attached directly to the house but the door has been blocked up. This part has an old corrugated iron roof which is well corroded and needs replaced. Im planning this as the living room and I'll need to take this part back to the (2ft thick) outer walls and start from scratch, well not quite from scratch as it has 4 stone walls round it! Its single story and a relatively low profile roof (around 1.4m profile) so my plan was to open it up to the rafters (I've got a source of relatively cheap hardwood which I'm hoping to incorporate as the rafters) I'm basically looking for things I'll need to look out for, as well as any other advice as maybe it's just not practical for me (trying to keep architects etc out of the costs ?) Would this sound like the right procedure going from the inside out? Rafters, sarking boards, purlings, insulation boards, insulation membrane, osb boards, membrane, vertical batons, horizontal batons, aluminium (?) sheeting. Any tips/ advice most welcome, and anybody flogging cheap building materials in the north of Scotland could make themselves a new friend as there's another couple of internal walls to be shifted around, kitchen to be redesigned and porch to be replaced, all while trying to live in it and hold down a job?. Cheers