The wooden staircase wasnt the only thing that was rotten.

Having recently purchased a property for restoration in Dorset, I soon found that the amount of work was more than I had at first considered, with a certain amount of rot and wood worm getting into the oak beams and wooden staircase. My first job was to look into skip hire Dorset so that I could dispose of timber and rubble away from the build site, rot and woodworm isn’t something you want to be introducing to new oak beams, larch cladding etc that you get from the Timber supplier. Once I had acro propped the site of the rotten oak beam, I bought in an oak beam from a local hardwood supplier and gradually raised the beam into place using blocks to get it where I needed it (the raising system looked like something that would have been at home in an Egyptian archaeology dig, but is great if it is only you available for the lifting). Once the beam was in place and set upon a couple of cap stones I plastered the ends into place.

The stairs on the other hand was more of a crowbar job, I made sure I took as many measurements as possible measuring the rise of each step and the depth from front to back. Once I had stripped out the framework I measured the footprint of the stairs and height from the ground up to the level of the upstairs floor. This gave me a basic framework from which to work to when working out the layout of the new wooden staircase. I opted to go with an oak staircase as it tied in with the numerous beams around the house and timber supply wasn’t that difficult as there are numerous suppliers online that are really helpful. I spoke to an actual staircase manufacturer to make up some of the spindles I wanted for the stairs and then a local blacksmith made me up some contemporary metal pieces to mix between each spindle the end result was pretty impressive even if I do say so myself.

On the first floor the master bedroom had a large section of its oak flooring riddled with rot due to a large patch of the tiled roof having lost its tiles and allowed the rain to leak through to the floor below. I spoke to reclamation yards and timber yards before coming across a hardwood flooring supplier that seemed to be able to match the grain and colouring of the oak floor. A top tip that I would offer anyone that is stripping out a lot of timber from a home is to burn the wood onsite. It saves on the cost of skip hire and makes sure that you aren’t part of the spread of woodworm. Fortunately for me most of the joists on the first floor were intact so once I had sorted out the issues with the floor. If you do take on a restoration project make sure that you take your time when assessing the amount of work needed to replace the damaged components, let me put it this way oak really isn’t cheap. Not to sound all doom and gloom, restoration is an extremely satisfying way of getting a home that you want without paying out the bloated house prices that the market sees at present, just make sure you do your homework before you start.