What I Learned From Tackling the Worst Room in My House
Chimney Damage, DIY Plastering, and Creating a Feature Wall in my Edwardian Cottage
When I first stepped inside my Edwardian cottage, I was hit by the smell of damp – and then the sight of peeling wallpaper, crumbling plaster, and black spreading up one of the chimney breasts. Sat empty for more than a year, but looking as though it hadn’t been properly looked after for much longer, every room in the property needed work. There wasn’t one place in the whole house where I could shut the door and pretend everything was fine.
I needed a plan.
1. Choose a place to start – I went with the worst room in the house
It was tempting to start small with the renovation. To tackle one of the “better” rooms, to try and get a quick-win. But the truth is, the room with the mouldy chimney breast felt like a health hazard. There were clear signs of water ingress, the wallpaper was peeling off and damp with mould, and the plaster was failing too. We were heading into the Winter season and I was worried about how much longer it would hold up before there was more permanent damage caused. Trying to live around it wasn’t really an option. With so many things to do, and needing a place to start, my logic was that tackling the worst room first, might make everything else feel a bit less overwhelming.
Looking back at the photos now, I barely remember it in it’s awful state. It became the first proper room I finished, initially a bedroom, and later transformed into my home-office. It’s one of my favourite rooms in the cottage these days.. A quiet, calm space to work… but that’s certainly not how it started.
2. Know when to get the professionals in
The water damage was clearly coming from the chimney. Anything roof-related is outside my skill set, so I brought in roofers. Scaffolding went up and while they were up there, I went up too to get a look at the view and see what was going on.
The problem was pretty obvious – even to an amateur, like me. The mortar had failed, the lead flashing needed replacing, and the chimney pots were damaged. I had the flashing fixed, the stacks re-flaunched, and new chimney pots replaced. It wasn’t cheap, but it stopped the leak properly and gave me the confidence to start fixing the inside without worrying it would all just get wet again.
3. Strip it right back
Inside, I took the wallpaper off and scrubbed everything down with sugar soap. Once cleaned up, the chimney breast already looked so much better. Initially, I tried patching just the large hole, but it quickly became clear that the staining on the plaster was going to keep coming through, and a patch-up job wasn’t going to work… Looking back now, it’s amusing that I even attempted to cut corners here. That was the first DIY lesson learned.
Next step was to chip away all of the stained plaster, and try again.
4. DIY plastering is possible if you manage your expectations
There wasn’t any money left for a plasterer, so I decided to have a go myself. I used DIY-friendly products from places like B&Q and Wickes. Lightweight filler for the holes and easy-skim plaster for the main section of the chimney breast. It’s worth noting here that, at this early point in the renovation, I was still yet to learn about ‘Lime Plaster’, and its ‘breathability’. The advice is that you shouldn’t use modern materials on-top of lime plaster, as you can introduce damp issues. Thankfully, I was only working on the chimney breast itself – and not any external walls – but I would recommend doing your research before using any DIY products in an old home.
It was awkward, messy, and definitely not quick. As a complete amateur, it was not easy to get a smooth finish, but the beauty of DIY products is that they are easy to sand. I went over the skim coat several times, initially with course sanding paper, and then with fine. What I ended up with isn’t perfect, but it’s solid and smooth and has held up without a single crack.
For something that felt completely out of my depth at the time, I’m proud of how it turned out.
5. Make it feel like somewhere you want to be
Once the plaster was dry, I mist-coated with Farrow & Ball’s dark tone primer, and then painted everything in a deep navy blue. If you are curious about how I chose the colours for my home – I wrote about it here.
The colour pulled the room together and made the chimney breast look intentional, rather than something I’d just patched up. I didn’t have the time, energy, or budget to reinstate the original fireplace at this stage of the renovation, so for now I needed to find another way to transform what had originally been an eye-sore, into a feature of the room.
5. Choose a feature to bring the room together
Despite having been blocked up, probably sometime in the 80s, I knew I wanted to keep the chimney stack as a focal point. I found an original Victorian cast iron insert on ebay, already restored and ready to go. It was one of the few things in the room I didn’t have to fix. I positioned it exactly as the original fireplace would have been, tiled the concrete hearth, and turned it into a feature wall.
There were plenty of debates with family and friends about whether I should have centred it. But the truth is, I appreciate originality, even when it’s a bit quirky. The fireplace wouldn’t have been central originally. It would have sat off to one side to allow space for the flue coming up from the larger fireplace in the lounge below. The original hearth was still in that off-centre position, and it felt strange to highlight an original feature of the house but move it to suit modern tastes.
I know the off-centre positioning won’t be for everyone, but it’s how the house was built. That mattered more to me than forcing it into something more visually symmetrical.
Once decorated, I immediately started using this room as my bedroom. It remained my room of sanctuary, and was the only finished space in the house, for months. Now it’s my office. I still walk in and feel a bit surprised by it. That this space, which started out damp and mouldy and awful, is now somewhere I actually want to spend time.
Would I do it the same way again?
Yes. It wasn’t perfect. I’d never plastered anything in my life. But it gave me a huge sense of progress and showed me that even the worst bits of the house could be brought back. Slowly, messily, and with no real idea what I was doing at first. But that’s how this whole project has gone, really.
