My Passion With Paul Moorhead

Paul Moorhead, licensed insolvency practitioner at Moorhead Savage, based in Rotherham, talks about his passion for property restoration.

I SPENT a very happy summer holiday in my teens helping my brother to restore an old cottage in Cragg Vale near Mytholmroyd.

We gutted it and completely remodelled the interior, creating two extra rooms and reinstating some of the original features that had been covered up or ripped out by the previous owners.

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It was a real eye opener for me as my parents had been entirely uninterested in any form of DIY and as a result I had no idea about property repairs.

I soon learned how the fabric of a building is like a patchwork quilt, made up of different types of material and techniques. This was the start of my love affair with old buildings.

My wife and I moved into our present house – a four-storey Victorian end terrace, around four years ago. The previous owners had lived there for over 40 years and whilst they had loved it and carried out some impressive alterations, in recent years it had become a bit too much for them and there was a long list of things we wanted to do.

The first challenge was the central heating: the existing system was very old and unbelievably inefficient. In the depths of winter, the temperature inside would rarely rise above chilly even with the heating on full blast.

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We spent an entire summer ripping out the old pipework and installing a modern system with an ultra-efficient boiler. Then we uncovered two old fireplaces and installed solid fuel stoves which look authentic but comply with all the smokeless zone requirements and kick out an enormous amount of heat.

Next on the agenda was the bathroom with carpeted floor and an offensive avocado suite. We knocked the separate toilet and bathroom into one large room that we’ve decorated with Victorian-style tiles. We re-used as many existing period items as we could, including a fabulous Victorian lock mechanism, massively over-engineered for the job but elegant and authentic.

We spent ages tracking down some great reproduction fixtures. I particularly like the high level cistern.

The dining room has also been returned to something like its original character, by removing a stone fireplace surround that was put in during the 1970s. We repaired the cornice, reinstated a ceiling rose, opened up the fireplace and put up a Lincrusta frieze that we are sure would have been approved of by the original owners when the house was built in 1895.

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It is a bit like the Forth Rail Bridge – there’s always more to do. Next is the hallway and stairs. After that, the outside needs some attention, as the original sash windows are starting to show their age.

We feel like we are custodians, preserving and restoring for the next generation.

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