First-time house renovation

latecomer

No bathroom for us. didn't get delivered to them but of course I didn't know that until I phoned on saturday morning to ask. Apparently delivery was promised for friday by the manufacturer. anyway should be getting it today at some point.

Tiling continued on the bathroom floor and its looking great. Need to do about 8 more tiles and a couple of small slithers around the toilet. Put the bath in and got the level for the tiles but found that the wall at the shower end wasn't at 90 degrees to the other wall and hence the tiles were going to need a lot of work to get them looking good. Hence I decided to fix the problem so me and the FIL spent the next couple of hours with a club hammer and bolster trying to level it out. Still not perfect but its a lot better than it was and MIL is happy she can tile it no problem.

We are currently looking for a better solution to our bath tap/shower mixer too as the extension is obviously on hold for the near future and hence so is the heating system upgrade. One thing I've figured out is there are not many combined wall mounted bath tap and shower mixers which work at low pressure. Think we've found one but we are trying to find out whether the original one either comes in a lop pressure version or can be adapted for it.

Then spent most of yesterday out in the garden getting the grass cut, scarified (twice) and then seeded the bare patches. Fingers crossed it grows

latecomer

andrew-b wrote: »

number 3 all over!

I had the same done a few years ago for charity and kept it for a while. OH has been on at me for ages to do it again and buy clippers so she can do it. Definitely makes washing your hair quicker

BB1984

Hi everyone, sounds like the arrival of Spring has spurred everybody into action! Well done on the progress.

HH - garden looks great, such a difference, and it will be lovely to be able to sit out and enjoy it this summer (I'm aiming to do that in my garden, but it's still quite a mess, to say the least!)

TM - congrats on the move! Don't worry about the mess, if it's still like that in a year, THEN you should start worrying...!

LC - really sorry to hear about the job, the engineering industry seems to be pretty b*ggered at the moment. Hopefully you'll get a tidy payout, and will find a new job soon - and then you can spend your redundancy on the house...! Fingers crossed anyway for you mate.

Andy - good work on the bathroom - looks fantastic! Love the vanity unit, and am very impressed with your plumbing skills. Interesting RE the front door. Haven't managed to beat our £575 quote yet, but we have got someone coming round on Friday for another estimate.


So, what have I been up to?! Well, this weekend I wallpapered the 3rd bedroom! Yes that's right, we finally got our !!!!!! in gear and tackled it head-on. I've never wallpapered before, and as OH got scared and scuttled off to "sort the tea out", I was stuck doing it on my own (HH - I feel your pain!!) But I have to say, for a first attempt I didn't do a bad job. Had a few difficulties on the corners, mainly, but the end result is brilliant. We put the new picture rail up too. It's just lining paper, so haven't got the end result just yet, but we've already bought the paint - lovely lilac OH assures me (watch this space) that he's going to spend some time on Friday (when he works from home) priming the picture rail, fixing the replacement skirting boards, and painting the ceiling and down to the picture rail. Then we can paint the walls. We bought the Crown One-Coat stuff (only because the colour was only available in that) - but I'm very sceptical and I'm sure we'll need two coats!

I'll put some photos up on my blog this evening, if I get the chance (am so crazily busy at the moment!)

Take care

BB

latecomer

Minor update - I have the rest of our bathroom suite in the back of our car. Boxes look to be intact so hopefully there is no damage but it will e subject to a careful inspection when I get it home. :j

Must remember to drive nicely on way back home

Now all we've got to do is figure out what we are going to do with the shower mixer and we should be ready to go.

helping_hubby

Hello everyone!

I'm in a great mood (well - when I'm not at work anyway), because the garden is looking great and this weekend we finished the front garden. Me and OH crazy paved a path so I can have loads of flowers Piccies: http://thehouserenovationinsurrey.blogspot.com/2009/04/ready-for-planting.html

We had the pest controller come today as it's free from the council - did you guys know that because I didn't. He's put poison in the attic and it's definitely rats that are up there He assures me that it's a new poison that supposedly has something in it so if a rat dies in your wall it doesn't smell. I'm anosmic (can't smell) so I'd never know anyway.

Plans for the near future are flowers, bulbs and rockery planting. No DIY at all for 3 weeks. Nice and relaxing - I'll be thinking of you guys when I sit in my garden and shout at the rabbits for eating my new plants!

Thanks for all your sympathies regarding my OH. It's nice to know he's not the only one

Been catching up on blogs...Andy - bathroom is looking good. It maybe ready for this Christmas then?

TomsMom - left you a comment - but love seeing all the photos. Cute cat too.

TomsMom

Lots of updates - lovely! You have been busy!

latecomer Hope the rest of the bathroom suite is fine Can't wait to see pictures of your bathroom.

andrew-b Good price on the door, and you must be so pleased the bathroom is coming together now. I'm sure your number 3 looks fine. OH had his hair cut on Saturday, much shorter than usual (though not a number 3). It will be his last haircut and hairdresser is trying to get him ready for losing it all soon . He's got a baseball cap all ready (he doesn't normally wear one) and I'm trying to get him to buy one of those woollen ones with ear flaps and dangly plaits but he wont!

BB1984 Wow! You wallpapered a room. Well done you! It's not something I'd tackle, in fact I'm not sure I'd even wallpaper a room in a dolls house! Can't wait to see the photos.

helping_hubby Your garden's looking great. Seems we've all been busy in the garden lately. Thanks for the comment on my blog. It's not a great photo of Tilly (cat), it's quite dark and she looks black but she's a tabby. She's sat on my lap at the moment and making typing very difficult, especially as I'm having to sit at 90 degrees to the computer rather than facing it.

Painting has continued today with the two cupboards on the landing finally having the woodwork finished, we can start filling them up tomorrow. Painting on the landing has started too and it looks like the kitchen has had it's second coat. OH has been tidying up in the loft and making a bit more room so we can take some of the boxes out of the living room up there. Our son has tiled part of the walls in the downstairs WC and fitted the toilet amidst lots of swearing - wall wasn't flat, WC waste pipe was in an awkward place, waste for the basin totally in the wrong place which would have necessitated lots of boxing in so he has repositioned that, pipework for the radiator a bit of a mess so we're getting the chap who fitted the boiler in to sort it out. I think the builders, because they didn't fit out this room, didn't realise there would be these problems. We also found time to do some more gardening.

Our son is doing our jobs on his days off (Sundays/Mondays) so it will take a while to get it all finished. We've found some tiles for the kitchen that we like but at £69 a sq metre :eek: we're having to think again. Can't believe the price as they're only 10cm square and not made of gold, honest! They're by The Tile Company and we saw them in a tile shop in Wrexham. I've looked on the 'net but haven't been able to find them. If anyone knows where I can get them please let me know.

latecomer

updated the blog with lots of pictures. more to be taken but I've got my mind on other things at the moment.

couple of bits of the bathroom are probably going to need replaced again. Need to speak to the store and see what they say about it. the mark on the top of the cistern is minor but after all the trouble we've had I dont think its acceptable. I did try and take a quick picture of it this morning but as its back in its box the pictures come out well.

Got my consultation meeting at 2:15pm so hopefully I'll finally get some details as to my future.

TomsMom

latecomer wrote: »

updated the blog with lots of pictures. Got my consultation meeting at 2:15pm so hopefully I'll finally get some details as to my future.

Respect to the ladies - the tiling looks fabulous :T.

Love the picture of the two holes in the bathroom wall - looks like a bug-eyed alien has landed :rotfl:

Isn't it annoying how much stuff comes imperfect? I'm waiting for a replacement grill door on my new cooker. When we took the protective film off there was a mark, about 3" long, in the finish but underneath, not something that can be cleaned off. It's being replaced next week.

Hope the meeting goes well.

BB1984

latecomer wrote: »

Got my consultation meeting at 2:15pm so hopefully I'll finally get some details as to my future.

Fingers crossed for you LC.
Tiling looks fab, I'm very impressed.

A couple of pics up on my blog now - including a very cheesy one of me sloshing wallpaper paste everywhere! I'm looking forward to posting photos of this room finished - I'll be so proud as every single room will be "pretty much done" then...! (I swear they'll never all be 100% done!)

BB

latecomer

thanks, apparently its a quick meeting or at least it was for the one person who has already been in.

I've emailed the bathroom people to say I'm not happy with the quality. there is a mark on the sink which I was initially going to accept but if other stuff is being replaced we might as well get that done at the same time.