First-time house renovation

Shimmyhill

jamtart6 wrote: »

Good idea about the blu tac thanks

Everyone loves my blu-tac tiles !!!

lisal0u

Hi Everyone,

Finally updated my blog! Cant believe its been 3 months!

We've had a really busy weekend getting the under stairs sorted. We've managed to get a DPM in, concrete and brick columns for the new joists. I have to admit that Stuart and my Dad did most of it while I cleaned up and tidied up the garden! It would have been a crime to stay inside all weekend in this weather!

Spicey & Jamtart - Congratulations on getting the planning permission!

Hope you all had productive weekends and enjoyed the sunshine x

TomsMom

:dance: Woo hoo, we've got some carpet :j . Fitter came on Sunday, did the lounge, one bedroom and the kitchen vinyl. I can't believe the difference it's made, it's really beginning to look like a home now and hopefully there wont be anywhere near as much dust :j . The other bedroom and H/S/L will be done in a couple of weeks. The loft will probably have carpet tiles eventually as it needs 5m width carpet and it looks like it will be impossible to get that up the stairs.

OH's back in hospital today (he has his stem cell harvest this week, insurance in case his transplant fails then they can put his own cells back) so my son and d-i-l are coming round tonight to put the (very heavy) sideboard back in the lounge. Just need a coffee table and some curtains, perhaps hang some of the pictures we've got and it's done - ta da!!!!!!!!!!

I'll take some photos and update the blog later, not much point in taking a photo of an almost empty room at the moment!

jamtart6

:TCongrats on planning permission Spicey...race ya to get it finished

TomsMom - can you believe it is all finally coming together? You must be so excited ETA: Hope all is well with your OH, I will keep everything crossed for him. An awful time for you both and you are really in my thoughts


Our plasterer is due to finish the upstairs this week then we can get cleaning the floor boards. He has hardly made any mess though so not much to do. For the whole upstairs and hall/stairs/landing it was £800. He gave us that quote (family rates!) and then I said I wanted the ceiling doing too...so expected it to be over £1000, but nope, still £800 so I am a very very happy person Never seen walls like it, feels like silk and you can't see any lumps/bumps or anything :T

Can't remember who mentioned the tiles in bathroom, we are going to tile the whole bathroom (it is tiny) using LARGE tiles to save the tilers (OH and Dad) from having to cut too many tiles. Want a slate look border to match the floor (slate look laminate - can't have real tiles as they crack on chipboard floors and are far too heavy) BUT..if we decide to change the bathroom colour scheme in a few years (hopefully not), then we will be stuck with a slate look border....so don't know what to do really :cool: hmm...

jimbugalee

So jealous of carpet

We had a busy weekend .... finished the central heating upstairs and all new rads in. My friend and I chipped the plaster off all of the bathroom walls AAARGH (who says girls can't get stuck in!). The house looks messier than ever and at one point the bath was out in the garden!!

Looking forward to new windows on Fridays and fingers crossed a new boiler at the weekend.

Updated blog: http://seatonroad.blogspot.com/
Check out my hilarious dust suit!

I'm so undecided about my tiles as love Travertine but to me 12mm tiles on the walls just seem so thick?!

jamtart6

jimbugalee wrote: »

So jealous of carpet

We had a busy weekend .... finished the central heating upstairs and all new rads in. My friend and I chipped the plaster off all of the bathroom walls AAARGH (who says girls can't get stuck in!). The house looks messier than ever and at one point the bath was out in the garden!!

Looking forward to new windows on Fridays and fingers crossed a new boiler at the weekend.

Updated blog: http://seatonroad.blogspot.com/
Check out my hilarious dust suit!

I'm so undecided about my tiles as love Travertine but to me 12mm tiles on the walls just seem so thick?!

Just had a look at your blog:
1. Move the door! You will only regret not doing it at a later date. We moved our door in the living room to fit in with the new plans for the back. Plus George off the home show hates doors in the middle of walls!

2. I love your bath! We ALMOST went with that one, then I saw one with little silver feet and fell in love!

3. I have that identical dust suit very attractive aren't they!

jimbugalee

Thanks Jamtart

The bath wasn't my first choice but with 50% off and another 10% on top of that I couldn't really say no. I still need to order a toilet grrrr

hmmmm at the door. What is annoying me is you'll have to walk all the way through the lounge to get to the kitchen door. I think with the house not having a back gate it means everything gets taken all the way through the lounge in front of the sofas. I'd rather it at the other end but we loose vital worktop space. We'll need to make a decision before we take the central heating downstairs.

latecomer

Its been rather busy here since I last posted which was a long time ago by my standards. I'll need to have a catch up on all the posts and the blogs when I get more time.

We have been making slow but steady progress on the bathroom., I'm seriously regretting not getting it skimmed/boarded first as the amount of tile adhesive we are getting through to get the tiles level is amazing. And of course it slows everything down a huge amount when you need to wait for the adhesive to go off before you can continue. Anyway its now looking great even though its only about 50% done. All the important walls are done so the bath can be fitted :j
Shame we didn't manage to get it in last night while the in-laws were here as I cant do much with it by myself.

On the downside, OH thought she could smell gas on saturday afternoon. I could smell something but didn't think it was gas but its not worth the risk so we called out the emergency folk who quickly established there was no leak However the guy did notice that the pipework was illegal as it goes through the back of the meter box into the house and apparently it must exit it through the bottom so he sealed off the gas. No bathroom and now no hot water either.

I've got someone local coming round to fix it tomorrow morning as thats the best they could do. Got their name from the local business directory so hopefully they should be ok, seemed marginally safer than the yellow pages. They said it should be about 1- 1.5 hours work which sounds reasonable given they have to drill through the wall and then re-route the pipework through it. He did have a good rant about the Gas Networks people cutting people's gas supply off for things like this when its working fine and has been for years ("Little hitlers" was the exact quote!)

Also got a digital box from Virgin while I was away last week and got some cable and fittings to get it installed in the living room which is a project for today. Also need to have a huge tidy up and see about getting the bath secured if I can.

Will update the blog later on

jamtart6

Sounds like you have been busy latecomer. I didnt want the bathroom skimming before tiling as I didn't see the point, but am glad we did it now (particularly as you have just re emphasised that point).

jimbugalee- our bath was also 50% off and 15% off from B&Q. Had lots of problems and nearly didn't accept the delivery of the new bath (long story) but I'm glad we did because all other alternatives similar were about £800 for the bath alone. Several people (who have hauled it upstairs!!) have been amazed at the quality and the weight in it (considering it is from B&Q and ended up costing me £193!!!). Anyway, I really like your bath

jimbugalee

You can't really turn down a bath for that price can you jamtart?!

How have you guys prepped the bathroom walls? We've now chipped all the old plaster off and were planning to put up waterproof plasterboard (for the wet room). Is this ok to tile straight onto?