First-time house renovation

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

My runner beans are flowering too! No beans yet tho hmmmm

I think we've got to be patient a big longer Jimbugalee, hard isn't it!

andrew-b

No it's definitely not Yucca.. we had one of those indoors. The leaves aren't spiky..they are similar to an iris and quite flexible with fibres running down the length of each leaf like a grass but there aren't the tubers of an iris (or at least nothing visible above the ground like that).I'm asking my horitcultural friend to see if he or any of this colleagues can identify it - just curious more than anything as it's not flowered in the 3 years we've been here.

From memory of working on a pick-your-own farm, runner beans usually bear beans in late July/August. Just keep watering them!

Maggie, as TomsMom says ask the estate agent if the vendor will stop marketing the property - though if there are multiple agents it might be trickier.

Andy

ukmaggie45

andrew-b wrote: »

Just updated my blog with some shower photos and some pictures of my "Triffids"!

Andy

Hi Andy, your triffids are yuccas (I left a comment on your blog)

Shower looks great - I particularly like the photo of the knobs - shiny! And sparkly! If our shower (over bath) is anything to go by, it won't stay that way long!

Maggie

andrew-b

I take it back ! I think it may actually be a yucca as maggie agrees. I think it must be a different variety of yucca to the indoor one we had. It looks like Yucca Flaccida here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca

Andy

andrew-b

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Shower looks great - I particularly like the photo of the knobs - shiny! And sparkly! If our shower (over bath) is anything to go by, it won't stay that way long!

Hopefully it will stay that shiny for while as it uses Grohe's StarLight technology. Limescale is what is likely to mess it up - at the momemt we are wiping it over after every shower though i expect in time we will get lazier!

Andy

ukmaggie45

jimbugalee wrote: »

Sounds like this place has a lot of potential. Loads of rooms?!

How fun!!!

Hi Gemma, it does have loads of potential, and we hope we will be able to make it as we want it to be and live out the rest of our lives there (I'm 60 and OH is 63). I am quite disabled (I have ME/CFS) and am finding the stairs in our terraced house difficult mainly down to vertigo - have "mild left vestibular dysfunction" according to a neurologist. I hate to think what worse vestibular dysfunction is like as I fall over a lot even with the "mild" variation!

So if I reach the stage of not being able to get up stairs to the bedroom with en suite we hope to get put in at least I can use the downstairs bathroom. And I think possible there's enough space to install a bath in it if we needed to later. OH is going tomorrow to measure up the rooms so we can draw a floor plan - wish the EAs had done that - it was the deciding factor for us over which EA to go with when we sold parental flat, it makes it so much easier to visualize a place before you can go to view.

Living room is a good size, but does have a rather nasty pine covered chimney breast that will have to be "improved". There is actually a chimney to the fireplace, so I really hope we can get a wood burning or other stove in. I know it'll be complicated - have been reading threads on installing stoves, getting chimneys lined for them and so on.

2 bedrooms at the mo, neither terribly big, doubt our king size bed would fit the bigger one.

Morning room I think may have been the original kitchen. Kitchen opens off the morning room, and backs onto the garage. IYSWIM! Although kitchen (obviously) links to the morning room, there is a passage between garage and bungalow that is open to the sky.

Kitchen is a mess. Original 70s avocado cupboards! :eek: Plus the electric cooker partly overhangs the back door opening. Urm! Floor standing gas central heating boiler - we'd hope to have a combi installed, which would also free up loft space and cupboard space in the hallway (hot water cylinder).

OH went on planning portal earlier, and although there have been extensions to some of the other bungalows in the road, there have been no planning applications in the last 10 years, so we may not need planning permission for loft. We'll think about that later! We're still feeling somewhat shell-shocked and gob-smacked by it all! :rolleyes:

So to sum up, currently it's 2 bedrooms, living room, morning room (that vendors are currently using as living room), kitchen, bathroom, loft.

Can't wait to get going on the garden!

We just had phone call from the EA that the vendors have agreed to not do any more viewings other than the one that is already booked this afternoon and it's too late to cancel.

Eeek :eek: just praying that they don't like it!

Maggie

ukmaggie45

andrew-b wrote: »

Sounds a big job ..is the intention to move straight in or is it to refurb first? If the former i think it's better to approach it room by room! Either way you need to break it down into digestible chunks to get your head round it!

Hi Andy, intention is to refurb first. But we still need to do the room by room approach anyway or we'll go mad!

andrew-b wrote: »

However we had doubts about it as whilst at the property for the survey we noticed the whole house shook everytime a train went past on an embankment at roof level less than 10 metres away!

LOL

andrew-b wrote: »

We tried to renegotiate but the vendor was completely unreasonable, wouldn't resolve anything and wasn't prepared to lower the price or wait for us to complete in a more reasonable timescale. So we told him where to go and he lost the sale and a year later the property was still on the market! Anyway ask your solicitor if the timescales are reasonable..especially being the summer holiday season.

LOL - you definitely had the last laugh there! :j

andrew-b wrote: »

Btw...you'd better start thinking about your blog and make sure your armed with a digital camera!!

We're both armed with digital cameras now - finally persuaded OH that he needed the cheap ALDI digital about a week ago (?) and he's having loads of fun with it already.

As to blogs, I already have 2 (one is not really updated any more, I used it most recently to blog about my parents' last months). I'll prob just write it all up on Liverpool Leftovers when we begin to get in to the project... Assuming it all goes ahead of course - tis early days yet, and there's many a slip twixt cup and lip as they say!

ukmaggie45

TomsMom wrote: »

Oh Maggie, how exciting for you, come and join the club!

LOL, it's a bit too exciting for me at present! After 35 years in the same house, and the house my younger daughter was born in - in our bedroom - it really will be a dreadful wrench to leave it. And although we only have a tiny back yard I love our little garden to bits. It's looking a lot more lush now - must take more photos!

TomsMom wrote: »

Before you do anything else I would suggest you have a full structural survey. I know your builder went with you but even so I would still have the full survey. Ours cost £600 and as you probably know that £600 allowed us to get £30,000 off the price we agreed to pay because of the major problem the surveyor found. If any major problems are unearthed and you still want to go ahead then it will be a very powerful tool in renegotiating the price.

We are definitely having a full structural survey. Hopes are that this will be our final home, so we want to get it right. We trust the builder, as he did the extension on our younger daughter's home, which is Grade 2 listed so had complications due to that. DD & SiL recommended getting builder involved first, as the architect who drew up their plans had pipes going through steel joists according to the plans! :eek: But builder managed to get round such things, though it made it all more complicated than it should have been.

TomsMom wrote: »

Do you know if anyone else is interested? When we made the offer on ours we asked the agent if she would take the property off the market and that there would be no more viewings. She agreed. Mind you, we were only the second viewers in two years so people weren't exactly rushing to buy it :rotfl: . If the agent will agree to that then there shouldn't be a problem with gazumping.

There was another offer - our first offer was lower than it. Vendor is not going to do more viewings other than the one booked for this afternoon that it's too late to cancel. We're just crossing fingers and toes that they hate it or that it's too much work for them to fancy.

LOL over only the second viewing in 2 years! I think our vendors have had a lot more viewings than they had expected. Also complained that the agents weren't doing them. They are commuting from her home with dog, so it's a bit of a biz for them I think.

TomsMom wrote: »

I'd sit down with a lot of paper and a pen and make a list of what you want to do, then prioritise it and start getting quotes in. And going by the mess major renovations make it's not practical to live there while the building work is going on.

We intend to stay where we are until work is completed. And then it'll be deciding what to do with this house - sell as is or do some running repairs (plasterwork in kitchen and landing, new roof on lean to shed) first.

TomsMom wrote: »

Now, you know we need photos ......... please ........... You can add them to your current blog if you like, we don't mind, you can always do a dedicated renovation blog later .

LOL I know you all like a good old nosey!

Will PM you the EA details if I can manage to do it - browsers are playing up on this computer, keep having to reboot, but watch out for a PM from me. Anyone else want a nosey at the details?

TomsMom wrote: »

Runner beans? Mine have been in weeks and are flowering. I'm a novice at this but what do you know that I don't??????????

Not runners, broad beans. I am a novice at veggies too, but I think it's not too late for broad beans. (ready to be corrected!)

Our runners got eaten by the dang snails while we were away at the caravan a couple of weeks back.

We are cat sitting for DD and SiL's dear Brodie cat while they are away for a week. He's lying on the bed snuggled up to me as I type this, he's such a comfort when my brain starts going "nying nying nying"! Am feeling quite panicked over the whole trying to buy bungalow thing! :eek:

I left a message on your blog about your mystery flower, but got a message back saying message undeliverable. I think your mystery flower may be a geranium (not a pelargonium, the other kind of geranium) rather then the delphinium I guessed at initially. Please give a photo of the seed heads when they set - will be like a cranesbill if I'm right about it being a geranium.

Hope that Tom's Dad is doing OK and the harvest went well?

Oh yes, while I think of it, have you had any steam trains going past yet?

Best wishes from rather hot and muggy Liverpool,

Maggie

ukmaggie45

andrew-b wrote: »

I take it back ! I think it may actually be a yucca as maggie agrees. I think it must be a different variety of yucca to the indoor one we had. It looks like Yucca Flaccida here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca

Hi Andy,

I think you're right. Our next door neighbour down the road (across the side road) has one in his front garden. There are loads of them in Abersoch too, especially on the footpath/sort of road that runs behind the boatyard where we usually keep Ruddy Duck. Grown huge - definitely triffid material! :eek:

Maggie

TomsMom

I've had an attack of verbal diarrhoea and updated my blog. Virtual medal to anyone who gets to the end of the new entry :rotfl: .

Maggie, I think you are right about the surprise plant. I'm sure it is a type of geranium but much larger than the one I planted earlier in the year (think that was a cranesbill). Anyway, OH cut off all the dead flowers this afternoon, only a couple of stems left at the moment. We wont be keeping it for next year, at least not in that position.

You will see from the blog that OH has been very poorly, and his stem cell harvest couldn't go ahead as planned. There has to be a reading of 10 (from some blood tests they do) but he only managed 1.5 so there is to be more chemo and another try at harvesting next time. Thanks for asking.

No steam trains yet, I think it will be during school hols. This might be the last year as an EU directive says some kind of signalling device must be fitted to the trains. The steam trains haven't got it and it can't be fitted, they are hoping some kind of portable system might be available. We're hoping they can get around this problem as we'd like them to continue. OH can't wait for them to start this year, he wants to take a photo and the track is only about 25' from our sun room.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the other viewers hate the bungalow and leaves you as the only ones in the running. And yes, you can do it if we did. There's only a year between our ages.