First-time house renovation

sethsgran

TomsMom your new bathroom is fantastic. I particularly like the tiles and the wash basin unit. Would you mind letting me know where the tiles are from as they are beautiful. Sorry if this is too cheeky of me. I am searching for tiles and hope to be able to also have a washbasin with a cupboard below for storeage of cleaning materials. Thanks for the link will check that out now

helping_hubby

TomsMom - just been looking at your blog again and noticed your kitchen - I have seen it before, but now that I've just done mine up it's funny how I see things that I never noticed before, like your gorgeous shelf with the black vases and black tea/coffee tins. I think that's brilliant. Also love the towel rail on the end....was trying to see if I could fit one of those in ours, but it won't work

I also want a silver microwave! I think my white one spoils the room a bit That said I've had that white microwave for over 10 years since I went to uni!

Seth, we did out bathroom in December. We had someone in to fit it and tile it after much deliberation of whether to do it ourselves.

It was originally 2 rooms and we knocked down the wall ourselves, and built a new partition wall where the second door was. It cost us £1650 for fitting and tiling. I spent about £1000 on the suite, taps and radiator, £300ish on tiles. And probably another £300 on the bath panel, light, artex for the ceiling (did it ourselves to keep costs down, but would like a plasterer to do it smooth in the future), and other bits and bobs that you never factor in the costs.

Got some before/after pictures here: http://thehouserenovationinsurrey.blogspot.com/2008/12/proper-update.html But it wasn't quite finished then.

Shimmyhill

I think we have the same bread-maker HH - panasonic thing !!

My sister bought the bungalow next door, i renovating it - i should get her on here tof Tomsmum She is having a new kitchen inc knocking some walls around to make more space. I am getting all the rubble to fill the pit in the garage ( i dont ever look under cars and dont like the safety aspect of it with kids) I can not believe how much rubble we have put down it and how much there is still to fill !!

In other news we should be getting the tiler in on Weds so kitchen is getting closer and closer to being finished I have even bought the skirting board for it ! All that will be left is to get the ceiling sorted and of course another dilema there :

Should we overboard it and get it skimmed or skim over the current mess of artex ? It does not look like the boards were taped (from stripping the artex off another room) and i am concerned that if we skim over the artex it will easily crack - what do you think ??

TomsMom

Shimmyhill wrote: »

Should we overboard it and get it skimmed or skim over the current mess of artex ? It does not look like the boards were taped (from stripping the artex off another room) and i am concerned that if we skim over the artex it will easily crack - what do you think ??

Shimmy, we had to have our bedroom ceilings taken down, they were bowing and cracking due to the weight of the unsupported loft extension, so we had all brand new ceilings. I'm not sure what would be best in your situation, perhaps you can ask your question in a new thread and someone who works in this field might come along and advise.

helping_hubby wrote: »

TomsMom - just been looking at your blog again and noticed your kitchen - I have seen it before, but now that I've just done mine up it's funny how I see things that I never noticed before, like your gorgeous shelf with the black vases and black tea/coffee tins. I think that's brilliant. Also love the towel rail on the end....was trying to see if I could fit one of those in ours, but it won't work

I also want a silver microwave! I think my white one spoils the room a bit That said I've had that white microwave for over 10 years since I went to uni!

Ooh gosh! Most of that was on the cheap actually. Shelf was a floating shelf from Homebase, last one in that particular effect (the new stock of oak effect was darker) and it had a little knock on one corner. As it was a perfect match for the kitchen units OH just asked for a discount and got a bit knocked off and the slight damage is at the back and unseen. The vases were reduced (end of line) in Dunelm, they were £2 each, the flowers were 39p! The towel rail was another end of line (although it matched another one we'd put on another wall for a hand towel) and needed to be cut down. So we got about 40% off that and OH got his junior hacksaw out to cut it down to the right size, did the same for the utility too.

My microwave was on offer at Makro, Panasonic combi for £99 + vat. It's stainless steel inside too which is a bonus, I get worried when paint starts to flake off the insides of normal microwaves.

ETA: The reason we had the shelf was that the previous owners had wall cupboards on that wall and it blocked such a lot of light coming from the window. As there was no real need for the extra storage ('cos we have the utility room) we decided against wall cupboards but the wall was quite bare. We could have put a big statement clock or picture there but I just thought it would be handy to have the tea/coffee jars there as it's right by the kettle. Mind you, it does get dusty so it's a good job a floating shelf doesn't take a lot of weight - stops you putting loads of stuff on!

sethsgran wrote: »

TomsMom your new bathroom is fantastic. I particularly like the tiles and the wash basin unit. Would you mind letting me know where the tiles are from as they are beautiful. Sorry if this is too cheeky of me. I am searching for tiles and hope to be able to also have a washbasin with a cupboard below for storeage of cleaning materials. Thanks for the link will check that out now

Ooh gosh again! Not cheeky at all Sethsgran. These are the tiles from Wickes and the border tiles were from a local shop. I see they're on offer at the moment, down from £15.99 to £11.19 per sq.m. We never paid full price. We bought two lots, one for the en suite and one for the bathroom, but had a problem with them delivering non-matching codes so some of the tiles were different colours and had to be returned. They managed to do this three times I think, then when the tiles came back in stock and ready to be delivered again they dropped the pallet!!!!!!! Never mind, they got their act together in the end and we had a very good "gesture of goodwill" from them :rotfl: .

If you are interested in any tiles from Wickes, keep your eye on their prices. They are constantly changing their offers. I think the most we paid for those was £7.99 and they even went down as low as just over £5 per sq.m. Also, if you order over the phone you can use the code from their catalogue for your first order - CAT09 (assuming it's still current) and that gives 15% discount (or is it 20% - it's so long ago!) Also, ask them to ensure before despatch that codes on boxes match and check them upon delivery. If you have a Wickes anywhere near you it's worth going to have a look at them, much better to see them in the flesh to make sure you like them. Also, even if you order online or by phone, you have six months to return them to a store for a refund if you have any leftovers or change your mind.

We looked for ages for a vanity unit we liked but weren't in dire need of a storage one as we have two storage cupboards on the landing. There's so much choice and a very wide price range!

I hope you're going to keep us all up to date on what you do, it's nice to share ideas etc (code for I'm nosey )

jamtart6

Thanks for reminding me of Wickes for tiles TomsMom!

Wahoo! I am so excited, seems as though the boys will have finished digging the footings for the extension today! I feel things are coming together at last! Building inspector then concrete are the next jobs.

Also have bought blackboard paint! I intend to pain the inside of my cupboard in my study so I can write messages, I will post pics. Good job I'm onto the important things (!!!!!)

sethsgran

Thanks Tomsmom I will check the tiles out. We have 2 wickes near us so that will be fine

jimbugalee

sethsgran wrote: »

Thanks Tomsmom I will check the tiles out. We have 2 wickes near us so that will be fine

If you are looking for natural stone tiles I can recommend Kudos Flooring (http://www.kudosflooring.co.uk/). Although we haven't actually bought ours yet because we are slooooooooooooooow the guy on the phone there is really helpful and the prices are one of the best around. I got our travertine tiles down to £20 per square metre. If you compare to Homebase whichs are about £54 and Topps £34.

Out of interest - we suddenly got a bit lazy and might pay someone to do our tiling. We had a quote of £700 (including adhesive, grout etc) which I though wasn't too bad. He said it would be a week's work. Our bathroom is small bedroom size (I think about 26m2 including all walls and floor. Know it's hard to compare but if you don't mind me asking what has everyone else paid?

Thanks!

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

Out of interest - we suddenly got a bit lazy and might pay someone to do our tiling. We had a quote of £700 (including adhesive, grout etc) which I though wasn't too bad. He said it would be a week's work. Our bathroom is small bedroom size (I think about 26m2 including all walls and floor. Know it's hard to compare but if you don't mind me asking what has everyone else paid?

Thanks!

My son is a tiler and as we are in north Wales prices can tend to be a bit cheaper than other places. If he charges by day rate it is £120 per day. If he charges by the metre, it is £20 per sq.m. It depends on the job which way he works it out. These prices are labour only, all materials are extra. They are also for working out the job as can be seen, in other words if he comes across anything unforseen such as walls need replastering etc., then that would be extra as it wasn't known at the start and would take extra time. If it is a big extra he would probably recommend getting in that particular trade as he can patch plaster but he's not a plasterer by trade. That sort of thing IYSWIM!

So for your job if he was charging by the sq.m. it would be £520 plus adhesive, grout, etc. If he worked at the same rate as your chap and it was a week's work it would be £1,100, but to be honest 26 sq.m. shouldn't take a week as long as it was fairly straightforward there wasn't too much prep or problems arising.

When he was learning the trade, a good few years ago, and worked with experienced tilers, he reckoned they could manage about 15sq.m. per day when it was fairly straightforward. I don't know how much he manages now he's experienced and on his own as most of his jobs include fitting bathrooms, kitchens, etc., at the same time.

Our builders did the bathroom and en-suite as they couldn't wait for him to fit it in and they needed to get on but when you look closely they didn't do it as well as our son when he did the kitchen and downstairs WC.

Hope that helps. I'll be interested to see any other replies to see how the rates compare.

jimbugalee

That's really useful TM. Thank you The guy is coming back on Thurs to give us a more accurate quote. We don't mind paying around £700 but if it's close to £1,000 we'll think again about doing it ourselves.
I think he said it would take a bit longer as the tiles we have chosen need a special water cutter which they'd have to set up outside so would have to go up and down the stairs each time. What a pain! They're quite big tiles though ... only 4 per sq.m

There shouldn't be any unforeseen issues as we've re-done the whole room including all the walls and floor. I'm so excited to get it done!! who hooooo

TomsMom

OK, I know you're all gagging to know what's gone on at TomsMoms house this last couple of weeks so I've done a bit of an update on my blog.

:rotfl:

Hope you're not too disappointed! The video was the third or fourth attempt, I think I mentioned last week why I kept giggling .

OH's back in hospital tomorrow but hopefully not overnight. No chemo this week so as he's feeling not too bad at the moment I'm hoping the wallpaper will go up on the chimney breast by the weekend. And if we haven't got the curtains up I'll drape them over the settee and take a photo :rotfl: .