First-time house renovation

jamtart6

not managed to catch up really but we are fed up of digging now lovely furniture TM!

We managed to almost finish the land drains this week - 2 tonnes of gravel and 1 tonne of topsoil later :-O desperately need a skip, but no room on drive, so everything is taking twenty times longer as we just seem to be moving piles of soil around the garden hopefully this is the last big dig!

in happier thoughts i have been thinking about kitchens!! anyone know where to get cheaper granite worktops? i am having heart failure at some of the quotes.

catch you all soon, hope all is well for ev1

latecomer

Flying update. Our builder started yesterday, shed has been moved and re-assembled to as a temporary measure to store stuff and the roof is off the garage. Skip and loo have also been delivered :j

I'm off to the airport on business but OH will hold the fort and keep the builders in line

Might even find time to have a proper read of the thread while I'm travelling

ukmaggie45

Just on the off chance someone here can help...

Maybe a couple of months ago I saw a link (can't remember if on this forum or on the house buying and selling section) to a really well designed drop leaf table. I think made in Sussex or Essex, down South anyway. Stupidly I neglected to bookmark it. :rolleyes:

The thread was about moving to a 2 or 3 bedroom house I think, the lady wanted a 3 bed to be able to have a separate office but still be able to have guests. Someone suggested space saving furniture - you know the kind of thing - bed that drops down from wall, drop leaf tables etc. So I guess it was prob the house buying forum.

I liked the table so much I even showed it to OH who liked the look of it as much as I did. But searching all my bookmarks I just can't find it. With 3 computers, and 3 browsers on my personal laptop, plus Delicious, just can't find it! :mad:

So this is a plea if anyone here might have seen it too and actually bookmarked it.

Going to see broker this evening about house finance - wish there was a shaking in my shoes smily! We're going to deliver the legal pack stuff to our solicitors tomorrow morning as we want to be certain it arrives in a timely manner.

OH thought we didn't need the drain survey doing before exchange in which case why bother? I put him right on that this morning - if the drains are shot it's probably a deal breaker for me. Aaaggghhh why are some men so stupid! He just thinks that since there's no obvious signs they are OK, and we haven't even run a tap or flushed the loo, so why he would think they're OK I don't know.

Guess I'm getting cold feet!

latecomer

Hello from sunny New Hampshire

Just taking a little time to catch up on some posts as I've not had much time recently.

@TM - Love the new furniture, looks a lot like ours.
@maggie - hope the drains survey is ok.
@jimbuglee - bathroom is looking great and having just spent about 5 months on ours I know it can be a long a slow process.

Progress on ours has apparently been slower than expected. Builder found next doors shed much better built than expected and has also realised that he is going to have to cut down 2 connifers that are in front of the shed to get access. Neighbour is fine with this too thankfully. He's also been complaining about the number of skips he is going to need but for that he gets no sympathy as nothing relating to skips has changed.

He's also dragging his heels on quoting for the mains replacement as he wants to see how much work is in it. Thing I dont understand is surely as he'll have a jcb/digger of some description for the foundations then surely its simply a case of digging an extra trench to the front of the drive and laying in a new pipe. He's promised it by friday so we'll give him until then before we have words.

jamtart6

Good luck maggie!

Latecomer - we are on skip 4 now and will definitely need skip 5 too plus millions of trips to the tip! Is there ANY soil left in our back garden? Who knows!!

Garden currently looks like an archaeological dig, been digging around the main manhole drain (by hand of course no jcbs at casa jamtart) and had to have a floodlight on at night because it goes dark by about 7.15pm!

Have finished 3 of the 4 drainage channels and soakaways which took double the amount of gravel and topsoil that we expected *sigh* The 4th channel is currently buried by about 15 tonnes of earth that we can't put anywhere as there is no room for a skip on drive now due to building materials *argh!*

We are getting a shed this/next week so hopefully that means that some of the tools that currently reside in the "kitchen" can be moved

aliasojo

Quick question....for those of you who have put in a new bath and have a click clack kind of waste...what make was it please?

Our old bath had one and it was useless and broke quickly, The new one wasn't a make as such but seemed better quality, however it jammed and had to be returned. Crosswater do a click clack one with a chrome disc cover for the overflow part which looked quite nice (rather than just seeing the usual grid type of overflow). We got Bristan taps but I'm not sure if they do a waste with a disc cover bit, iyswim.

Need to buy replacement today, plumber here next week, any thoughts?

Canucklehead

aliasojo wrote: »

Quick question....for those of you who have put in a new bath and have a click clack kind of waste...what make was it please?

Our old bath had one and it was useless and broke quickly, The new one wasn't a make as such but seemed better quality, however it jammed and had to be returned. Crosswater do a click clack one with a chrome disc cover for the overflow part which looked quite nice (rather than just seeing the usual grid type of overflow). We got Bristan taps but I'm not sure if they do a waste with a disc cover bit, iyswim.

Need to buy replacement today, plumber here next week, any thoughts?

Good morning: Bristan is the OH's preferred manufacturer for wastes...see page 305 and 308 in this catalogue.

HTH

Canucklehead

helping_hubby

jamtart6 wrote: »

not managed to catch up really but we are fed up of digging now lovely furniture TM!

We managed to almost finish the land drains this week - 2 tonnes of gravel and 1 tonne of topsoil later :-O desperately need a skip, but no room on drive, so everything is taking twenty times longer as we just seem to be moving piles of soil around the garden hopefully this is the last big dig!

in happier thoughts i have been thinking about kitchens!! anyone know where to get cheaper granite worktops? i am having heart failure at some of the quotes.

catch you all soon, hope all is well for ev1

Have you come across this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1742805&highlight=granite+worktop
I remember noting it for if I ever won the lottery....

aliasojo

Canucklehead wrote: »

Good morning: Bristan is the OH's preferred manufacturer for wastes...see page 305 and 308 in this catalogue.

HTH

Canucklehead

Thanks Canucklehead. They don't seem to have one with a covered overflow...unless it's a bath filler thingy, which I don't need.

Maybe I'm being too fussy and should just have a standard grid type overflow. They're just not the nicest things out though. :undecided

jamtart6

helping_hubby wrote: »

Have you come across this thread:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1742805&highlight=granite+worktop
I remember noting it for if I ever won the lottery....

Ah thank you :A fab thread