First-time house renovation

TomsMom

KT1985 wrote: »

I know I haven't been back for ages, but don't know I shared why...

I am 20 weeks pregnant, so the only diy I have been doing recently is the nursery! We found out about the baby on our first day of living in the house, and we are thrilled.

Odd jobs are getting left for hubby to do, but the house was nearly finished anyway.

It is great to hear how everyone is getting on, I spend most of my time on baby forums now

Oh wow, a baby :j congratulations. Can we all be honorary aunties, uncles and nanas (me!)? It's the first nursery on the thread, perhaps there'll be more soon, Andy gets married in a couple of weeks and Beth's been very quiet since the wedding .

latecomer

@KT - big congrats :j

@andyb - thanks for that. I'll maybe go and check them out.

@TM - Fingers crossed it all goes to plan

Flying visit really (apart from above of course) just to say I've uploaded a picutre of the bathroom cabinet to the blog. Some pics of the extension to come when I get a chance, maybe tomorrow night
Linky:
http://the2yearproject.blogspot.com/2009/10/very-quick-update-with-just-picture-of.html

Jessica33

We have electricity board round tomorrow to quote on moving the meter from the kitchen to outside - expecting a shock lol

Shimmyhill

Jessica33 wrote: »

We have electricity board round tomorrow to quote on moving the meter from the kitchen to outside - expecting a shock lol

We were quoted £900 to have that done - thats with us doing all the prep work too :eek:

Idgam

I have been reading this thread with interest as we are just about to buy a new house that needs quite a bit of work to bring it up to standard. I have looked at the Westbroke blog & I am interested in finding out where the kitchen came from, as that is exactly the style of kitchen we are after.

Does anyone know where they got it from?

TomsMom

Idgam wrote: »

I have been reading this thread with interest as we are just about to buy a new house that needs quite a bit of work to bring it up to standard. I have looked at the Westbroke blog & I am interested in finding out where the kitchen came from, as that is exactly the style of kitchen we are after.

Does anyone know where they got it from?

Hello Idgam, :hello: Westbroke is my blog.

The kitchen came from a local supplier a short walk from where I live.

It is from the K-Kitchens brochure (part of the PDH group) and the model is Ashbourne LINKY - Ashbourne is 14th down the list on the left hand side.

I would imagine they are sold through independent retailers rather than the DIY sheds. I only threw out the brochure last week so no longer have a telephone number for you to contact them, but there is a contact form on their website.

There are lots of similar types of kitchens but I particularly liked the fact that it was a bit different with horizontal grain on the door panel and the double recessed thingy around it (:rolleyes: do you like my technical terms ) which shows up really well if you click on the little white arrow on the grey strip - makes it disappear and shows more of the kitchen in the picture. It's a good quality kitchen which our builders were impressed with, a nice thick back panel (not hardboard), and a lovely smooth finish to the wood. We're very pleased with it, particularly as we haggled for a very acceptable price with the shop owner.

Come and join us on this thread, we'd all love to see what you've bought, what you plan to do and how you progress. We love blogs and photos too .

ukmaggie45

Hi Folks,

Well it's official that we won't be joining the merry throng imminently. OH called our sol this morning and withdrew our offer. Since then we've had both the EA and the vendor's son on the phone. Son twice.

Our sol said yesterday that she'd never come across vendors who were so obstructive before, and today that she quite understood why we were withdrawing.

Got a viewing this afternoon at 4 and went and viewed 2 yesterday too.

One of the ones yesterday is quite tempting, but it needs a ridiculous amount of work - got a really crummy side extension that would have to come down... But in a super position and with a huge garden. OH would really like it, but I'm not sure I could face such a huge building project! :eek:

We'll keep looking, can't wait to get into a new (to us) house now.

TM, do hope everything goes ahead with TD's hospital trip, and that you can cope with the travelling and everything too. Hugs to both of you. :beer:

Maggie

TomsMom

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Since then we've had both the EA and the vendor's son on the phone. Son twice.

Now they realise what they've lost, bet they don't find another cash buyer who will put up with their obstructive ways again!

One of the ones yesterday is quite tempting, but it needs a ridiculous amount of work - got a really crummy side extension that would have to come down... But in a super position and with a huge garden. OH would really like it, but I'm not sure I could face such a huge building project! :eek:

Maybe not such a daunting prospect Maggie. The work will all be done while you are still in your present house. Similar to us in a way, get all the big messy stuff out of the way before you move in. Give it some thought, you will know if it is right.

TM, do hope everything goes ahead with TD's hospital trip, and that you can cope with the travelling and everything too. Hugs to both of you. :beer:

Thanks. Plan is that he is going in as an inpatient right from the start this time, rather than the flat for the first week. I'm not going with him on Monday, no point in me sitting at his bedside all day trying to make conversation when he'll probably feel cr*p and wish I would go away and leave him in peace! I'm trying to arrange to get down most weekends (they will provide accommodation at Premier Apartments), daughter is being very very helpful despite being a very busy person with a demanding job and young family. Son needs a bit of sweet talking but can be considerate when he wants to be, he's the one I'm more dependent on for travelling back. I'll get the train on a Friday to the West Midlands where DD will pick me up, then we'll go in her car to Bristol. She will bring me back to Shrewsbury on the Sunday so it's a 1.5 hour car journey for DS do pick me up. I can't do the train back on a Sunday, only one at 3.45 and gets home at about 8pm, two changes with hanging about on a station platform in the least desirable areas in the dark - I'd need brown knickers if I attempted that :rotfl: - no, we're no longer streetwise being cocooned in our little part of the world which is really very safe and very little to worry about.

We're working on decluttering the loft as best as we can at the moment, got rid of a lot more stuff to charity this week including two massive boxes of once read books. TD has got to sort out his tools so I can find things like screwdrivers and stuff if I need them. He knows where everything is in his messy hole but I can never find anything, I'm more tidy and organised and it drives me mad :rotfl: .

ukmaggie45

TomsMom wrote: »

Maybe not such a daunting prospect Maggie. The work will all be done while you are still in your present house. Similar to us in a way, get all the big messy stuff out of the way before you move in. Give it some thought, you will know if it is right.

Maybe we'll think of trying another viewing with our builder... Well, I say "our builder" but he was actually DD's builder. He's done a spiffing job on an extension to their Grade 2 listed cottage, so that's all the recommendation we need. We met him when we were hoping to buy the bungalow, seems a really nice chap.

I suspect our surveyor will have a shock when we engage him again! :rotfl:

OH and I will be thinking of you both on Monday, and until TD is safely home again.

House we're going to see this afternoon isn't really in the best location - suspect it will be too noisy for us (bit too close to busy junction with traffic lights). It's only a couple of hundred yards away from us. But the pictures on rightmove just looked so good we felt we would regret it if we didn't even go and view. We did make all that clear to the agent, as we don't want to be nuisance viewers IYSWIM.

My head is still spinning from this morning's events, and I feel perfectly miserable over it all. We think that prob the EAs weren't relaying stuff to the vendor, and they just couldn't be bothered to keep us in the loop. We'd been trying for over 3 weeks to get back for another viewing, but feeling too scared :eek: to go this lunchtime really brought it home that it wasn't really the best idea to go ahead.

Maggie

andrew-b

I'm relieved for you maggie that your bad property buying experience is finally over! I was dreading the "they took all the light bulbs, all the pipes, and removed the internal walls, and floors and ceiling" thread that seemed inevitable to come if you ever got the keys!! I think you had a lucky escape.

Put it behind you, learn from it and move on..there will be other houses that i'm sure will suit you even better and things have a funny way of turning out for the best in the end! When our previous purchase fell through it was upsetting as we'd got really attached to the property and was all set and ready to move in . Best not to dwell on it though and jump back on the house hunt with both feet. After our third round of property viewings, 2 weeks later we had made the offer on our current place with the survey done too! Looking back i think we probably rushed things as by then we were desperate to move because of being surrounded by packed boxes ..though if the right house comes along you can't hang about too long! The next time round we tried not to get so emotionally attached to the property we were buying..i only really actually believed it was ours when i picked up the keys and unlocked the door!

I can promise you your surveyor won't be shocked..they'll have seen it countless times before..so many purchases fall through for one reason or another! We used to feel quite sorry for some of my Dad's clients who came back time and again for surveys before they found their future home! Kept him busy though !

Andy