First-time house renovation

latecomer

Washing machine in the bathroom - building control would have a fit these days

@TM - sorry to hear about TD. Hope you both are feeling better soon.

ukmaggie45

TomsMom wrote: »

Maggie - I'm getting excited for you, looking forward to hearing what the survey says.

Hi TM, Survey showed 21 things needing sorting, but basically nothing we weren't prepared for. It's downstairs right now, and I don't have energy to fetch.

OH picked up the pile of papers from conveyancing solicitor this evening. A number of things that don't add up. We'll be asking sol on Monday, or possibly writing (to be hand delivered given state of post).

Checking the conservation area status, it appears it isn't in one (I thought it was), but our current house is! (first we knew about that!)

There's some weird stuff around the freehold that I don't understand. There's some more stuff I don't understand. I intend to ask for a meeting with our sol so she can tell me about it in single syllable words I can understand! ;-)

Urghh, I really like this house and its wonderful garden, but need info on the stuff in the HIP and other stuff we got today to feel happy to go ahead.

TM I hope your throat is feeling better, and that TD's setback is short lived.

Maggie

slssup

Hi ALL,
Can anyone give me advice. My boyfriend and i are buying a terraced victorian cottage that has an old single skin lean to which 2.24*2.48m in size. We want to rebuild this to make it within regulations all pipes, water etc are already there where the sink and cooker is. Can anyone tell me how much would it cost to rebuild this the same size?

We have the same problem with the bathroom on the back of the house again it's an old lean to style bathroom very small we don't have any sizes for this but much smaller than the kitchen would anyone know any potential costs to rebuild this as well

thanks

latecomer

Best thing to do is get 3-4 quotes from local builders - get recommendations if you can.

latecomer

We're also in need of a little assistance from those who have had kitchens - I've started a new thread to try and get some opinions on the quality of the various kitchen suppliers. Would be very grateful if you could let me know. I will do trying to do some searching but I dont have a lot of time this week and we really need to get it ordered within the next week or so.
Edit: meant to add link to the other thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2050259

Thanks!

lisal0u

Hi everyone,

How are you all? I had a fantastic weekend, I was at a friends wedding and it was my birthday on halloween so no DIY-ing this weekend. I feel a little guilty but I decided I still need to have fun otherwise I'd go insane!

TM - I hope you and TD feel better soon! I bet he's feeling a bit down n the dumps not being able to eat!

I hope the rain didnt cause you any problems too! I saw there were 65 flood warnings out around the country but luckily not one for my region! I didnt want to get called into work!

Jamtart - Dont be afraid of paint, its the fun part! And if you decide you dont like it you can always paint over it

Maggie - I bet you are sooo excited! Im keeping my fingers crossed that it al goes smoothly this time!

slssup - Id do what lateomer suggested and get at least 3 quotes! Im sorry but I dont have a clue how much it might cost.

latecomer - We chose an Ikea kitchen as it was pretty good quality (25 year guarentee) and pretty reasonable too. The joiner had no problems putting it together and said it looked more expensive then it was. Dont get Ikea to fit though, our kitchen cost about £3k and they wanted over £2k to fit it. Our joiner charged £600.



Have fun kitchen shopping!

We had to re-arrange the carpet fitting as we wernt ready in time I was so fed up! Weve re-arranged them to come a week tomorrow so not much longer to wait. We have started staining the stairs but im not sure I like it now, its so hard to know whats is going to look like till its finished!

Weve got all the skirting filled and undercoated but still got lots of painting to do. So this week and next weekend we are going to be very busy!

Really need to start packing up our flat as im determined to spend Christmas at the house!

Hope you all had good weekends!
Lisa x

dottiepeas

Hello! Just a quick msg to say hi to everyone!..have been keeping an eye on this thread for awhile now!..but can finally properly join in, now that we have our keys (This very afternoon!!) to our first home and mini-renovation project!! :j Very excited, but scared at the thought of the work involved!! (As we have not done this before!!)

Basically, it's a 2 bed bungalow in need of total refurbishment. (new bathroom/kitchen/changing rooms round etc) and we are having an extension added, to create a new kitchen, and add another bedroom too!

So far, have chosen a local builder (got various quotes ranging from very cheap!!..to very expensive, so we picked the middle one!!! hee!hee!)
Have arranged the moving of a gas meter, which costs £700+vat!! (pricey but needed to be done)...plus getting in a quote for moving the electric meter.

Really enjoying reading everyone posts on their renovation projects and seeing the finishes!..and will try and start a little blog too!! :T (easier for pics and things!)...can't wait to get started!!...though can see my weekends will be busy from now on!...

ukmaggie45

Hi Lisa,

lisal0u wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Maggie - I bet you are sooo excited! Im keeping my fingers crossed that it al goes smoothly this time!

Wow, kitchen looking good! :j Shame about the carpet, but so long as it's done in time for Crimbole!

I'm not sure I'm excited any more, more worried I think! :eek: We got the stuff from our sol on Friday, and after reading it all some of it doesn't make sense, we've made a long list of stuff to ask our sol about. Ah well, guess that's house buying for you! :rolleyes:

Anyway, for anyone interested here's the Rightmove link.

It'll need a helluva lot of work, new everything basically, and we'd like to knock the kitchen into the morning room at the back, and then put a pitched roof over both the morning room (extension from the 60s) and the garage built at same time. Maybe skylights in the roof too. Might convert garage into room too - faces South East and has great view (or would do if there was a window there!)

Not sure whether to try and extend backwards too. I'd like to, but not sure how much cash we'll have yet. Plus the drain is under the path behind the house, only about 3 ft from external wall I think.

I've been reading house mags, and looking at the way some of the houses in the same road have extended (been collecting their brochures if they are PDFs for a while now).

Maggie

ukmaggie45

Hi there dottiepeas, welcome to the merry throng! I'm not officially a member yet, but have been hanging out here and learning a lot for ages.

dottiepeas wrote: »

Hello! Just a quick msg to say hi to everyone!..have been keeping an eye on this thread for awhile now!..but can finally properly join in, now that we have our keys (This very afternoon!!) to our first home and mini-renovation project!! :j Very excited, but scared at the thought of the work involved!! (As we have not done this before!!)

Ooooh, exciting times! I can certainly relate to being scared - see my previous post! :eek:

dottiepeas wrote: »

Basically, it's a 2 bed bungalow in need of total refurbishment. (new bathroom/kitchen/changing rooms round etc) and we are having an extension added, to create a new kitchen, and add another bedroom too!

Wow, sounds like a lot of work. Are you getting an architect in? In one way I'd quite like to as we haven't a clue what we want to do or how. But our builder reckons he can do the plans etc so we'll see what he suggests when the time comes.

dottiepeas wrote: »

So far, have chosen a local builder (got various quotes ranging from very cheap!!..to very expensive, so we picked the middle one!!! hee!hee!)
Have arranged the moving of a gas meter, which costs £700+vat!! (pricey but needed to be done)...plus getting in a quote for moving the electric meter.

We've been lucky to find a builder who was recommended - he did an extension on DD's Grade II listed cottage, and it's just super. DD and SiL are both very happy with his work. Warned us he's not the cheapest, but did a good job.

dottiepeas wrote: »

Really enjoying reading everyone posts on their renovation projects and seeing the finishes!..and will try and start a little blog too!! :T (easier for pics and things!)...can't wait to get started!!...though can see my weekends will be busy from now on!...

TomsMum will be pleased to hear you intend to start a blog. I think she's the [STRIKE]most curious[/STRIKE] nosiest of all of us here. Mind you, I come a pretty good second!

Good luck with it all - can't wait to hear how things go.

Maggie

andrew-b

Maggie, as i suggested to you when you showed me the details before...i'd favour going upwards over going backwards if your extending (my parents did a similar thing to form two extra bedrooms upstairs - existing garage foundations were sufficient - well they thought they were though this may have since been proven otherwise!). The property details mentioned views ..so maybe you could have living space upstairs to make the most of them? Personally i would keep the garage..it's something we don't have and something that i'd consider necessity now!
I suppose you could extend backwards a few feet (my parents did a similar thing to extend their dining room - ground floor only with a pitched roof) - though to me the back french doors are screaming at me "conservatory"!

Not much to report here. Knee still giving me grief though managed to get up the loft yesterday and finally drain off some water from the heating system to put inhibitor in. Took far longer than anticipated as the old hose i usually use to drain water off with is so kinked it's totally useless. Ended up with a short piece of hose and a big flexible bucket and a damp carpet! Then took ages to get it all back up and running and free of air - suspect there's still some in there that needs bleeding off again from what i can hear.

Considering another project on a room that was marked as finished..of a homemade fitted wardrobe for the spare room ..must do something soon before the house begins to subside with all the junk but money is extremely tight now as we are just about broke and the house fund is running on empty apart from money designated for new bed. No way we can afford Christmas this year...but at least we have cake to eat! So maybe we'll have our first christmas on our own as we've never had one yet ..not sure how it will go down with our families though!

Andy