First-time house renovation

dottiepeas

[QUOTE=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

Maggie[/QUOTE]

Thanks Maggie and TomsMum for your welcomes!:cheesy: Building works-wise, we haven't employed an architect, as the rear extension is pretty straightforward... (rectangle-shape) so the builder is taking care of it! (arranging buildings notice and seeing the inspectors etc) so hopefully, that will be okay!

Went round our new neighbours with a box of biscuits today as the building work started in the lounge (our bungalow has some flooring probs!) but totally forgot to post a letter to our neighbours to inform that work was starting today!..and the noise from all the digging machinery was SO loud!...I felt soo bad, so went round with a box of biccies to say sorry for all the noise! But they were really nice about it!....(chocolate shortbread obviously helps!!)...hopefully the noisy work will finish by the end of this week!

Love the bathroom Jimbugalee!! The tiles look very expensive!...very plush indeedy!

TomsMom

Edinburghlass wrote: »

I'm a reader/lurker on this thread and just popped in to say how pleased I am too about the soup and beans on toast!!

ps Tesco have a nice laptop for £328 at the moment

Ah thanks Edinburghlass. Bet he can't wait to get to the bacon butty stage, probably his favourite as he doesn't have it at home unless he goes to the local bakery/hot food takeaway. The food is all prepared on the unit so he can order off the menu any time, just presses the buzzer and his wish is the nurse's command. More like a hotel than a hospital :rotfl: . When I spoke to him yesterday I had to pass on best wishes from five of his "girlfriends" who I'd seen, three district nurses who'd been looking after him before he went to Bristol and the two girls at the Halifax agency.

Thanks for the heads up about the laptop. Just had a look and it's Windows 7. Going to be fussy here, I only want a little workhorse for my craft CD rom programmes and storing jpegs of backing papers etc. Don't want it for internet and I want to use Windows XP. I've spoken to our computer chap but he doesn't come across any second hand ones. I'll carry on looking.

dottiepeas wrote: »

Went round our new neighbours with a box of biscuits today as the building work started in the lounge (our bungalow has some flooring probs!) but totally forgot to post a letter to our neighbours to inform that work was starting today!..and the noise from all the digging machinery was SO loud!...I felt soo bad, so went round with a box of biccies to say sorry for all the noise! But they were really nice about it!....(chocolate shortbread obviously helps!!)...hopefully the noisy work will finish by the end of this week!

Oh good move Dottie, and choccy shortbread too - yum. They'll be your friends for life now!

wallbash

Couple of pics at the front of the property

Ha to get a professional in to 'spray' stones on the front
Forgot the tech term , anything to cover the flat grey render,

Then I repainted in brilliant white and built low double walls,
few flowers

latecomer

@TM - very glad to head TD heading back towards solid food and has an appetite - always a good thing. I love beans on toast and bacon rolls/sannies too..... I'm also getting hungry just thinking about them

@dottiepeas - Welcome. Sounds like you've made a good start by getting the neighbours on side- its something we were very concerned about (and continue to be).

We have had some weather related problems and also some issues which should be getting resolved tomorrow. i'll try and get an update on the blog later on tonight when I finally get home.

Will hopefully also get time to read up on what I've missed and check round the blogs too

KT1985

TomsMom wrote: »

I'm stamping my feet here, I wanna know if it's pink or blue. How exciting to have a lovely picture though, scans weren't done when my two were born (does that make me sound ancient ). Ooh, just thought. You could decorate your nursery in appropriate colours, put in on your blog (can't remember if you have one though) and we could all find out that way :rotfl: .

Only just seen this- I can tell you all about the nursery- it's yellow :P
baby is kicking like mad atm, 24 weeks yesterday and loving it

TomsMom

KT1985 wrote: »

I can tell you all about the nursery- it's yellow :P

p.s. Glad you're enjoying this time, treasure it.

jamtart6

wahoooooooooo! the drains were passed!! 2nd time lucky, a diff building inspector, turns out we knew him

he said our architect was really bad, he is known to the council as a bad person to have as your architect and he'd do his best to sort out any of the problems we had with as little messing as possible. could have kissed him. he also said the original building inspector we had probably took a dislike to us because of our architect !!!!!!!!!! (cos they all dont like him!) and maybe thats why he was making things more difficult for us than they needed to be?? he is also fine with the lintel so it doesnt need replacing (seems pretty fair seeing as the other one is wood, thisone is concrete but BI#1 wanted steel!) and he is going to help us if we need it so I'm thrilled

Onwards with the build!!!! Five months afer we started digging the hole can be filled back in! hurrah!!!

jimbugalee

Great news jamtart!!! Can't believe it all comes down to whether someone likes someone else though ...... lol

TomsMom

Fantastic JT :j . I agree with Jimbugalee, it's unbelievable that because you unfortunately, and unknowingly, chose a bad architect then you should suffer because he is not liked by someone at the council and that they should make your life a misery because of it.

Well, now you have someone on your side so if you have any further problems you can always refer anyone else who finds a problem to BI#2. I hope things race ahead with your build now.

I'm off to see TD today. DS is taking me this week so we'll go all the way from here in his car which will halve the normal journey time when I do it by train/car with my DD. We have to come back tomorrow night though as d-i-l works Sundays and he needs to be here for the children. TD is off the morphine now and his blood results are going the right way. Platelets and white cells up which means that the new stem cells seem to be starting to do their job. Red cells very up and down and when they get too low he gets a blood transfusion. They've taken him off the food bags so he's taking more solid food but not up to a proper meal yet so they give him those build-up type drinks if he hasn't taken in enough calories.

Now that his mouth/throat problem has started to clear up he has the second of the common side effects, severe diarrhoea, which he is very unhappy about. He can't get out of bed to reach the main phone the hospital provide but he has his mobile on his over-bed table so we can still talk every day. He's really looking forward to his visitors as he didn't get any last weekend.

I hope you all have a productive weekend, looking forward to reading what you've all been doing.

latecomer

@KT - enjoy the peace while it lasts

@JT - congrats on getting the drains signed off. I meant to ask about ours but as they were meant to be inspected on mon/tues but as they have been filled over completely I guess they must have been passed.

@TM - glad to hear TD is in progressing well although I can understand why he doesn't like the current side-effects. Fingers crossed it doesn't last too long. Hope you enjoy the visit as much as I'm sure he will.

when I took my driving test my instructor and the examiner had a barney after he criticised every aspect of my driving despite it going realtly well but still passed me (just). Apparently the instructor used to work as an examiner in the same test centre and left due to this guy. the examiner was known to be harder on his students than any others. It just goes to show that peoples opinions and relationships with each other really can make a difference on what they do.

We've not been making huge progress outside due to the weather but the inside is starting to take shape. We had some issues with the timber they were using (wrong grade) but the structural engineer has been out and approved a new plan based on the wood they have and as long as he's happy, we're happy.

Going to look at kitchens this weekend so hopefully find something we both like. I think we know what sort of thing we want but we really want to see them in the flesh to get an idea of exactly what they will look like. hoping to get a kitchen design done at howdens and possibly one of the independent places as thats something we haven't really thought about yet.

Its raining again today so I'm not sure how much they will have managed to do outside - I'd love just a few dry days to allow them to get the walls up so they can make a start on the roof.