First-time house renovation

jimbugalee

TomsMom - I just fell in love with your house The location is beautiful!! Thanks for showing me the front. Now we get a real idea of how it sits. Just having a look at the beginning of your blog and realising how much you've done! It's always good to look back

Hope TD is doing ok this weekend. Keep us updated.

House still leaking though? We've had so much rain here.

Had a great weekend though Toilet successfully in upstairs Although it's a bit weird going to the loo with no door. You have to shout to everyone not to come upstairs!! Bath is almost there just not quite (probably mid week).

The thing I am most happy with is we're getting the rest of the double glazing done in two weeks!!!! The saleswoman was really nice (same one as last time) and she knew we knew the score so cut straight to the chase 'you give us a good price, we can have it done quickly and pay it all today'. It worked and we managed to get kitchen window & door, french doors (currently a window), two bedroom windows and a lovely composite door for £3,900. I was really pleased we our budget was about £4k and I thought we'd have to knock her down to that.

So in two weeks we'll have double glazing everywhere and saving some money on our heating, plus we'll have our fire installed

Hope everyone had good weekends?

jimbugalee

oh blog is here

http://seatonroad.blogspot.com/

helping_hubby

Andy - how do I fit 1 foot trellis panels to the top of my fence and gate? I had a nose today and they only cost £4.99 for crisscross style ones. I've tried googling but can only find info on installing full trellis fences, not just putting on top of an existing fence.

Came up with another possible solution today - but not sure what the council would say....having a gate to block off access to the alleyway to the public? Going to suggest it tomorrow.

UKmaggie...holly bush is a good idea. We're going to suggest that to the council for extra security if they don't go for the gate idea.

Failing everything, my last resort plan is to put trellis on top of the fence and grow Clematis and Roses (thorny roses ). And grow something infront of my shed. And maybe even dig up some of the concrete so I can grow a big tree/bush near the gate.

So I have loads of ideas mostly thanks to you lovely people on here

Maggie, good luck with the exchange going to plan.

Tomsmom, sorry to hear about ongoing leaky issues. Did a double take when I saw the word sea monster - but realised I was thinking of sea monkeys not sea monsters! It's been a long day... Anyway, sea monsters - yet another reason why I don't go in the sea, along with sharks, eels, jellyfish, crabs, poisonous fish...I could go on.

I'm off to bed! Night!

wallbash

how do I fit 1 foot trellis panels to the top of my fence and

The correct way would be replace uprights with longer ones

But not very cheap/practical , so you are looking for a way to add a piece to each upright

And to be honest have never seen a good result .

andrew-b

One option is to extend the fence posts by buying one or two new matching fence posts and chop them up and then attach the new bits to the old post using galvanised steel joining plates or similar. Paint the metal bits to disguise and train a clematis to grow along it.

Alternatively screw some vertical timbers to the back of the fence posts. then nail/screw the trellis to those from your side of the fence - does'nt matter much what the other side looks like to you and i don't suppose anyone will moan with the other side being an alleyway.

Or another idea..get some angle irons taller than the fence posts..whack them in the ground alongside the fence posts and rig wire across horizontally. and again train a clematis or something along..or howabout an apple tree (espalier sort).

helping_hubby

Thanks Andy and Wallbash. I think Andys solution number 2 was what I had in my head. The idea is that the whole thing will covered with a climber. There's a lovely lady at a nursery and she was really helpful last time, so I shall get her advice as to what to grow there.

The council lady came...the upshot seems to be that they aren't willing to compromise. However, they have plans already to put up a fence covering my opposite neighbours garden, to wash the graffiti off, and to ask the Kia garage to remove their barbed wire.

Also she said that they aren't removing the roots of all the bush/tree type things, so they should grow back. This is positive for me if they do.

The gate idea - it has to be done through the housing office and we'd have to pay for it ourselves.

I think the sensible thing for us to do is wait till Spring and see what starts to grow. Nothing we plant now is going to grow anyway, so we'll have to live with it for now.

Thanks for all your ideas and support. I'll keep you posted.

latecomer

Just a quick visit from me - hope everyone is well (especially TD) and making progress.

We've had a mixed time recently. Rain has caused problems inside and out. Work was rained off completely one day last week outside and the inside team spent that day making the dormer waterproof after the original covering leaked so badly that I had to rig something up inside to stop any damage to the downstairs ceilings.

Also over the weekend I woke up at 5am and realised that the window is too low for the kitchen units and will have to be raised significantly (nearly 300mm is my guess). Partially my fault as I agreed to him making the cill level with other windows at the back of the house but I was kinda annoyed that he hadn't thought about the height of the units inside.

Its going to be a job to change it as they've build up the sides to lintel height and on the RHS there is only a thin pillar between the door and window and hence thats almost certainly going to have to come down to the bottom of the window and be rebuilt. I've offered to foot half the bill based on it taking 4 man-days to fix just to get things moving. I dont want to get into an arguement over it although OH doesn't think it will take as long as he's said. She's probably right but the last thing I want to do is fall out with the builder at this stage.

Kitchen is close to being ordered, OH has been onto the suppliers this morning to talk it through. Just need to sort out one corner on the wall units and ensure everything else is ok.

We were also out looking at granite over the weekend (OH looked at some last week too) and the local place who said they'd match anything have come back with a price thats about 40% higher than other quotes so we are waiting to hear back to see what they will do. I reckon the island is probably going to be sacrificed as to do it the way we want will cost about £3500 including granite as the curved units and doors are extortionate. Might have to go back to a table and chairs idea and put off the island until later, if at all.

I did post a few pics on the blog but didn't get time to get a proper update done. Will try and do it tonight as I need to email my folks some pics anyway.

latecomer

More pics on the blog as of this morning but not a lot of words

helping_hubby

Some good news finally....

I have a carpenter booked to hang my doors!!!!!!! I'm so happy it's unreal. It really is the last job that we can't do ourselves. Aside from the kitchen but that doesn't count as I want £10k to do my kitchen so that's years away.

wallbash

It really is the last job that we can't do ourselves.

I took nearly 9 hours to hang a front door once ..... never again .