First-time house renovation

stolt

Apologies in advance pic heavy>>>>>

another saturday passes, although i could have done with with some decent weather. Moved a ton and half of cobble stones today while the misses filled the gabions, run out of cobbles so had to go out and find some more. ended up needing 8 25kg bags!!!

The electrician let me down, made up some excuses (has been for the last two weeks) so didnt get the power in the garden as i wanted..

We paid the deposit for the kitchen so thats another job ticked off the list.:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
:T:T:T










Hopefully when the kitchen is in i can have a nice chair/sofa in the corner that i can sit and admire the garden.:)



Might put the rope light on in the gabions to see how it looks in a minute...

latecomer

Looks great although I have to say that when the lights are on it looks like your garden is on fire

We've had a busy day - FIL and I ripped out all the plaster board, plaster strapping and insulation board from the sloped areas of the loft. Took both estate cars loaded to the tip with plasterboard - such a ^%^&%&% waste. FIL headed off around teatime so I spent the rest of the evening clearing up - so I've got enough for another run to the tip tomorrow morning. Still got one small area to remove the insulation from but it wont take long.

need to get some 2"x1" straps tomorrow to brander out the beams so that the insulation can leave a 50mm gap at the back. I guess its going to have to come from B&Q seeing as its a sunday....and I hate buying wood there - rubbish choice and over priced. Also found out that the flexible tube they used for the soil pipe vent is all torn and making smells. Unfortunately its the bit thats behind the shower-room coombed ceiling so thats going to have to come off too although maybe not tomorrow.

OH was speaking to builder with the extorionate plumbing quote and apparently the guy was including removing and refitting all the toilet and shower base in the shower room - no idea why as he wasn't asked to. Still think I'll get someone else to do the plumbing even with we go with that builder and probably do as much as I can myself.

If we can get to the plastering stage upstairs then it will save us £1000 in labour costs from that builder so its definitely worth it. Even just todays work was going to cost us £250 so I may be tired and sore but I'm not complaining

I'm currently having a beer and downloading pics from the camera. Thought I would treat to you an update on the blog and it seems like I've not updated it since november which I'm sure cant be right but I guess it must be. I'm uploading lots of pics but this is from the stage where we still thought things were going reasonably well. Anyway look out for a blog update in the next 30 mins or so

Hope you are all having a productive weekend!

latecomer

I uploaded so many pictures I've split it up. I've posted the first 2 parts of the update, which has taken me an hour- hope you appreciate this effort at 1:45am!

andrew-b

Like the fire effect stolt! Looks good with the gabions to make the raised beds. Guess it will take a few years for the plants to get established..i reckon it will look even better though.
Latecomer, ooh a blog update. The plasterboard looked pretty appalling ..wish you'd posted the pics sooner as we might have persuaded you to chuck the "builders" sooner! Lintel ..the 4x2's nailed on weren't doing a thing..is that now replaced? Flexible soil pipe connector...not good. I used one on our toilet as i was lazy...it blocked the next day so i ripped it out and redid it properly with rigid connector! If you bend them too much they restrict the diameter.
Hope there's not too many other surprises they've hidden for you.

Here progress has slowed right down on the garden stuff. I think all the hard work has caught up with me so i guess i need today's rain to stop me doing anything outside. Anyway i took the gazebo down and have laid the timber down along the lawn edge of the ecobase shed base..screwed onto the ecobase with some metal washers to hold them in place and partially sunk into the soil. Spent ages levelling the area under the decking tiles..it's worked out quite well as before the kerb-height step between patio and grass was too big for me to negotiate without stick ..now i've got an intermediate step between patio and grass which i can manage without support. Also put timber along the join between old patio and decking tiles which was a bit more complicated to fix in place.. i broke out a bit more concrete between slabs of the old patio which will be filled with pea shingle to act as drain-off areas for rainwater from the patio and then used bits of old log roll that i cut up with jigsaw into pointed stakes, whacked the stakes into the drain-off areas and screwed through the stakes into the timber from behind. Once the holes are filled in there will be no visible fixings as the stakes will be below the patio surface.

I'm liking the colour of the timber and decking tiles which have turned out as a nice medium oak colour - not really what i'd describe as "golden brown" but turned out a good choice. Coordinates quite well with the red cedar fence colour so i think the shed will look really good in the same colour.

Had a day of waiting for a toolstation delivery - light bulbs, tarpaulins for when shed arrives, rimlock and mortice knob set for shed door security and more gloves (i've got through about 4 pairs of rigger/gripper gloves in so many weeks that keep getting torn or stitching comes undone etc), a load of bosch jigsaw blades as i was down to my last one (not in the best of condition after using it for old shed demolition) and a few other bits and bobs.

Yesterday i managed to get the lawn cut before it rained as it was getting too long since the last cut two weeks ago.

EDIT... Pictures hot off the press (with some editing of dog's "contributions" ...not sure how that sticker ended up on roof lol)






Andy

latecomer

Looking good andy!

The plasterboard was terrible but then it was one of those days where they wanted to get paid so it was thrown up (and we weren't here to inspect it).

The flexible hose is for the vent pipe so its not quite as critical but still not great. Either way the plasterboard is going to have to come off in the bathroom to get at it.

Today has been a bit of a non-event. I went to the tip and then into B&Q on the way back to get some wood to brander the beams. Couldn't get the exact size I wanted (1"x2") so settled for 20mmx50mm instead - really should have planned this better and got some wood yesterday from a timber yard. Anyway got home and started planning out how I was going to make it straight and realised the beams are all over the place. Used string across the beams to see the variation and its all over the place. Probably explains why they made such a mess of it. I wasn't confident enough to tackle it so removed the rest of the insulation from the roof.

Spoke to OH who is at her folks for the weekend and she suggested that I do something else for now - and suggested replacing the lock on the back door as thats the one the builders had keys for. Great idea......until it all went wrong. Someone has already had a go at th retaining screw and the head was in a bad way. I tried to get very careful with choice of bit and putting on loads of pressure but still managed make the head worse. Tried everything I could think of but didn't want to sheer the head off the screw as I didn't know how i was constructed. Anyway I spend some time online and it seems like the retaining screw simply goes into the lock and isn't in any way attached to the door. Also seems that the normal way of dealing with these is to basically break the lock in 2 which I'm not sure about. Mind you I dont have a lot of choice at the moment. I didn't have a replacement so I wasn't going to break the lock to remove it and then have to leave the house open.

And its obviously a day for locks going wrong - closed the front door earlier and saw that the rim lock hadn't engaged. Had a look and it look like its knackered. And they are about £100+ for a replacement. There is a new one on ebay thats never been fitted which might be perfect as I can keep the cylinder and that way we dont have to get keys cut.

When OH gets home we are going to try and decide on a builder to finish the job. Like both the remaining guys but cant decide between them. I'm tempted to go with the joiners given that a lot of the remaining work is joinery and I really want the upstairs woodwork to be done well. Will let you know what happens!

(ps I mgiht try and get some more pics uploaded later - potentially 3 updates to the blog in under 24 hours :eek: ) :rotfl:

stolt

Hows everyone doing, since the electrician let me down yesterday i decided to get the lights in so all he has to do is connect up the transformers etc. Today been a funny old day one minute really hot and sunny next cold and hailstones!! although it seemed everything time i took my jacket off it would rain. I planted the ball box hedges today and they took about 4 hours to plant 14, had to cut the artificial grass then dig through the sub base and sand i put down.... absolute nightmare..

Oh and i put some artificial grass and a gabion together..... if i had thought about it i could have had the raised beds like this, i rather like the look of the grass and the wire together.

aliasojo

I really hate you stolt.

Your garden is lovely and was done fairly quickly. I've been in this house more years than I care to remember and it's still like a building site.

If I throw my OH out, will you come and live with me? Even for a while? :rotfl:

pavlovs_dog

Agreed stolt - where do you get your ideas/inspiration from?

aliasojo

Don't tell her stolt, tell me......she's young and can fend for herself. :rotfl:

andrew-b

Looks great stolt. Out of curiosity ..how much do you reckon it's cost to re-do your garden...including tool hire, skips etc? Be interesting to see which bits sucked up the most cash..or how much it might have cost to get someone in.

Not added it up yet but i very much doubt i'm going to see any change from £1k on my shed & base alone.

Been rain stop play here for the last couple of days ...suppose i should have done the final bathroom painting but then again i think i needed the rest. A bit ashamed that i'm close to the 2 year mark on the bathroom now...though i suppose at least it's been usable for the last year!

Spotted yesterday on rightmove that there's a bungalow in the road opposite us up for sale at £174.5k....same as ours but with a bit more space at the side but no off-road parking and from what i gather from the details the kitchen needs updating.
We paid £158k in 2006 (offer price was £163k) and have spent about £15k (£173k in total). Not really thinking of doing it, but seems like we could potentially at least break-even if we were to sell up (assuming the comparable bungalow isn't overpriced and that we got the same!).