First-time house renovation

latecomer

I hate to think about the financial side of things - we bought at the top of the market and have then spent a lot of the extension and loft conversion (and obviously more to be spent). Hopefully we will have added value over what we spend even though the market has fallen. there are a couple of similar bungalows for sale near us but the prices are all over the place and none of them are selling - 2 of the expensive ones have been modified and have extremely odd internal layout now which might explain them not selling.

Still not got a reply to my question about the lock on ebay which is annoying me no end. I've found that you can order just the case for about £50 inc delivery so I might end up doing that.

I'm off for the rest of the week and my mum is coming up to stay so the garden will be getting some serious work and I'm going to try and make some progress in the loft.

Builder got back to us yesterday and it looks like replcing the asbestos soffits is going to be a sticking point. He hasn't included this but had indicated that he might be flexible on price when he was told he was several thousand more than the other quotes. We've said we are happy to pay the price but its got to include this work. No response yet but he might be trying to price up the work.

stolt

aliasojo wrote: »

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:

lol:rotfl:I need a rest after all this lot, i end up wanting to fall asleep at my desk during the day.
Its because i have no patience and its a fault not a good thing to have, i cant ever relax, I'll do all this and then be itching to do something else. Although I love cars at some stage i'd like to have a car that I can work on and no inside out.

Yes the money could have been spent on bathroom but its not in a bad state, but having that big glass expanse in the garden i needed something nice to look at and I like a garden even though i'm not much of a gardener 9if that makes sense)

in answer to your question, book me in for 2nd of july.....:);)

stolt

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

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

Erm simple answer to that, I dont know, the missus would say her, she use to work in interior design (in the accounts section i might add) but she picked up lots of info form the girls that actually did the designing and she likes all the mags and that you get. In previous houses we always tried to get as much in as we could, which meant, decking, pond, lawn, flower beds, pergolas etc (all in a 20ft x 40ft garden) and it can look too much. We said from the outset on this house, no cutting costs or jobs and to keep things simple and as low maintence as possible.

aliasojo

stolt wrote: »

in answer to your question, book me in for 2nd of july.....:);)

*goes off to find the guest towels......* :whistle: :rotfl:

stolt

andrew-b wrote: »

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!).

Cost wise its probably in the region of 3.5k, the biggest of those costs was the lawn and lucky I had it on supply only as if it was fitted it would have been twice as much.

Tool hire was only £145.00 and without it i would probably still be there digging out the old turf or possible cut corners to get the job done.:D
My next biggest cost was the sub base and sand but it was in total about £600.00
After that was 16 - 15lt bamboos which I bought for £450.00 delivered.

then all the little costs such as weed membrane creep in, truggs that i bought and drilled holes in the bottom to plant my bamboos (so the roots dont invade everywhere) but never did use them so there useless as buckets now aswell!!!

stolt

aliasojo wrote: »

*goes off to find the guest towels......* :whistle: :rotfl:

nice one.... just had a brain wave (really need a smiley - brain with a waving hand above it!) we could do a group fixing (i know there called orgies in other parts of the world! but i dont mean like that. if someone wanted a garden done we could all pile round in a groundforce style, fix it and then we could move on to the next persons house! free labour!

aliasojo

Lol....I'm practical and turn my hand to a lot of jobs, but I'm slow at them and I'm too much of a perfectionist.

I've just re plasterboarded a bedroom for example and have taped and filled the joins. Then sanded them and noticed a few imperfections so filled them again....and sanded them......and filled them.....and so it goes on.

I'd be a hindrance more than a help I think. :rotfl:

latecomer

aliasojo wrote: »

I've just re plasterboarded a bedroom for example and have taped and filled the joins. Then sanded them and noticed a few imperfections so filled them again....and sanded them......and filled them.....and so it goes on.

Sounds like when I did the bathroom ceiling - I think I must have been through the fill and sand cycle at least 3 times before I got told it was more than good enough and to move onto other more important things. Then the MIL managed to poke 2 holes in the plasterboard while doing the tiling - mind you thats a small price pay for all the help (and I've still not fixed them!) :rotfl:

pawpurrs

Latecomer, where can I find the linky to your blog?
Stolt gardens looking good!
Here its going slowly, but DH hasnt any work at the moment (a tad worrying, but hes cracking on with getting the plasterboard up between the beams in the sitting room today, been without a sitting room, for mths now! It would be nice to have somewhere to relax! But we will get there!

latecomer

right here -> http://the2yearproject.blogspot.com


Builder has come back and said that they would include the replacement soffits but not the removal. He says it should be a few hundred to get it removed by an approved person so I think we'll probably just agree and get on with it. the one remaining sticking point is the plumbers quote - the builder thinks that he'll take off about £700 for not doing the showerroom work - but still leaves £2500 for what I think isn't a lot of work.

I'm off for the rest of the week and I'm going to see about getting another quote for the plumbing work from the guy we used for the gas work last time we had a problem.