First-time house renovation

TomsMom

Hello peeps

I haven't gone AWOL, I've been keeping up with the thread. It's just that there's nothing going on now so not a lot to say really. I update my garden blog every couple of weeks or so at the moment.

:hello: Hello to all the newbies that have come aboard, good luck with all your renovations.

Maggie Can't wait for yours to start and read your blog.

Latecomer Surely not long to go now until baby LC arrives on the scene. All good wishes to Mrs LC.

Can't remember who it was who had Chester the dog but she might be interested in this latest post on my blog, also Suiside and Andy.

stolt

evening everyone, hope everyone is getting on well... kitchen was started yesterday and they have already made good progress, german kitchen and the fitters have been so organised and well planned its been a joy for my missus to work with them, its come as a refreshing change to finally have a company that works so well. The corian people are coming in to template on thursday and the electricians are coming back friday to second fix and sort out the cooker hood.... got some issues with the plumping as we still have the kitchen in use so now they need to cut the water off and sort that out in the new kitchen... not going to be easy..

andrew-b

Aww nice pup! You succombed to the doggy part of 1st time renovation TomsMom!..though you did it the right way and got puppy AFTER rather than during!

Stolt, your kitchen is coming on nicely..good to see it's finally taking shape!

Now i've almost got my workshop sorted i've returned indoors to finish the bathroom that had been put on the back burner since last year. Over the last week i've painted up the toilet unit and vanity unit which i disassembled and then 2 coats of cupboard paint applied in the shed. Took a while as it's oil based paint so needed time to dry between coats. I painted it with mini foam rollers to avoid brush marks. I've never used mini-rollers before so i started out on the backs of panels to begin with. Really impressed with the end finish now it's all back together again...i'm waiting until i'm completely finished for the final photos!

Not a huge amount left on the bathroom ..small amount of filling to do on the door frame, undercoat and topcoat the door and frame, possibly another coat of paint on the windowsill as i'm not totally happy with the finish, then emulsion the walls twice. The emulsion should be quite a dramatic change going from white to "natural hessian". Hopefully can get that done in the next week or two. Still need to sort out the floor then get a blind for the window. Will be nice to finally get something finished and to compare the before and after photos!

typeractive

Stolt - I don't like you! heheh your project is coming on too nicely! :p

No - all jokes aside that is looking awesome. Really liking the kitchen fittings. Do you mind if I ask where you bought the kitchen units from? They look good and solid.

Keep up the good work everyone! I have the gas engineer calling round for the first visit this afternoon. So hopefully we'll see what he has to say and how much it's going to cost for the whole house! It needs EVERYTHING, boiler, rads, pipework, bathroom and little en suite.

Electrician is due to start on Monday Quite excited about that. Just hope everything is correct for them to start. Having thoughts of getting in a builder to do some of the work for the kitchen alterations - lay kitchen floor and new internal wall, so I can widen the garage to get my car in!! ...I only fully know this as the builder I have in mind has the exact same garage as me (he lives 2 doors along) and he also has a similar car and can only JUST get his car in after building a brand new garage (which looks AMAZING)! :eek:

stolt

typeractive wrote: »

Stolt - I don't like you! heheh your project is coming on too nicely! :p

No - all jokes aside that is looking awesome. Really liking the kitchen fittings. Do you mind if I ask where you bought the kitchen units from? They look good and solid.

Keep up the good work everyone! I have the gas engineer calling round for the first visit this afternoon. So hopefully we'll see what he has to say and how much it's going to cost for the whole house! It needs EVERYTHING, boiler, rads, pipework, bathroom and little en suite.

Electrician is due to start on Monday Quite excited about that. Just hope everything is correct for them to start. Having thoughts of getting in a builder to do some of the work for the kitchen alterations - lay kitchen floor and new internal wall, so I can widen the garage to get my car in!! ...I only fully know this as the builder I have in mind has the exact same garage as me (he lives 2 doors along) and he also has a similar car and can only JUST get his car in after building a brand new garage (which looks AMAZING)! :eek:

Ha ha, thanks for that.. its abotu time something started going smoothly for us. The building company that built the extension went bust and in turn so did the electrician so they couldnt issue a part p cert. We have had untold problems with the granite floor tiles!! my blogs about somewhere
the garden was about the only thing that went smoothly...and to plan.

The kitchen loosely based on a kitchen from. http://www.stoneham-kitchens.co.uk/

we gota local kitchen firm to have the doors made ourselves using Walnut and they have employed there own corian people to come in and do there thing. Very impressed with kitchen company Manor Designs. http://www.manor-design.com/

Cant wait to have a working kitchen and i dont normally get excited about house things i normally leave that to the missus!!

latecomer

@TM - love the pup. Little LC still not put in an appearance although think OH is getting fed up of contractions which are now in their 4th week!

@stolt - kitchen is looking great and its amazing the difference it makes once it starts going in.

@andy - your post reminds me I've competely neglected our almost finished bathroom downstairs. Need to see about getting some of the finishing touches done once I've got a few spare minutes.....

@typeractive - car in garage? Thats not what they are for. Fill it with junk like everyone else - solves the problem of needing a wider entrance


I feel we've come on huge amounts in the last week or so. The kitchen units are all completely fitted and its looking great. Still need to do some adjustment on a couple of hinges to line up the doors a little better (yeah i'm fussy!). Also spotted a problem with the integrated fridge freezer - the doors are fouling the hinges when they open and thankfully also noticed that the freezer door wasn't 100% shut. Opened it up and sure enough its starting to defrost. thankfully only just started and all the food was ok. Took off the integrated mechanism so it could shut. Checked instructions and no sign of dimensions to show where it should be positioned within the cabinet. Also searched online without any joy. Found other models do have this info so sent an email to manufacturer to ask for them - got a reply with a freephone number to call which should be able to help. I'm sure we could figure it out but I'd rather get the exact values and save messing around.

Brickie was onsite for the last 2 days - along with apprentice - and they've cut a trench for the drainage from the rowans and exposed the drain pipe. I've been told that the drains were damaged at the point they exposed, which happened to be an inspection point, and they've had to order the pipe to replace. Imagine that - the exact point they expose while digging with a pickaxe happens to be damaged....... :think:

I'm not expecting to be charged for the drainageas they would have had to either dig another new channel or replace the inspection point anyway.

Yesterday they were meant to be clearing the around the drive once the full skip had been removed - which didn't happen. I'd agreed they could dump some of the extra earth from the foundations in the front garden in return for cutting my wall back. I'd removed the coping stones the night before and got told off (in a nice way!) as they said they were happy to do it. Anyway as they were stuck for things to do they not only cut the wall but took the extra bit down, cut the coping stones for the top so make it neat, used one of the left over coping stones to face the exposed edge, shaped the coping stone at the top to match the profile and put it all back together again. Kinda glad the replacement skip didn't arrive :j

Electricians came and finsihed off all their stuff. We've now got lights, oven, sockets etc. I haven't really had a good look round but I'll try and do that tonight. I didn't ask about certification for the work but I'm sure its in hand.

Plumber is meant to be on site tomorrow - only a couple of weeks late. And his job is going to be a lot more difficult now that the units are all fitted but thats his problem and I expect minimal modification and absolutely not damage to the units.

Roofer is apparently meant to be there today and then until the job is finished. Will believe that when I see it but you never know....

Also seems that we've misunderstood one of the things that was to be done. We thought they were going to completely clear the drive but they said only where the concrete ramp goes (up to front of garage). Checked all the emails and its never been mentioned so its definitely a misundersatnding on our behalf. But we had a cunning plan. They are meant to be getting a replacement skip and not going to fill it according to the brickie. Last night I bagged up most of the bulky but light rubbish that they had ready to go in and loaded up both cars to go to the tip. Got there as they closed the gates literally seconds too late :mad: Had to do 2 trips this morning before work - only possible as the schools are still off. Was there as they opened the gates at 8am

Anyway the space thats going to save in the skip we can use the heavy stuff we clear off the driveway

The one bad thing thats happened is that I noticed the glass in patio doors from next door's shed is broken. One was broken anyway but it looks like the side has been damaged either as it was taken down or while its been lying in our garden. OH has been searching online and has found a PVC set on gumtree for a very good price - just need to check next door would be happy with the replacement as they existing ones are aluminium. Fingers crossed they will be as new ones are a lot of money :eek:

Shed is meant to be going back up on saturday so if next door are happy with this I'm going to try and get them by saturday morning. Might be tricky but if it saves us fitting them and also saves about £400 then its going to be worth it.

suisidevw

Loving all the updates guys and welcome to the new posters!

Have been camping in Brecon over the past week for hols so it has been nice catching up with things, a lot of positive movement! Keep it up! Want to see pics Latecomer!


Loving the little pooch TM

latecomer

I've taken pics of most things - just dont have the PC hooked up to post them. I guess I could do it on the laptop but I'm really struggling for time at the moment with all the work trying to get things finished. Promise there will be a blog update soon.

On a related note - anyone created a wired network? I'm going to do this for the back bedroom upstairs but not sure what the difference is between modular and keystone sockets. Anyone know?

suisidevw

Not a clue tbh. I have the sky wireless router and that does our laptop and PC!

Great, look forward to seeing them! Bet your loving having carpet!

latecomer

have to say carpet feels like a real luxury. think we made a good choice on the underlay too.
I've not yet tried the desktop with the wireless router but I might give it a shot. Think I'll probably go with wired though just as soon as I figure out the best way to do it (although I'm sure it probably makes little/no difference which connection method you use)