First-time house renovation

suisidevw

Alfie loves giving me his paw, it's his favourite thing!

sounds like putting up and shutting up is the way to go with the joiner but personally I would have had the insurance work redone by competent people and billed the insurance company.......... I didn't realise you're in the highlands, that must make it hard!

latecomer

aliasojo wrote: »

Stuck between a rock and a hard place tbh. The Highlands do seem to have a very high majority of 'laid back' tradesmen.

Yup most things are a bit laid back up in the highlands - its what appeals to me about it but I can see it might be a pain as in your case.

As for the insurance work - I'd still report your complaint to the insurance company - along with pictures of the problems if you can. We complained about some that been in one of our flats directly to the insurance company as the people who did the work said it was to an acceptable standard. I described the state of the work to the insurance company which lead to a manager of the business coming to inspect the work and then get it put right. As insurance work is so lucrative, very few companies will want to risk being struck off an approved contractor list.

typeractive

Nice one suiside! I too love wood!

Which neatly brings me to my latest blog entry! Making good use from it - building the double kite winder staircase!!

Link.

And for those who don't want to click the link, here's a little picture of them from above in the attic.

suisidevw

That looks GREAT! Well done!

stolt

latecomer wrote: »

Yup most things are a bit laid back up in the highlands - its what appeals to me about it but I can see it might be a pain as in your case.

As for the insurance work - I'd still report your complaint to the insurance company - along with pictures of the problems if you can. We complained about some that been in one of our flats directly to the insurance company as the people who did the work said it was to an acceptable standard. I described the state of the work to the insurance company which lead to a manager of the business coming to inspect the work and then get it put right. As insurance work is so lucrative, very few companies will want to risk being struck off an approved contractor list.

Highlands, i do alot of work with the whisky trade in scotland and you cant get a thing done after midday... laid back i dont think i know anywhere else in the world thats so laid back!!! you cant get them to do anything they dont want to do...

latecomer, you have made the kids cry about the special colour lighting they have in there room!!!

aliasojo, we want the internal doors all changed to oak, that will have to be something for next year now...




Got my car back, £500.00 lighter in the wallet, which is a shame because i need dinning room table. Mates friend who fixed it has said to get shot of the car as quickly as possible bt i need another year out of it really...

aliasojo

stolt wrote: »

Highlands, i do alot of work with the whisky trade in scotland and you cant get a thing done after midday... laid back i dont think i know anywhere else in the world thats so laid back!!! you cant get them to do anything they dont want to do...

Ironically, I moved here from Edinburgh city centre as I wanted some peace and thought it would be a good place to raise kids. I had no idea how often it would make my blood pressure rise. Would you believe there is only one place here that sells 15mm bog standard square edged oak skirting and even then we need to drive an hour and a half to get it. Nowhere is willing to stock anything different.......'people likes what they likes' ....I was told. Only because half of them don't realise there are other choices available!

Bit jealous of the nice new staircase, typeractive. I need a straight flight replacement but as always, you can only get basic stuff here and I'm struggling to find an affordable solution. A couple of the bespoke joinery places want shedloads for just a straight standard pine staircase. (Can't afford oak unfortunately).

One day my conversation will consist of a range wider than all that is home improvement.

Anyway, my joiner turned up today. I felt bad for thinking bad thoughts yesterday as it turned out his OH had been taken into hospital and he was left with their 2 year old. He'll be here when he can and that's fine, I'm happy to accomodate that, I just didn't like the feeling I was being mucked about but now I know that's not the case, then all is well. We can put up with things a while longer.

suisidevw

oh Stolt, that's a bit of a wounder!

Glad that he's turnedup and hopefully he's hanging away as we speak!

stolt

suisidevw wrote: »

oh Stolt, that's a bit of a wounder!

yeah, i suppose i estimated it would be more so took a sigh of relief when they actually said te amount. Still a nightmare as in my head that money had already been allocated to something else!!

suisidevw

I know what you mean. Hate it when that happens! Oh well, at least you have a working car again

latecomer

typeractive wrote: »

Nice one suiside! I too love wood!

Which neatly brings me to my latest blog entry! Making good use from it - building the double kite winder staircase!!

Stairs look fantastic. I was reading the blog thinking you'd made them yourself and was in awe - only mildly disappointed to find out someone else did it but they still look great.

not a lot of progress for us yesterday - OH found that the final board I'd laid on sunday night was damaged and after I said to remove it all sorts of problems occurred. When I finally got home I helped remove 6 boards and we've put them all on the damaged pile. I'm sure we'll be able to use most of them as in general its just a corner or edge thats damaged and we're going to need lots of part boards when we go under the kitchen units.

Took out the dishwasher and end panel to get the flooring underneath. Still not sure what to do about the end panel - joiners cut it to be in line with the units rather than the doors so its 20mm short. The one joiner who was asked said that it was how it should be done despite the other end panel level with the outside of the doors as they should both be! Dont want to make a huge fuss until the boiler has been commissioned and the window installed, then we'll make a fuss when they are looking for final payment.