First-time house renovation

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

Hey all! Long time no speak. We're still here but been super busy all summer (not really with the house!).

We're currently still working on the office which was the bathroom. Major turning point as I can then move out of the lounge and we can fingers crossed get the lounge done for Xmas

Still got little Chester puppy here. He takes up a lot of time but super fun and so glad he's part of the family now.

Hope everyone is ok.

Hey Jimmie, where you been? Glad to hear things are going well, fingers crossed for Xmas then! Have you checked my blog lately? We've got a new addition now, she's very sweet!

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Welcome arroli and LilacPixie. :beer: I hope you realise that we will all be nagging you to start a blog or at the very least to post lots of photos as we are all incredibly [STRIKE]interested in[/STRIKE] nosy about peoples' progress, especially one or two of us more elderly ones (waves to TM :hello: )

Had a nice nap since my earlier post, and when OH arrived home from work (he's on earlies this week so home around 4.30) was fast asleep. When I woke up he said he was really relieved I hadn't want to go straight to the house as he's shattered too. Phew!

Oh yeah, our other piece of news is that the service centre OH works (RBS) is closing in 2012. He just got allowed to not retire at 65 (end of this month), here's hoping he manages the extra 2 years they said he could stay on. They are going to give them a year's notice of when the closure will happen.

We are lucky that when it closes OH can just claim his state pension. I really feel for his colleagues who are younger, there's not a lot of work around at present. Must dig out the Work supplement to The Grauniad from Saturday as there's a section on setting up a business to supplement income. I have tons of [STRIKE]interesting stuff[/STRIKE] clutter I should be eBaying, but not sure I can face that at the mo. This will be the 4th time OH has been made redundant. :eek:

We also have some good news - dear Brodie (DD and SiL's cat for newbies to this thread) is coming to stay for a week while his Ma and Pa and human siblings go on their hols. It'll be nice to have a purring cat sleeping on our bed and taking up more space than the pair of us together. Good thing we have a king size bed, but even so he tries to push us off the edges! :rotfl:

Thursday we have to go to choose shower tray for the downstairs cloakroom, not looking forward to that. At least we have a really nice bathroom place local to us with really friendly and knowledgeable folks, long established family business. :j We've chosen the bath we want for the upstairs bathroom already, think we'll go for the 1900mm size, but still need to choose the rest of bathroom stuff and also basin and loo for downstairs cloakroom.

Our other chore for the week is to work out where we want the sockets etc to go for the rewire. And I have the dentist on Friday lunchtime too. Oh joy. _pale_

Yoo hoo Maggie :wave:

Nosy, me????!!!!!! :rotfl:

Glad you're feeling better than you sounded in your previous post. I'm glad you had some nice weather at the caravan, don't blame you for staying on, we haven't had much really good weather during the summer, it was nicer earlier in the year.

Nice bath! Get the big one - lounge in luxury :rotfl: .

How nice to have Brodie to stay again. Did you see our little fluff bundle on the blog. Garden's done too and I put piccies up of that.

Dentist again? Doesn't seem that long since the last time. Hope you get on OK.

Don't despair over the house, it will all come good in the end and then you'll be happy you went ahead with it .

Hello newbies :hello:, welcome to the thread. Looking forward to hearing all about your renovations.

andrew-b

Hi to the newbies.
Ginvzt had wondered how you'd got on with the stone house..sounds like you'll be busy with your refurbishment for a good while...far more difficult living in the place ..especially when replacing kitchen and bathroom.
Maggie - think everyone has doubts/despair at some point..too much time to think about things doesn't help - better to get stuck into it!
Jimbugalee..welcome back...now you get why my refurbishments came to a standstill with arrival of pup! Now dog is older it's a bit easier as i can just leave him in the lounge and barely hear a peep out of him until OH comes home from work. Though i was up the ladder painting loft hatch frame and he was cowering under the table ..does the same when anyone goes in the loft!

Well had a mammoth painting session in the hall this afternoon/evening and managed to get all 6 door frames plus skirtings lightly sanded, wiped down and the 2nd topcoat on. Only the 2nd coat left to do on the frame of the loft hatch and the bathroom side of bathroom door frame - both of which i did the 1st coat on this morning. Finished about 9:30pm, had pizza and then cleared up and finally sat down with a pint. Right down at the bottom of the paint pot so not sure i've got enough paint to finish what little is left! Though i'm going to need more to paint the doors themselves.

ginvzt

andrew-b wrote: »

Hi to the newbies.
Ginvzt had wondered how you'd got on with the stone house..sounds like you'll be busy with your refurbishment for a good while...far more difficult living in the place ..especially when replacing kitchen and bathroom.

We are lucky with bathrooms - ensuite was re-done by the landlord this January and we were allowed to choose the tiles, and we bought the cabinet for it, so nothing to be done there. Main bathroom was done a few years back, not entirely our taste, but it is light, white loo/sink/bath (as opposed to peach set we had in ensuite and the grey one that is still in the cloackroom). So, it stays. The only thing will be cloakroom.

The kitchen will probably wait till next year, maybe spring/summer, so we can cook on the BBQ (although, with us BBQ doesn't get put away in winter either, we had a few this January...).

It will be a bit of a challenge to do the place up as we are living there, but we have plenty of space and there are just 2 of us, so we can move one room 'out' to the garage or other room and do it that way. We have 4 double bedrooms and only really use two of them (one for us, one for the office), the other two are nick-named 'laundry room' and 'guest room' (it really only gets used when someone comes to visit).

latecomer

Welcome arroli and LilacPixie

@arroli - best thing you can do is get estimates for all the work you dont think you will be doing yourself at the start as this should give an indication of the ballpark cost. Estimating yourself can be a dangerous game unless you have experience.

@ginvzt - glad to see you back again and in the renovation business at last

@ukmaggie - try not to get disheartened too much. I sure we've all had moments/times of wishing we hadn't started the projects. I maintain that the end result is worth it in our case despite it being 6 months late and about £30k over budget due to all the builder issues.

no pics online at the moment - OH doesn't like the idea. Will see about putting one up somewhere for a short while to let you see him

@andyb - I've already read that and also several others. Part of the problem is that I dont know exactly what the BCO wanted as I wasn't there. I'm tempted to get in the skip and find the original one to see exactly what the problem with it was, I'm annoyed that I didn't inspect it properly in the first place. the only complication is that its on the drive and hence has to be able to withstand a car driving over it. Most of the small/mini inspection chambers dont seem to specify the weight bearing limit of the cover/unit which leaves me slightly nervous and I dont want to put in something thats not going to be passed by building control. OH is against me phoning the BCO to prevent him thinking things are not going well with the builder and possibly make him look more carefully at whats been done.

Kitchen window is meant to be fitted tomorrow but I dont believe that it will be. We've been told it should be at the supplier today and I'm tempted to phone to ask whether its arrived and if not then why not. That would also allow us to hopefully confirm whether its actually been ordered or not. I might be overly suspicious but given our recent experience I dont think its exactly unfounded.

OH and MIL got some drain fittings yesterday so I'm hoping to at connect up the 2 ends of the drain tonight so at least the waste water goes in the right direction. I'm slightly concerned about the diameter of the old pipe as I measured it to be around 140mm and the adaptor only does up to 136mm but then the pipe was partially submerged due to all the rain so I'm hoping they will fit.

Also going to have to start thinking about the path, my folks are going to be up next week and I'm sure my dad will be wanting stuff to do so he's not sitting around wasting time (he doesn't seem to count spending time with his new grandson counts as a good way to spend time??)

andrew-b

latecomer wrote: »

Also going to have to start thinking about the path, my folks are going to be up next week and I'm sure my dad will be wanting stuff to do so he's not sitting around wasting time (he doesn't seem to count spending time with his new grandson counts as a good way to spend time??)

Sounds like my Dad..he won't visit unless his got something to do otherwise it's a "waste of time"..got plenty to keep him occupied with (comes back from hols today). Also he won't do anything that he says i'm capable of doing myself! Need to get some doors bought for him to fit soon so as i've run out of paint i'm looking into it...though it's about time i hung some myself i don't have a wood plane!

There is one door waiting to be fitted for the bedroom up in the loft then i need a new door for airing cupboard and one for the lounge.

The airing cupboard door needs to be 600mm wide and i have two choices...either buy a 6-panel door at 610mm to match others and plane off 5 mm either side at around £30 or get a 600mm plywood veneer door from B&Q for about £20. If we go with the panel door it will look identical to all the other doors and those who don't know better might think it's the entrance to a room. If i go with the veneer door painted white it won't match making it more obvious it's a cupboard but i could split it in two in a similar way to the door i'll be replacing so one door will access the hot water cylinder and one door the shelves above. If i mess up the cutting in half it's only £20 wasted. Can't really tart up what is already there as i removed a skirting underneath it leaving it too short..though i suppose i could reinstate?

On the lounge door i have choices too..either a plain white 6-panel door (cheap) or the equivalent glazed door (http://www.wickes.co.uk/4-Panel-Moulded-Glazed-Door/invt/200606) at much more expense. Currently we have a 15-panel glazed door (Warped out of shape so won't close)..my Dad reckons i should move the door stop so it does close but i'd rather replace. It does let in light into the hall though. I've actually experimented blocking up the door with cardboard to see how dark it will make it. Normally we leave doors open during the day anyway so not sure how much of an issue it would be. Having an unglazed door or even frosted glazed door would give us more privacy when the front door is opened. Alternatively i could get a direct replacement 12 or 15 panel glazed door ..or maybe something else?

Any opinions please on both airing cupboard and lounge doors?

aliasojo

Airing cupboard...buy matching door and plane the 5mm of each side. Doors are intrusive things imo, you can't really hide them, best if they match otherwise the area looks 'bitsy'. Just imo though.

I'm not fond of glazed living room doors, (up here the glazed versions are mostly used from hall to kitchen) so I'd replace with the same solid door you have everywhere else, especially since you'd have more privacy from front door. That said it's just really personal choice so ask your OH and do what she tells you. :D

For those who have wood or laminate floors...can you do me a favour and measure how much space there is between the floor and the bottom of the door please? Some serious differences of opinion going on in here so I'd appreciate some 'averages'.

andrew-b

aliasojo wrote: »

Airing cupboard...buy matching door and plane the 5mm of each side. Doors are intrusive things imo, you can't really hide them, best if they match otherwise the area looks 'bitsy'. Just imo though.

Well i suppose it would look better all the same..and most who visit would know it's the airing cupboard. However the area in front is usually where the dog's bed goes so splitting the door in two may be preferable. We don't really use the airing cupboard as an airing cupboard but just to store some towels..and currently some junk. It's triangular in shape inside so not really big enough to actually use as an airing cupboard. The other idea is to have a bi-fold door so it doesn't open out as far but that's much more in price. Suppose i could butcher a 6 panel door and cut it in two above the bottom 2 panels but might look a bit strange and the split wouldn't match the split of use inside the cupboard.

aliasojo wrote: »

I'm not fond of glazed living room doors, (up here the glazed versions are mostly used from hall to kitchen) so I'd replace with the same solid door you have everywhere else, especially since you'd have more privacy from front door.

That's sort of what i'm coming round to as it's considerably cheaper and light in hall is a nicety rather than necessity. The only light coming into the hall with all doors closed would be via the frosted glass in the front door. Privacy not as big an issue now i've removed the doorbell to deal with the neighbour ringing it! No glass is probably safer with me [strike]falling[/strike]fooling around.

aliasojo wrote: »

That said it's just really personal choice so ask your OH and do what she tells you. :D

I usually do the opposite!

aliasojo

andrew-b wrote: »

Privacy not as big an issue now i've removed the doorbell to deal with the neighbour ringing it!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

latecomer

aliasojo wrote: »

Airing cupboard...buy matching door and plane the 5mm of each side.

Gets my vote too.

@aliasojo - I reckon there about 8-10mm clearance under our doors which were cut by the joiners. The door to the garage is slightly less but its still big enough that I'm going to get a draft excluder of some description to stop the wind howling through.

andrew-b

thought you'd like that bit! Posted similar in wireless doorbell thread moments shortly before. Anyway i haven't as yet heard him knocking the door..he might well have and i haven't answered it so i haven't yet had to explain why i removed it. Bit annoyed though as the bell push has a chip of plastic broken off it so i can't sell it on ebay in as new condition!