First-time house renovation

ginvzt

latecomer wrote: »

You cant put me off that easily. Both me and OH love the hills and I dont particularly like people so the highlands would be perfect. I proposed to OH on top of a wet, windy and foggy hill and we got married up in the highlands. Part of the reason we bought our house is that its on a hill and we get nice views in the winter of Fife and up to the Ochil hills. Unfortunately in summer there are trees that block the view. Views are even better since we got the upstairs done.

At least I am not the only one... Oh, and I don't really like hills that much. Must be something to do with growing up in the country "as flat as a pool table" s my OH expresses it. He is from north of Italy and can see Alps on a clear day from his parents' flat. He would live in a shed, if only it was on a hill/mountain.

aliasojo

latecomer wrote: »

You cant put me off that easily. Both me and OH love the hills and I dont particularly like people so the highlands would be perfect.

My dream home would be in the middle of a field with cows and sheep as neighbours so I understand your thoughts.

Admittedly it does have it's benefits. It's only when you need something you realise its drawbacks too. :undecided

latecomer

But as long as you dont need/want much, it doesn't have any major drawbacks

ukmaggie45

Latecomer, I don't have a wonderful view of Snowdon from my bed, very distant on a really clear day only. Much better from the caravan! But it's nice when I'm on the phone to OH when he's in Liverpool and I'm at the caravan when we can both see Snowdon - makes the distance seem less! Guess I'm just an old romantic! :rotfl:

Hope Baby LC isn't keeping you awake too much in the nights. I think DD is still rather struggling with the twins, though it's the evenings they're most cry-ie! On holiday in Devon at the mo so I'm hoping they're having better weather than we are here! Brodie cat is enjoying sleeping on our bed and seems happy and relaxed.

Stolt, wow your kitchen looks fantastic! :j Sorry to hear your electrician has pneumonia, here's hoping he makes a fast recovery and can finish off so kitchen can be fully commissioned and used! I'm afraid your OH wouldn't get on with us - a pair of slobs!

Your girls are lovely, really pretty, but is it a good idea to put their pics up on the internet for anyone to see? Don't get me wrong, it's lovely to see them (and their scary new pets!) but there are some unsavoury people around, though hopefully not on MSE of course.

As to tomatoes, I only posted the photo of the really good looking ones! Quite a lot have had blossom end rot, so yesterday afternoon I spent ages clipping off leaves to let the sun get to the fruit that's set, and also getting rid of rotty ones.

Wow, you have a lot of grapes! Going in for wine making? And your apples and pears look good too. Our apples aren't too good, affected by the damp summer following the ultra dry spring I think. Have something that I think is called bitter pit, and some also have a thing that rots them on the branch. Next year we'll have to try and look after the tree better, think it needs a calcium feed for the bitter pit, and we'll definitely be trying to clean up any diseased foliage sooner than we managed this year. Will be easier if we've moved in of course, rather than gardening remotely, albeit very close.

Still have a few more plants to deal with (I planted a LOT of tomatoes) but it's rather wet today so not sure if will be able to tackle them this evening or not. Those really nice red toms I put up the photo of are a bit over ripe, so texture not wonderful. I'll be making a lot of chutney soon I think! And then there's the green ones too of course! DD who just moved into new (to them) house in London has already put first dibs on a jar of chutney.

Here's how the house looked when we arrived yesterday afternoon. From the front it doesn't look that much different, but I think you can see more of the garden from the road than on Thursday. But gawping over the "barricade" they have started to dig a trench, not sure if for foundations, drains or water yet. Oh, and the concrete block floors of the garage and morning room have been broken up too, but you'll have to see my later pics to see that.


House from the front 12 September 2010 by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's the view of the "garage and morning room" from the back garden... What a scene of devastation! The electricity has now been mainly switched off, there's just 4 gang extension direct from the meter in the hall for the kettle, radio, and anything else needed.


Morning room and garage! by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This shows the devastion a bit differently, looking across the patio to next door. Since then OH has moved the standard bay and a number of other pots (including the mini-pond in a plastic bowl) up to the back of the garden to give the builders a bit more space on the patio.


Patio by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This is the view of the house from the end of the lawn, where I was sitting and enjoying a G&T after doing me back in trying to sort out the tomatoes. :beer:


House from the garden by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

And here's a closer view of the walls of the garage and morning room. You can see that they didn't even bother to remove the pebble dash before doing the morning room extension, :eek: and then just plastered over the pebble dash in the room once it was built. Can't help feeling that building regs wouldn't allow that nowadays. We think garage and extension were built in the mid 60s (or possibly 70s?).


Morning room and garage walls by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This is just another view of the general devastion and the broken up concrete, but if you look closely you can just see the beginnings of a trench running more or less from the purple wheelie bin.


Concrete base of garage and morning room broken up by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH mowed the lawn, if you look just in front of the mower and to the right you'll get an idea of how long the grass had got while I was away at the caravan! I took a lot more photos of the lawn mowing, but seem to have muck on the lens so this is the only one that's marginally OK.


Mowing the lawn by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

And just to finish off, here's probably the last of the sweet peas. We picked all of the flowering ones, and have them in a glass in the bedroom.


Last of the sweet peas by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

latecomer

Actually they dont care about pebble dash once it becomes an internal wall. We had ours boarded over but building control were not interested in it in the slightest.

re Sleep - I've forgotten what that is!

andrew-b

Perfectionism got the better of me once again! I still wasn't happy with airing cupboard door having got the skirting in place at the bottom of it. So i ended up rehanging bottom door and replacing the door stop which was what was pushing the door out too far. The bottom door now goes in too far at the bottom non-hinge-side corner but it's because the door itself is warped slightly so nothing much i can do about it so have to accept it as is now as i'm not redoing it again! Once the dogs bed is in front of it noone will ever know! Also managed to revive the brass of the handles on the doors which had been painted - just electroplated brass on steel i think but came up quite well. We had spent ages trying to find handles and couldn't find any we liked so saved a few quid reusing what we had. Fitted a new catch which i had going spare. Needs a bit of filling and a paint job but at least i can start moving forward again.

Craftyscholar

andrew-b wrote: »

Also managed to revive the brass of the handles on the doors which had been painted - just electroplated brass on steel i think but came up quite well. We had spent ages trying to find handles and couldn't find any we liked so saved a few quid reusing what we had.

Can I ask, please, how you revived the brass and would it work on outside 'brass' door furniture which lost most of its coating and does not look good.

andrew-b

Just carefully scraped most of the white paint off with a stanley blade and then used a metal scourer to finish off. Once the electroplated brass coating has gone it's time to replace really.

Craftyscholar

andrew-b wrote: »

Just carefully scraped most of the white paint off with a stanley blade and then used a metal scourer to finish off. Once the electroplated brass coating has gone it's time to replace really.

Thanks, andrew-b.
That's what I suspected. Will leave it for this winter and replace next year after I have repainted the front door.
That gives me time to try and source some decent door furniture - suggestions welcome

andrew-b

latecomer wrote: »

re Sleep - I've forgotten what that is!

We've got all that to come! :j OH had first scan this morning so we're all excited and i'm allowed to tell folk now ! Hence the sense of urgency to get the house ready. Also why i've switched to water-based paint! So i'll be having to repaint the spare room at some point to become the nursery which has already been done once!

Craftyscholar wrote: »

That gives me time to try and source some decent door furniture - suggestions welcome

Screwfix or toolstation maybe?