First-time house renovation

aliasojo

As it happens I was in Laura Ashley in Inverness today. Zilch. Just had a look online and nothing there either.

Thanks for the thought though.

ukmaggie45

spirit wrote: »

ukmaggie - well it looks like you are making cracking progress on the house. Just tell me that you are not going to mix yoghurt and cowshyte on the walls a la Grand Designs last night :rotfl:

:rotfl: Now there's an idea to discuss with our builder! :eek: Glad to know it's not just me who's addicted to Grand Designs!

littlerose, love your wedding photo - gorgeous dress. :T

Thanks for all the discussion on various flooring, all very useful input. I heard back from Armstrong Flooring. They say that asphalt is not suitable for installing Rhinofloor on directly as it causes yellowing of cushion vinyl. They suggest covering with plywood, or a screed to the depth recommended by the screed manufacturer. I was impressed by how speedily they replied to my query.

Here's the photos of progress that OH took on Wednesday evening. Lots more to report on yesterday's progress, but will save that for later when I've uploaded the next lot of photos!

Concrete has been poured into the trenches, and if the weather is OK they will start building the walls today.


This trench shows where the new side of house wall will be. by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

There's a "drawbridge" over the trench to get to the back garden.


Back trench, side of kitchen, and back garden. by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's the view of the site from the back garden.


Looking down the site from back garden by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

And a slightly different view...


Building site from back garden by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

You can see the marks where they have had to drill through solid sandstone to make the trench in this one. Steve (builder) told us yesterday that building control have been out 3 times already to check the trench work. One of his workers told us that they've taken out a skip of debris a day since they started!


drill holes into sandstone by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Random blocks outside the kitchen door.


used to be morning room and garage by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Have got a lot to do today, OH going to see kitchen people in town, I'll be waiting in for electronic cat flap to arrive, which we then have to deliver to site so it can be built in as the walls go up. :cool: And we have to try and decide where electrics will go, TV which we intend to wall mount, so need channelling for wires etc, which is a bit complicated as we don't have satellite dish yet... Urk, too much to think about!

arroli

UK Maggie, your work seems to be progressing at a fast pace!

We have eventualy cleared all rooms of rubbish and old flooring, and yesterday had first meeting on site with Building Regs Inspector and Building Contractor. Forms completed, fees paid and we now have permission to start work.. scaffolding going up next thursday, which is good news as we desperately need the new roof on before the weather worsens.

Plumber is back again this morning, to make a start removing old central heating system and water tanks, Im in a bit of a panic like you too UK Maggie, he wants to know where we want pipework for all new radiators and sizes of them...havent got that far with planning yet!

Im updating pics on my blog as we go.

ukmaggie45

arroli wrote: »

Im updating pics on my blog as we go.

Hi Arroli, just had a nosey at your blog. You've certainly got a lot of work to do!

I noticed you have a chequerboard of tiles in one of your photos. We had similar (though all the same colour rather than mixed) which turned out to have asbestos in them. It might be an idea to get them tested. They are safe if left in place and covered over, but we are having to have the concrete floors removed and re-poured, so ours had to go.

Fortunately it wasn't hugely expensive to have the tiles removed.

latecomer

@arroli - Congrats on getting approval to start work - hope the weather holds until you get the roof fixed. Can you get access under the floors to change the plmubing or does it need to be right first time?

@maggie - thats some size of blocks you've got there. What dimensions are they? Ours were 100mm thick but they look much more than that. We had both leafs in block rather than one block and one brick so maybe thats were the difference comes from? Not something I know anything about.


I looked a bit further into the proposed solutions for the garage and it turns out the one I really disliked will onto take another 150mm of space over whats there already as the going of the existing steps is much more than the minimum so although the replacement steps would be considerably steeper we wouldn't lose much garage space.

MIL bought a new toy on wednesday - circular saw which was on offer in B&Q so I'm going to cut down the door I rebuilt to the right size for our sitting room. Also going to pick up an electric plane on saturday, which MIL always wants so we're going to share, to finish it off although I might try my hand plane tonight and see how it goes. Really want to get the door on this weekend but we've got lots of visiting to do so there isn't going to be much time for DIY.

ukmaggie45

We met with builder at the bathroom place in the afternoon. We will go for a low(ish) level shower tray rather than the wet room option. We've chosen the shower tray, but OH is out getting fish and chips for supper and I don't know where he wrote down the details!

Then went to the house and found the gales the other day had blown over the bean frame on veg patch and the bird table. The feeder poles were all hanging precariously too. And some of the tomatoes that I didn't get time to trim yet have broken off.

Things are moving on apace with the build. Here's a general view of the site, you can see that the peppledash render on the side of the house is being removed to expose the original brickwork. (this would have been the side wall of the house when it was built back in 1955)


General view from garden by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Builder delivered a load of bricks while we were at the house in the late afternoon. The whole site is really full of stuff!


Piles and piles of blocks and bricks by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This is what the patio looked like yesterday (Thursday) evening.


Patio by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

We have roof tiles! Along with lots of other arcane stuff. :T


We have roof tiles by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Patio from the garden steps, looking towards boundary with next door.


Patio by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

I'm assuming this is to go under the drain inspection hatch? It will be installed somewhere relatively close to where it's stored for now I think.


Drain inspection hatch? by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This shows where the extension will go. After builders had packed up for the night.


view of where extension will be by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Side of house from the garden. This shows more clearly where the old pebble dash is being removed.


Side of house from garden. by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Bricks and blocks by the foundation trench. Latecomer, I don't know what size they are, but the photos OH took this evening (will post when get time to upload them) may make that clearer if you compare to the size of bricks. I didn't get to the house today to measure.


Bricks and blocks by foundation trench by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH locking up for the night.


Locking up for the evening by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Took home a bag full of beans - mixed runner, french and cos violette. The cos violette have gone berserk, loads and loads of beans - will definitely grow them again!

latecomer

ITs amazing the progress they can make at that stage of the project. I wish we were back there so I could tell the original guys where to go and get the rest of it done properly! Anyway no point crying over spilt milk etc etc

Thats a bigger version of the inspection chamber that I'm going to install for our drains, it will have up to 5 input channels and one output. The one we are going to put in is 3 in and 1 out.

No DIY tonight, baby LC was grumpy when I got home and finally got him to sleep by giving him a cuddle and then laying him on my lap. Just finally managed to get him down but I'm not convinced it will be for long. Hoping to get door cut to size tomorrow morning but will need to see how much sleep we get etc. Definitely not going to play with new circular saw if I'm half asleep

ginvzt

The pictures look great! It makes me feel jealous - I want to start working on the house!

We went to a double glazing showroom today. So, we saw the door that we could fit as a front door, and the sliding patio doors (not folding, just sliding - OH doesn't like sliding/folding ones). I was rather unimpressed by the salesmen. We asked for U-values and he just answered it is 1.2. So, we asked is it for patio door or the external doors - for all he said. We asked for a brochure. Opened the last page and it said windows at U=1.4. They couldn't really explain things, and were not very forthcoming. They were just saying it is A rated - ok, good, but I wanted a number.

We like tilt&turn windows and OH asked to give him an idea of how would a window like that cost (so, that he can think if he wants to replace existing in year or 5 years). The guy started explaining to us that the standard ones are better and went to show us how easily you can move them for cleaning, and he was struggling to move it! We managed to get him talking about tilt&turn ones, but he basically gave us an impression that they are rubbish (so why do you have them in your showroom????). In the end, we managed to get a price out of him for a standard window - £560, if you buy 6 windows, it is £390.

The price for what we wanted - composite front door with no glass, back door with half glass, and sliding patio door came up just above £2800. I was really expecting it to be less, around £2000. And the patio door didn't look very nice, rather bulky frame, and you had to slam it quite hard to be able to close it. I guess we will need to do a lot more research. Well, we have time - we sill haven't exchanged contracts.

aliasojo

ginvzt wrote: »

We like tilt&turn windows and OH asked to give him an idea of how would a window like that cost (so, that he can think if he wants to replace existing in year or 5 years). The guy started explaining to us that the standard ones are better and went to show us how easily you can move them for cleaning, and he was struggling to move it! We managed to get him talking about tilt&turn ones, but he basically gave us an impression that they are rubbish (so why do you have them in your showroom????).

We have tilt & turns. They seemed like a good idea and we were very taken with them before we bought them, the salesman told us they were la creme de la creme of windows.....but I would not have them again.

You are very restricted as to what window coverings you have, even things like pelmets don't really work as they are forever getting caught in the top of the window. You can't have anything in front of the window or the window will bang it when opened. If you want any kind of privacy you need to use Perfect Fit blinds which clip on to the window itself. They work well but are dust collectors.

Of course it's all personal choice but just make sure you consider everything before making a firm decision.

TomsMom

Ditto what AJ says about tilt and turns. We had them in previous house because we lived on 1st and 2nd floors and it was the perfect solution to window cleaning. Definitely wouldn't have them again. They were heavy and awkward for me to open and close, especially the big bay windows. I didn't like the fact that for ventilation you could only have the bit at the top open - I like the choice of how much you can have open like you can with a side opening window.