First-time house renovation

ukmaggie45

Well here I am back again already! Here's the usual front shot, will have to try and make a flick book of all of these when it's finished! As always, clicky for bigger pics.

House from across the road by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's a shot looking up through the "ceiling" of the extension into the new roof. This is just so beautiful, I wish we could just glaze it and keep it as is!

Lookin up into roof by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

More pictures on my Flickr set, but don't want to overload the thread with a lot of very similar pics.

andrew-b

Yep i know what you mean maggie so had a day of doing pretty much nothing. Your house won't look the same house after you've finished! Glad this time you got away with just the lock damage. There's been a burglary in our road recently so we're being a bit extra vigilant. As we got home this evening someone was wandering past who seemed to be watch us as got out the car..probably just someone being nosy!

Went to B&Q this evening to get some timber to replace the door stop on lounge door. Whilst there was looking at electric planers and couldn't help notice on display a 610W planer which had £19.98 on the label but then a red clearance label on top of it that said £8. It seemed to good to be true but it was quite clear on the label. When i looked the numbers for the items on the display board didn't match what was on shelves below but there was only 2 boxes saying "B&Q Value 610W planer" and the box contents matched the display item. So we took it to the till..waited to pay with a queue behind us. Cashier scanned the bar code of planer and it came up "£22.98" so i said that it should be £8 as on the shelf. Cashier said "show me where it says that" so left me at the till and went with OH to look. Cashier told OH there was an error as the barcode on the box didn't match that on the display board so OH kicked up a fuss and said it was ridiculous and that we didn't want it if it wasn't £8 . You dont mess with hormonal pregnant women if you know what's best for you! Funnily enough most people don't usually read barcodes! None on display were labelled £22.98. They returned to the till and asked someone else who said to give it to us for £8! I couldn't help but smile at their mistake and the cashier must have noticed as when we left she said "well done"! I expect by now they've corrected their pricing on the shelf!

So now i have a planer for £8. Think i will practice a bit before i start attacking the new bedroom door with it!

suisidevw

Maggie - best alarm - a dog!

There is absolutely zero change someone could break into our house without being scared off by Alfie! He scares me when he barks and he knows when someones coming around the house and goes loopy!

ukmaggie45

suisidevw wrote: »

Maggie - best alarm - a dog!

No chance - we are cat people, plus I couldn't walk a dog, and OH doesn't get time. Maybe we should train a Guard Cat! But yes, I do take your point that a dog can be great to deter burglars.

Here's the pics that OH took yesterday. I'm still not feeling well enuff to get to the house, will have to tomorrow (Friday) irrespective, so am trying to rest up and hoping migrainous visual stuff will stay away for a bit.

Here's Wednesday evening front view. Tiles are just beginning to be laid on the new extension roof.

Front of house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Looking up into roof from utility room. The green stuff (breathable membrane?) is over the whole of the extension roof now.

Looking up to roof by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This is looking along the edge of the roof from the front bedroom window. Shows new soffits (? am not good on techy terms for roofs!) in place.

View of soffits (?) from bedroom window by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Three of the doors onto the landing. The two to the left both open into what is now a single bedroom. We're knocking the big bedroom into the box room. The door in the middle of the three will be blocked off, which will give us space in the bedroom to install fitted wardrobes in the future. I think we'll be too broke after the rest of all this to do the wardrobes at the same time!

Landing, middle door to be blocked off. by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's the back of the house. It's a bit bleached out as was taken in the evening with sun illuminating the house from the front. At least you can see there's the beginning of slates on the extension roof.

Back of house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Hopefully OH will get some pics of today's progress when he gets in from work.

ukmaggie45

Thursday evening at the house

First the obligatory front shot. Not a huge amount of difference.

Front of house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

But take a look at the back - the roof is fully tiled. Sorry the picture quality is so bad - it's hard to get a decent photo of the back in the evenings as the sky is so glarey.

Back of house, tiles on roof by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

We have most of a "ceiling" in the diner area, or perhaps that should be a floor in the new bedroom.

Looking up in the diner by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's the view through the loft hatch.

Looking up into the loft by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This is looking down into the bedroom from the loft, you can see the floor in place.

Looking down from loft into new bedroom on extension by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

And here's my favourite of the inside the roof pics.

Looking up at the roof by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH is at the house now to meet with our builder. I'm still suffering the after effects of some sort of virus so haven't gone. He's taken the camera though, so I expect we'll have some more photos later.

I'm hoping I'll be fit enough to get to the house tomorrow, we still have to finalise some of the light and power fitting positions. And prob have a think about some other stuff too. Bathroom for instance...

stolt

wow maggie, havent been on this thread for some time, seems like ages. I think the last time i was on here they were demolishing the old bit and putting footings in. We had some replacement doors for the kitchen and they out of line again, wouldnt mind but they come from italy so its not a case of going back to the factory down the road and getting new ones made. so its going to take another 2-3 weeks !!

the worse news is yesterday i noticed a long patch which can only be descrbed as a stain in the ceiling, t seems the rubber roof that glassbox.co.uk installed is leaking, either side are perfecting round circles which would indicate that there are screws or nails above too. Its going yellow s definatley water, cant see much on top of the roof but in my head its one of the roof beams that the wate seems to have gone along and spread underneth...... fed up because this room from the start has been a nightmare, nothing has gone right and it seems like a curse!! glassbox went into liquidation so its something that we will now have to sort out ourselves.

ukmaggie45

Oh Stolt, so sorry to hear about your ceiling. It felt kinda wrong to "Thank" such bad news. :eek: Here's hoping it's something minor and easy to fix.

We're going to finish off marking up the electrics this afternoon. And I have 2 kilos of garlic to plant, but am still not feeling too good, so will prob leave it till next week sometime. I'm hoping there'll be time for OH to mow the lawn - looking decidedly shaggy again. We should be doing the autumn dig too, but suspect we'll run out of time as OH has to collect DD1 from DD2 and take her to the station.

Builder says things will not appear to be moving so fast now the roof is on and it's waterproof. It's more fiddly stuff like the electrics. Also we have to choose gas fire. We went and looked at the one we thought we wanted yesterday, but it's GINORMOUS, so we've possibly chosen something else, now need to check with builder that it'll be OK to go in the living room.

I'm very pleased that we decided to knock the main bedroom into the box room, it looks and feels very different already.

aliasojo

Not so good stolt. Sometimes I wonder if we should just leave things alone, trying to improve things just seems to tempt fate. Or at least it does in my house!

I've spent the day swearing at stainless steel screws. Useless, useless, horrible, hateful things. (Get how annoyed I am? Those words are the MSE version, the other version would have been more like (*&*%$%$£$%!!!! etc etc.:D)

I bought stainless screws from Screwfix. I was making my own shelves and shelf supports from left over oak and needed ss screws. Problem is, the oak is hard and the screws are not, In fact they're as soft as putty and the heads keep breaking off them. I do drill the oak first in case anyone wonders btw.

Had enough for today, I'm off to go soak in a bath and ignore everything and everyone.

stolt

hi, yeah i feel like that sometimes aliasojo...... well i was going to have a lazy day, kick back with some fast food and watch the grand prix today, about 11am i went outside to cut the wisteria from getting into the gutters at the front, after doing that i cut the ivy around the gate (that stuff grows like its possessed) , so i got the ladder out, and had alook at the flat roof, the gutter downhole drain thing (thats the technical name!) was blocked by moss from the roof falling off, wasnt totally blocked but got all that out, and the water seems to sit in the middle of the roof, i believe its a design fault with the build, there isnt enough run off for my liking although i cant do much about it now! washed all the dirt off and then why i was up there i started to clean the gutters on the house and the soffit boards, thats a thankless task, covered me an the missues in dirt from the gutter and moss, not a pretty sight, will have to paint the soffits next year as the wood is on the turn..... so managed to get back of the house and one side, need to do the front, does really look different after doing, nice and clean.

My missus finally got wallpaper sorted for the lounge so i think i'll be doing that next weekend...... good weather in the south today..

Hopeful_5

Sorry to read about your problems with ceiling and doors, Stolt . Hope you can get these sorted without too much hassle.

I still haven't got over last week's torrential rain and my exposed insulation (the breeze blocks still haven't all dried out) and today when I went to the bungalow the insulation at the bottom of the door openings had been shredded, presumably by a fox. The new roof is due to be started on Monday but considering my build started only a week after Maggie's, this is somewhat overdue - and hence, no doubt, my problems :mad:.

I'll be grey by the end of this.

Hope