First-time house renovation

ukmaggie45

OH went to the house when the sun came out round mid day.


Hall floor and stairs by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Living room floor from front by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


New kitchen floor meets diner floor by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Living room with new floor from back by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Back of house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Looking through kitchen window to open front door by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Shower mixer over bath by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH was just about to pack up and leave and noticed the woodpecker on the suet cake he put out about 3 days ago. Not the best of photos, but at least proof the woodpecker graced our one year houseday with his presence!


woodpecker by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

I'm hoping to be fit enough to visit the house myself tomorrow. Will muffle up well!

KT1985

:wave:Hello!

Got baby related insomnia, so thought I would come and see how the thread was going. Saw ukmaggie45's pics, and realised that yesterday was 2 years exactly since I went and bought our house at auction!

House is still not quite finished, but getting there- currently decorating one of the bigger bedrooms for Alex (now 9 months) ready for the arrival of the bump in January (not sure whether I came to share that bit of news in the summer).

Not sure it will ever be finished, but not sure it matters that much any more- we have lived here now for 1.5 years quite happily, and one day I might have the time/energy to crack on with some jobs again.

Anyway- not a house pic, but hopefully one to make you smile all the same

Bibbitybob

Aww, lovely pic KT

We finally have something resembling a kitchen! Have put pics on my blog but here are a couple.

View of the kitchen from the hallway before (there's a stud wall up now so can't have the same view). Window is where French doors are now and the kitchen was a tiny galley space. If you look at the floor in the 2nd photo you can see where the wall's been removed.



There's still loads to do as you can see, but it's the first time it's actually looked like a kitchen since September! I can cook again!

Canucklehead

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

OH went to the house when the sun came out round mid day.


Hall floor and stairs by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Living room floor from front by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


New kitchen floor meets diner floor by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Living room with new floor from back by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Back of house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Looking through kitchen window to open front door by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Shower mixer over bath by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

OH was just about to pack up and leave and noticed the woodpecker on the suet cake he put out about 3 days ago. Not the best of photos, but at least proof the woodpecker graced our one year houseday with his presence!


woodpecker by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

I'm hoping to be fit enough to visit the house myself tomorrow. Will muffle up well!

Good morning: excellent progress...and fantastic to see a visit from the Greater Spotted Woodpecker.We've gone through several kilos of sultanas, sunflower seeds, niger, suet bits, mealworms and mixed seed over the past couple of weeks down here. The feathered friends have been suffering with the snow and sub zero temps even here in Kent so happy to see another MSEr helping them out.:beer:

Canucklehead

ukmaggie45

Bibbitybob wrote: »

Aww, lovely pic KT

We finally have something resembling a kitchen! Have put pics on my blog

Hi Bibbety, just looked at your blog earlier. Great to see the progress you're making.

KT, lovely photo, what a cheerful looking babs! :j

Hopeful_5

Gorgeous pic, KT. Kitchen looks great Bibbitybob. Sadly I've not been looking after our local songbirds as I usually would since I started on the renovation . Good on you, Canucklehead .

Maggie I didn't think you were doing it yourself but I'm really impressed with how you manage to keep your builders on track, they are steaming ahead. Great progress. My bungalow is looking similar now the plaster has been done but you had more work to start with and you have an upstairs. Plus wardrobes, bath etc already fitted.

I notice that your hearth opening is larger than mine, Maggie. Was it that size to start with or did you have it enlarged? I had a HETAS/gas safe man round to survey my chimney in prep for the fire (high efficiency, glass fronted convector) being fitted and he said the opening was a bit small and he might have to enlarge it and put a lintel in - after the plastering has all been done! The opening has pretty similar dimensions to those shown in my fire brochure so I'm wondering ......

LC, builders - what are they like!

Andy, lining up radiators is my bugbear at the moment. And they all so seem so wide and take up so much wall space .

All the best everyone.

Hope

ru2days

You can Buy Homebuilding and Renovating magazine for details.

latecomer

@KT - very cute. we've succummbed to a christmasy outfit for LLC but he's not putting it on until christmas eve

@maggie - great pics as always. Question abuot the hall way - is that wooden straps across the concrete floor? None of the rest of the floors appear to have them so just wondering if you know why they are there? Just curious...

We had an interesting end to the week. OH had a local builder round to quote for plastering the dining room and he was asking who was doing the downpipes. Oh said we were looking to get that done and he could give a quote. He then pointed out that the guttering would need to be fixed before the down pipes could be fitted and when asked about this he pointed out they are twisted. Presumably this happened during the snow but as the rest of the original guttering is fine it can only be due to substandard materials or installation (particularly as the pitched area of the roof round the new extension is only a fraction of the size of the rest of the roof). Still not sure how to deal with this TBH - part of me wants to just send an email saying he has 7 days to fix the problem or we will take him to court but I'm not sure how this would affect the rest of the work which I also would like to take him to court for.

Anyway they are going to quote for the guttering/downpipes and also for putting in the concrete ramp although he wants to see it first before quoting as its still buried by snow - which is fair enough I guess

Finally he did get to looking at the dining room and then stated he'd need to get the plasterer round to be able to give a quote...... arrgggghhhh. And of course they are very busy at the moment etc etc but the plasterer says I can do it tomorrow morning........... so obviously really busy!
Anyways its arranged for 5pm tonight so fingers crossed they do a good job.

We spent weekend at MILs and plasterboarded the ceiling in the extension. Was offered my birthday present from MIL a day early - fancy Bosch cordless drill - to help progress things. Also managed to make a start on the walls but I was slacking yesterday as we went out for a birthday lunch and LLC had a snooze just as the food turned up. Result!

ukmaggie45

Canucklehead wrote: »

fantastic to see a visit from the Greater Spotted Woodpecker.We've gone through several kilos of sultanas, sunflower seeds, niger, suet bits, mealworms and mixed seed over the past couple of weeks down here.

Hi Canucklehead, we just love to see the woodpecker. He/she really loves those suet cakes, but will make do with peanuts at a push! We'll be listening for that woodpecker drumming again come spring - heard lots earlier this year. We're trying to keep the feeders well topped up as can only really visit the house Thursday - Sunday (OH works Mon-Wed and it's dark when he finishes)

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

Maggie I didn't think you were doing it yourself but I'm really impressed with how you manage to keep your builders on track, they are steaming ahead. Great progress. My bungalow is looking similar now the plaster has been done but you had more work to start with and you have an upstairs. Plus wardrobes, bath etc already fitted.

Our builder keeps his crew in order. ;-) We try and meet up with him at least once a week, but I haven't managed the last few weeks as not been well enough.

Had our first problem yesterday though. Builder phoned OH to ask how we wanted the tiles in the shower room. The short wall faces you as you sit on the loo, so we wanted it to look OK and decided that we wanted a whole tile centrally placed (they are big tiles, 60x30) with cut tiles (15cm) each side. When OH went to the house and took photos he found that they've done exactly what we didn't want and put 2 equally cut tiles across the wall.


shower by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

So OH phones builder to tell him, and he agreed that we'd told him we wanted it with one central tile, and he had told the tilers that. So today those tiles will be redone.

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

I notice that your hearth opening is larger than mine, Maggie. Was it that size to start with or did you have it enlarged? I had a HETAS/gas safe man round to survey my chimney in prep for the fire (high efficiency, glass fronted convector) being fitted and he said the opening was a bit small and he might have to enlarge it and put a lintel in - after the plastering has all been done! The opening has pretty similar dimensions to those shown in my fire brochure so I'm wondering ......

I think that it's the size it was when the gas fire came out. It was a very big old gas fire, a Cannon Gas Miser, very similar to the one my parents had installed when we moved to the Wirral back in 1961! We're still waiting for the new gas fire to arrive, OH called them yesterday and I think he said they expected to get to us some time in the next week.

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

Andy, lining up radiators is my bugbear at the moment. And they all so seem so wide and take up so much wall space .

That's basically why we decided to go for the Thermaskirt. Can't wait for it to be installed and get some heat back in the house! We went round on Sunday afternoon, and it was absolutely freezing, plus we have to open all the doors and windows to try and get some of the condensation out - the plaster is taking ages to dry out!

Loads of birds in the garden, and was very pleased to see the nuthatch back. Could hear the goldfinches twittering away (they seem to be very chatty birds!) but didn't see them.

latecomer wrote: »

@maggie - great pics as always. Question abuot the hall way - is that wooden straps across the concrete floor? None of the rest of the floors appear to have them so just wondering if you know why they are there? Just curious...

LOL LC, you've done it again! Asked me a question that I'm clueless as to the answer! If I get to see builder on Friday I'll ask him. One thought was that it might be to protect the conduits for electrics and gas? Don't know if that sounds likely?

latecomer

@maggie - its entirely possible thats what its for although if that was case I'd have expected to see more of it in the other rooms. If you get a chance to ask (just blame your nosey MSE co-posters ) please do .

Plasterer turned up at 3pm instead of 5pm and was finished before I'd left work to get the money, nevermind got home. So OH said he could wait or pop back later. He chose the latter which was good as there were a few bits I wasn't entirely happy with. I explained when he turned up and asked him to have a look. He agreed it wasn't quite right and went and fetched his tools and polished it a little more.

Left the radiator on a little with the window open to help it dry out. think it will be the weekend at the earliest before we can paint. and we've got my xmas meal on saturday (with partners this year) so sunday could be a write off