First-time house renovation

stolt

typeractive wrote: »

Yeah - though your house is looking top class! You've obviously spent a lot on decent gear!! Mine will be much more 'basic in comparison', which I'm still taming the management of spending...and I still want a car! hahah Boys and their toys eh? Out of interest, what car would you like?

As for being 35 and a hot hatch - you can live that look for a while longer...well I hope so as I intend to. That and the fact that my garage will only house a hatch anyway!! hehe Wish I had the money for a house with a garage for a weekend toy and drive for the commute. Maybe when I make millions on my first house sale I will be able to do so!! hahah!

Saying that my commute is only 26miles there and back per day, so I'll have to have a car that is fun and practical, and small, and german. Though until then, I'll have to continue to shop for bathrooms, kitchens and all the rest of the stuff!! BOO!

thanks for the comments on the house, guy over the road is more interested in cars his opinion is you only lie once and by the time the kids have grown up he will be too old for a porsche!!:eek: never too old.

My communte is about 40-50miles a day round trip so not too bad, although saying that its a pain A road that can take 1.5hours just to drive up it!!!

If money was no object but keep within reason without having a supercar it would be Mercedes 63 AMG or BMW M3, back in the real world i've narrowed down my search to mark 5 Golt GTi, looked at the Golf R32, but reviewers suggest even with 4WD its slower and heavier than the GTi and alot more costly.... or a BMW 135i M sport, or a Mazda 3 MPS, last two including the R32 are 3litres turbos, so there going to drink alittle bit more than the little MG

Still want to get the dinning room done this year if i can though, although really wanted to take the kids abroad, spain tenerife etc this year, haent been about in 5-6 years!!! and the eldest is 8 now and it wont be soon before she wont want to be seen with mum and dad!!


Right off to take the MG to see whats wrong with her!!!

typeractive

Nice selection of cars there Stolt!

Good luck with the MG - fingers x'd for ya!!

latecomer

Cars

I've always loved cars and changed it every year until I got the Golf (Mk4 GT TDI 130) and I just cant see sense in changing it. Paid about 10X what I usually did for a car but its been worth it. Its powerful enough to be fun, cheap enough to insure (although I'm sure 15 years no claims helps!) and its economical even in the town. Only downside is that it doesn't have Isofix points for the baby seat

Mind you if I want to feel raw torque I take OHs car - 3.0L V6 diesel Saab 95 estate - now thats got power (about 175bhp IIRC), more torque than you can shake a stick at and handles relatively well on the small roads too Downside is that it eats tyres and they are not cheap.

back on topic - didn't get anything done over the Christmas period. Had the hordes here on/around Christmas so was busy with preparations for that. Also had folks in for new year and found the kitchen and sitting room combo worked perfectly with the 4 kids. Also been stuck with bugs since before Christmas. We ended up at teh hospital on Christmas eve with LLC which wasn't good but just a precaution - got the all clear and home in a couple of hours. OH has had a throat infection and cold which I now have. Went to the annual rugby yesterday and drank far too much much considering it was only the second time in a year that I've had more than a couple of pints and managed to keep it all down! Not even feeling that bad today considering

Going to try and do some sanding in the dining room as I did manage to fill a lot of the small holes at some point before Christmas but may have to just stick to the bits I can do by hand as I suspect the sander will be a step too far for my head today :rotfl:

Might try and get some more pics on the blog at some point just to let you all see what it looks like now - i.e. skip a lot of the details and just post some of the pics.

typeractive

Yeah - sorry about the old car chat.

Here's my latest blog entry. I did look to see if I could export the gallery into posts here, but couldn't see an obvious outcome for that, as I'm sure people can't be bothered to read all my thoughts, and pictures are much more pretty.

Clicky

stolt

typeractive wrote: »

Yeah - sorry about the old car chat.

Here's my latest blog entry. I did look to see if I could export the gallery into posts here, but couldn't see an obvious outcome for that, as I'm sure people can't be bothered to read all my thoughts, and pictures are much more pretty.

Clicky

love your blog, looks well laid out, almost professional..... off to sort mine cos i dont think it looks that good.

http://stirlingjob.blogspot.com/

typeractive

hah - thanks!! :beer::beer:

Posts aren't that frequent, though when I do post I spend quite a lot of time sorting it out and trying to add the important details. Sounds silly, though I want some of the specifics to be handy to potentially help others out with bits and bobs. I also optimise the images to make them load a bit easier on the screen / quicker. However it seems to be quite slow at times. Not sure if it's my connection or the site.

Anyway - thanks again

Whilst my blog looks good, your actual house looks the nuts!
:j

Hopeful_5

Best wishes for 2011, everyone :beer:. And may all your reno work proceed brilliantly!

I've been away over Christmas (nothing exciting unfortunately) so not up to speed with all your goings on. I've also had the flu that's been doing the rounds, came on on Christmas Eve and I'm still feeling rough.

My kitchen was fitted the week before Christmas but Howdens closed for the hols so the couple of things that needed changing have had to wait until this week. I am amazed at how builders merchants etc have just shut up shop completely for a whole fortnight. I was hoping to get my bathroom stuff ordered the week after Christmas but I'll have to do it tomorrow, extra VAT and all. I was also hoping to get delivery of my fire and surround etc but they were shut too so I'll be lucky if it comes by Friday, as they promised just before they went off on 23 Dec. It's been a bit of an eye opener - how different from retail.

I did order my carpets and vinyl but the fitting is obviously on hold until everything else is finished.

I plough on (exhausted).

Hope

aliasojo

Loads of sympathy for anyone who's under the weather, fingers crossed you feel better soon Hope.

Well I've just done a silly thing. I spotted a lovely oak dining table in a shop way before Xmas. This was a solid thing, 2.1m long x 1 m wide with huge chunky crossed legs, price tag £1033 (for the table only). I'd been eyeing it up for a while but couldn't pay that money for it. Yesterday it had a sale tag on it for a little over £500. It was the last one and I hummed and hawed for ages, then when I saw another lady pointing to it, I grabbed the shop owner and told him I'd buy it. :rotfl:

Problem is, my room is only 3m x 2 m. :rotfl:The doorway (no door) is at the end of the room so one of the short ends of the table will go up against the opposite wall, which will leave 900mm at the doorway end to walk round and as I'm having benches rather than chairs, we'll just need to slide up the bench either side and breathe in.

The table I have at the moment is 900mm wide and it's fine so I'm hoping an extra 10cms width wont make that much difference, especially since there now wont be any chair backs.

I must be really worried though as I dreamt about it all last night. :rotfl: I don't know why I do these things. They seem so so-able in my head when I'm justifying buying things. 'Tis a lovely table.

ukmaggie45

Hopeful, sorry to hear you had flu over Crimbole. Do look after yourself and take things as easy as possible until you are properly over it. Hugs. We just ordered our carpets and vinyl too, not sure when it'll get fitted though - still need to paint and the stairway is still "open plan" so guess we need to have the balustrades in place before carpets.

Ooooh, Aliasojo, you wicked person buying a new table! Must admit I've been trawling the sales, but not seen any tables that I fancy online yet.

Went round to the house yesterday afternoon for the first time for ages. Builder and plumber have started installing the thermaskirt, and as we left around 4pm he set off to pick up the boiler ready to install this morning.


thermaskirt main bedroom corner by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

LC, here's a shot of the hall floor where one of those wooden battens was.


pipes for thermaskirt endtering back of living room by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

We had some discussion as to best thing to do to heat the shower room. In the end we decided to have a tiny radiator in there by the toilet, if it turns out the room gets too hot we'll just have to turn it off. Best to get installed now though, as the asphalt will be poured maybe early next week, and it'll be more difficult to do anything about putting in another rad afterwards.

Also asked for the towel warmer thing in the bathroom to be raised up a bit further from the floor.

With a bit of luck we can get the kitchen bods in next week or early the one after. Just hope that fits in OK with them - might have to visit sometime today as want to change my mind over the utility cupboards and worktop if it isn't too late.

OH fed the birds before we left, they're not half going through the seed and suet balls! It's the Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of Jan, it's going to be really hard to do as there are so many birds in the garden! :j

ukmaggie45

OH is trying to work out how much paint we'll need to paint the walls. Any recommendations of manufacturer? I'm after a matt finish, it's too soon to do egg shell or anything like that anyway I think. Not keen on silk finish and stuff like that. This is just to get the house habitable for starters - we'll live with it for a while before deciding if we want any wall paper etc.

Builder reckons we could begin painting next week or the one after. He's going to get in touch with the chap who painted the render for us.