First-time house renovation

typeractive

SAWEEET! Nice one Maggie!

Wish I could move as fast as you seem to be!! Va va vooom

andrew-b

Looks good maggie!

TomsMom...hows things going with TomsDad?

Not much to report here housewise other than the continual clear out of spare room to become nursery. Not been much room to move in there with all the baby gear gradually piliing up though. Could really use an extra room to put it all in!

andrew-b

ffarysam wrote: »

Apart from that, we've got a wall to knock down, a few windows and doors to move/replace, a new kitchen and bathroom to fit, a damp problem to sort out, etc etc........

Huh? apart from what?

latecomer

@maggie - looks great all round. Have you got any indication of when you might be able to move in yet?

@andy - posting at 1:20am - thought of new arrival giving you sleepless nights already?

Nothing to report from here - managed to get an hour to fill a lot of the remaining holes in the dining room but thats about it. Hoping to get some more time tonight but LLC still not quite right so need to wait and see. Areas around sockets, window and old fireplace are going to need quite a bit of work to get them to an acceptable standard, wishing we'd had the wall with the fireplace skimmed as it would have made life a lot easier.

OH got a quote for doing the drive and path - £6000 which is about £4000 more than I would spend. Mind you the drive itself was only £4000 for nice blocks and building retaining walls but was using our stone for facing the walls. I've got no intention of paying someone to do the path - or at least not until I've had a shot at it

TomsMom

andrew-b wrote: »

Looks good maggie!

TomsMom...hows things going with TomsDad?

Not much to report here housewise other than the continual clear out of spare room to become nursery. Not been much room to move in there with all the baby gear gradually piliing up though. Could really use an extra room to put it all in!

TomsDad has just come back from seeing consultant following his 4 weeks of radiotherapy he had in December. He has been quite poorly with the after effects but consultant said all has gone well. He sees the other consultant (original one) next week. Not really sure of the prognosis now, perhaps next week he'll find out a bit more.

I hope Mrs Andy is keeping well. I think you'd better get started on the nursery soon, time goes so quickly, you'll be needing it before you know it :rotfl: .

andrew-b

Yeah i'm a bit of night owl these days...up late at night...up late in the morning..trouble is OH is on maternity leave now so becoming a bit of a doss house ...sure it's not going to last! Though at least one day of every week we have to be at maternity for 9am for diabetic clinics.

Driveway sounds like a job for late spring/summer then you can shove LLC in buggy with a sunshade and get on with it (i'm sure there is some naiveity there!)! Can quite believe the £6k quote...physical labour usually comes with a healthy price tag. Talking of buggies ours together with accessories (one being UV sunshade!) is ready for collection now...not that we've got anywhere to put it...argh!

andrew-b

TomsMom wrote: »

TomsDad has just come back from seeing consultant following his 4 weeks of radiotherapy he had in December. He has been quite poorly with the after effects but consultant said all has gone well. He sees the other consultant (original one) next week. Not really sure of the prognosis now, perhaps next week he'll find out a bit more.

I hope Mrs Andy is keeping well. I think you'd better get started on the nursery soon, time goes so quickly, you'll be needing it before you know it :rotfl: .

Everything crossed for him then and hope his through the worst of things..send him our best wishes!

Mrs B is doing ok...on week 31 now! She's got gestational diabetes though so maternity is becoming too familiar for my liking....especially when i heard the wailing from the other side of the building the other day!

Her blood pressure went through the roof at one point but seems to have returned to normal levels so think it was stress related. Either way the baby won't be coming late..possibly being induced early but will know more in a couple of weeks at next growth scan. We're booked in for a few antenatal classes in february. Pretty organised on buying what is needed.

GSDog

Just a quick update on my bungalow project.

It's been very slow for the past couple of months, mainly because we've decided to do 90% of the work ourselves. We knocked the chimney down and removed both of the chimney breasts in the lounge and bedroom. They hadn't been used for about 50 years and were taking up a lot of valuable floor space. Both of the rooms now look much larger.

We're waiting for the structural engineer calculations so that we can knock the wall down between the dining room and lounge. We'll need building regs approval for that. Hopefully we'll have this done over the next couple of weeks.

The new double glazing and back door have now been ordered, all with georgian bars which is the same style as the old windows. There is a 6 - 8 week wait but that may actually be a blessing because we want to finish the structural work before the nice new shiny windows are put in.

We've knocked part of a wall through between the bathroom and one of the bedrooms to make the bathroom larger. The bedroom was huge and the bathroom was small so it definitely made sense. We've left part of the wall in place for a nice built-in wardrobe for the bedroom. The bathroom is looking much bigger now and we've almost finished building the stud partition wall. We can now have a separate shower and bath.

We'll be finishing the stud partition wall this weekend and will hopefully order the radiators, pipes and fittings to start replumbing the entire bungalow.

It's been incredibly stressful so far. I just can't wait until all the main structural work and the plumbing and electrics are done. I love designing and decorating but knocking chimneys and walls down in this horrible weather isn't fun.

latecomer

@GSDog - its like having a baby, can be very tiring, stressful and demanding but its worth it. We've had no end of trouble with our building work but the house is great now even though its not finished.

@andy - price is excessive IMO but then the owner of the company lives round the corner and drives a new Landrover Dicsovery with all fancy logos etc. Also they've recently bought started a cafe too so I know why his prices are as they are

We've had a couple of minor issues - found that the work top joint at the sink (which wasn't great) obviously isn't sealed as its taken in water and swollen up. Have taped over it to keep out any more water and am going to tyr and get some G clamps tomorrow to try and compress it back down in the hope it dries out and isn't too noticable. Alternative is just to seal it to stop it getting any worse. Going to photograph it in case I decide to take action against the second builder although I'll give him one more chance prior to that.

Also tonight OH tried to have a very hot bath and found that the bath tap isn't getting hot hot. Hot enough for a shower but not for a steaming hot bath. Sink tap is fine so I'm guessing its the mixer tap at the bath. Will need to see if if the instructions say anything about taking it apart but failing that I'll need to contact the manufacturer.

Hopeful_5

Hello everyone , I've not been able to get on here since early Jan (lack of time and laptop) so I've been ages catching up. Everything seems to have moved on so much in such a short while.

Andy, I know it's like trying to stop the tide but I do hope Mrs B can keep her stress levels down for the sake of her BP. Trouble is, worrying about it makes it worse. Maybe relaxation techniques/meditation? Not that I can ever manage it though, but good luck. (Give her a massage, that helps)

TomsMom, best wishes for TD.

Aliasojo, I can see why you fell for that table. I think that if you had got a table small enough to walk around it would have been too small a table to be of use.

Stolt, good luck with getting the leaks and wallpapering sorted. I know how it all feels, we all do . (Btw, I'm in Essex too).

Maggie, looking good and great pics as usual! All the best for getting in soon. I'm having paint put on the walls too and I ordered the bathroom at the weekend. I've got my fingers crossed it all looks as I am imagining. It is so hard having to buy stuff you can't actually see and feel. I've visited numerous bathroom showrooms but they haven't stocked most of the stuff I'm buying so there's a lot of guessswork.

My main worry at the moment though is that the cement screed in the extension has developed smallish 'pot holes' here and there. The floor was laid during that awful cold weather around mid-December and apparently it's because small pieces of sand hadn't completely thawed. Lovely. I'm concerned that this might just get worse and worse as time goes on. The floor looks completely dry but I expect is takes quite a long while for it to dry completely, although I have had the heating on the whole while. My builder will no doubt say I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but that's par for the course.

Also, the builder has put some ordinary white flexible ducting in for the cooker hood (which I haven't bought yet) rather than the silver flame retardant type. It might also only be 100mm when the hoods need 120/150mm. I'm going to ask him to change it but I don't expect he'll be too happy with that.

It's all been going on for far too long and I'm fed-up, exhausted and I've had enough. When the building work started in early September I honestly thought I would be in by late November. How wrong can you be?

Hopeful x