First-time house renovation

stolt

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

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

yep know exactly how that feels when you expect the works to take so long and they overun, we had been advised our build will take 3 week, 5 weeks max to install etc.... how naive were we, in the end it took a year!!!! did a lot of growing up over that year but and its certainly made me a less trustful person!:)

managed to install double sockets in the girls rooms over the weekend (cant believe in a house only built 10 odd years ago that the builders installed singles) didnt get round to painting around them, as i fought my nemisis again, the wallpapering of that dreaded wall and window. took us all day for the smallish wall in the whole house! heres the three rooms, all different wallpapers (just to make things awkward) but same colours. pics take with my phone so not sure how good they will come out..

<a href="http://imgur.com/ddDi5&quot; title="Hosted by imgur.com">http://imgur.com/ddDi5.jpg</a&gt;

latecomer

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

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

We were meant to be finished in 12-14 weeks but 18 months later we're still at it.....

And at the rate things are being done its going to take me another 18 months to finish things off.

But, and this is the really important thing, its all been worth it. House is fantastic and perfect for us (or will be once I get some storage so we can put things away). I'd do it again alhtough perhaps not for a couple of years

aliasojo

latecomer wrote: »

I'd do it again ...........

:eek::eek::eek:

Not me. Never, ever, again. :rotfl:

Well I'm still 'one bench ojo' at the moment. :sad: The 1st set of replacement legs for my second bench went missing, the second set of replacement legs arrived with the same issues along with a new issue all of their own and I'm now waiting on the 3rd set which should arrive tomorrow. Any chance you could all kinda think positive & happy thoughts for me and my legs please? Maybe a collective positive vibe would help. It worked for Robin Williams when he was Peter Pan.

To be fair to the company, they just import the benches and the problems haven't been their fault but it's becoming a wee bit of a nuisance now so I hope tomorrow's lot are A-ok.

stolt

aliasojo wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:

Not me. Never, ever, again. :rotfl:

Well I'm still 'one bench ojo' at the moment. :sad: The 1st set of replacement legs for my second bench went missing, the second set of replacement legs arrived with the same issues along with a new issue all of their own and I'm now waiting on the 3rd set which should arrive tomorrow. Any chance you could all kinda think positive & happy thoughts for me and my legs please? Maybe a collective positive vibe would help. It worked for Robin Williams when he was Peter Pan.

To be fair to the company, they just import the benches and the problems haven't been their fault but it's becoming a wee bit of a nuisance now so I hope tomorrow's lot are A-ok.

wonky legs sound painful... although i'm a leg man so i will be thinking of them.......

had the same problems with the kids beds, importer just transported the wooden cartons straight from the dock and when we opened the all damaged, same damage on two of the beds, trouble his he imported them when he had sales so we had to wait another 45 days for another consigment to hit the country, similar issues, so another wait of 45 days!

andrew-b

lol... legless again aliasojo! They must have gone walkabout! ...ok ok i'll stop!

I ordered our cotbed yesterday from mamas and papas which is being delivered Monday (mamas and papas mattress for it coming from argos on Friday - saved about £15 by going to different shops so very MSE!). Seriously if we had more time and i owned more powertools i'd probably have been tempted to build my own. Mainly got cotbed now as VAT was still frozen on it and in sale so wasn't prepared to wait and watch the price go upwards plus it matches the futon in the nursery really well.

Hoping to get lidded storage boxes and underbed storage boxes from Lidl tomorrow to help solve our many storage issues. Have another storage crisis developing in the kitchen larder too so need to fit another shelf in there. Everywhere i look there is a storage issue of some sort!

stolt

andrew-b wrote: »

lol... legless again aliasojo! They must have gone walkabout! ...ok ok i'll stop!

I ordered our cotbed yesterday from mamas and papas which is being delivered Monday (mamas and papas mattress for it coming from argos on Friday - saved about £15 by going to different shops so very MSE!). Seriously if we had more time and i owned more powertools i'd probably have been tempted to build my own. Mainly got cotbed now as VAT was still frozen on it and in sale so wasn't prepared to wait and watch the price go upwards plus it matches the futon in the nursery really well.

Hoping to get lidded storage boxes and underbed storage boxes from Lidl tomorrow to help solve our many storage issues. Have another storage crisis developing in the kitchen larder too so need to fit another shelf in there. Everywhere i look there is a storage issue of some sort!

only gets worse with kiddies..... between my 3 girls they must have about 150 coats, 1000 shoes, scarfs, winter hats.... come on how many scarfs and winter has does one girl needed.... shoes i'm not going to start on because the missus is just as bad, althouh all her ever see her wearing are those UGG boots and that includes summer!!!

stolt

oh i forgot to put pics up of the finished wallpapering....

arroli

stolt wrote: »

oh i forgot to put pics up of the finished wallpapering....

Stolt...beautiful wallpaper, your girls must be so happy with their new bedroom! makes me want to decorate one of ours in pink shades too:)

andrew-b

stolt wrote: »

only gets worse with kiddies..... between my 3 girls they must have about 150 coats, 1000 shoes, scarfs, winter hats.... come on how many scarfs and winter has does one girl needed.... shoes i'm not going to start on because the missus is just as bad, althouh all her ever see her wearing are those UGG boots and that includes summer!!!

Better be a boy then lol (seriously boy or girl is ok by us). Though i've got plenty of my own man junk (cables, computer parts etc...and that before we even mention DIY!)! But i'm certain it's not going to get any better on the storarge front as we haven't even started on toys yet! My sister has 2 boys and a girl and keep specifying "don't buy any big presents we don't have room"...they extended upwards into loft but it's not really solved it as they now have less loft storage space!

I get the feeling either we are going to have to go upwards into loft at some point or move...the latter is more appealing! And i have to say we are avidly following rightmove not that we have the cashflow to even pay for moving costs at moment. So there could be a 2nd time renovation project at some point.....i'm a great believer in child labour so might have to train up my sucessor!:rotfl:

andrew-b

stolt wrote: »

oh i forgot to put pics up of the finished wallpapering....

Looks reallly good...i've not ventured beyond lining paper yet so haven't had to pattern match yet....though i enjoy papering more than i think you do so might give it a go some day!