First-time house renovation

stolt

andrew-b wrote: »

There are all sorts of coatings these days though they are mainly used commercially. Resin-bonded aggregates may do the job over the top of the existing tarmac. Have a look here. But only go over the tarmac if it's in good condition. This is the sort of thing they use to do those different tactile type coatings on roads for bus lanes, pedestrian crossings etc i think.
Loose gravel isn't great for a driveway IMHO as some will end up lost to the road or embedded in your tyres and it's not the easiest of stuff to walk on.


Oh yeah and yesterday our car wouldn't start. Power to electrics ..but not enough to start it. Phoned club toyota..AA had a new battery in within the hour ..think it helped that i said "pregnant wife needs to pick up a prescription at doctors" (not that she made it in time as they closed early for staff training!)...£71.49 ugh

yeah thats the stuff ive been looking at i posted a job up at mybuilder and got a local come back and say they will hot tar and gravel for £1200 (which includes taking the old tarmac up) went back and said is that tarmac? he replied no thats hot tar and gravel!!! confused dot com!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:rotfl:


batterys are expenisve for cars, it as £70 something for my little MG!! anyhow dont get me on cars, have the worse luck with them....


EDIT, ok got in from work and googled hot tar and gravel driveway and i was wrong, its not tarmac!! its this and sounds pretty good.

http://www.landscape-design-advice.com/tar-and-chip-driveways.html

latecomer

Thanks for teh responses on the worktops - just thought my uncle is a retired joiner so he might be worth asking - might even manage to get him to take a look if I'm lucky (or more correctly if I mention it to my aunt who'll probably send him round )

@stolt - camera is a Canon 1000d with kit lens. Haven't done anything with it yet other than photograph my dinner while having an initial play. Need to get it figured out for our holiday though so dont have long!

council are re-doing the playground in the park opposite the house with large JCB and OH was tempted to go ask if they would dig up the drive. I was a little concerned about pipes etc with the size of the JCB. Eternal coward me

typeractive

stolt wrote: »

Did they drop the price,

Yeah - spoke to them on the phone. Still the same price for everyone else on ebay though! Said they were down to last stock so bunged teh prices up! Usually I'd deck them off, BUT they were the only supplier of what I wanted in that size! Supply & demand I guess! Ah well.

had a result, the youngest had a hospital appointment this morning, it overrun so when we came back i re roofed the kids playhouse with new felt and got the fake grass back on, plumber can round and at 4pm and cured the air lock which made the pressure drop in the shower, also changed the gate valve on the hot water cylinder and then changed another gate valve in the loft as it was stuck and only ltting a bit of water through. Plumber wouldnt take any cash off me for that, said a he did the moving the mains these things happen, if anyone needs a plumber in around essex london area i said i'd pass his name on really top bloke to deal with, spent three hours here today and no charge.


Getting itchy feet, lookng at the front gaden, driveway is part tarmac'd i want a gravel driveway, and theres my problem so ideally need to take up the tarmac, but trying to work away around it but think it will be too slippy with just gravel over tarmac....

Any chance he can come up North? Sounds like a top bloke. My plumber is due back on Sunday or Monday. Really hope it's Sunday as I need to be around to tell him what I want etc, otherwise I'm sure he'll do a quick job. The thing is, he's good on price, does know his stuff, has been great for my mum and dad, pretty honest about his prices etc etc. He even knows what looks good, but I don't get his logic for certain things. The mind boggles! Ah well hopefully the first fix is nearly finished when he sorts out some more pipework...to be continued!

sunshinetours

stolt wrote: »

EDIT, ok got in from work and googled hot tar and gravel driveway and i was wrong, its not tarmac!! its this and sounds pretty good.

http://www.landscape-design-advice.com/tar-and-chip-driveways.html

Be careful if you require planning or not as may be classed as non porous surface? Sounds an interesting option though.
Its something we need to consider to replace our horrible imprinted concrete drive at some point so may be another option!

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/pavingfrontgarden/#Permeablesurfaces
Looks like asphalt can be classed as porous so probably not relevant on my above post then - worth checking though!

aliasojo

sunshinetours wrote: »

Be careful if you require planning or not as may be classed as non porous surface? Sounds an interesting option though.

That's a very good point. Aren't there a lot of things that are no longer acceptable in certain cases now?

claire-f_3

At the end of December 2010 we bought a 1970s bungalow that needed a complete refurb. My fiance (subbie electrician) has been working on the place since (i.e. last two months). Couple of our friends are plasterers so doing work-in-kind for us (so we're only paying for bonding and plaster). Fiance has also done all the plumbing, the kitchen floor tiling and some of the bathroom tiling. This has saved us so much on labour. We're hoping to finish it over the next few weeks. All in all, will have cost us probably around £12,000 - £13,000 in total.

We will be extending the garage into a double at some point during the summer, so that will be on top of the cost, although it again will be done by us.

Thankfully we've not been living there whilst doing this work; wouldn't have coped I don't think!! Fresh plaster really makes the place damp, and the amount of dust from the old sandy concrete under the old plaster has been awful. We're very thankful to friends and family for help!!


Here's our list:

-Knocked out quite a lot of the plaster in all the rooms as it sounded hollow (FINISHED)

-Replastered all the rooms, including the artex ceilings (ONE ROOM LEFT)

-Rewired whole house (FINISHED, JUST NEEDS ACTUAL LIGHTS AND SOCKET FACEPLATES ADDED)

-Re-insulated the loft (FINISHED)

-Boarded up the door to the galley kitchen, knocked through the wall to the kitchen in the lounge to create an open plan kitchen with archway, tiled floor, whole new kitchen but installed ourselves (JUST NEEDS GRANITE WORKTOP)

-Boarded up one of the bathroom doors (was separate W/C and bathroom), part-knocked down the wall between the W/C and bathroom to create a small partition, added back-to-wall toilet with concealed cistern, added shower with hidden plumbing and pump, added new sink-cupboard unit and mirror hung wall unit, part-tiled near toilet and all tiled near shower (JUST NEEDS TOILET TO BE ATTACHED & SHOWER SIDE PANELS TO BE ADDED)

-New carpets and underlay throughout (aside from tiled kitchen and bathroom) (ALL BOUGHT, JUST WAITING FOR EVERYTHING TO BE FINISHED TO BE INSTALLED)

latecomer

@claire-f - welcome Sounds like you've made good progress. Wish I knew some trades-folks - might just have made the whole extension a lot easier.

I dont think I could live in a house under renovation again, certainly not with child(ren) about. Doesn't mean I wont do it again though

claire-f_3

latecomer wrote: »

@claire-f - welcome Sounds like you've made good progress. Wish I knew some trades-folks - might just have made the whole extension a lot easier.

I dont think I could live in a house under renovation again, certainly not with child(ren) about. Doesn't mean I wont do it again though

Yes, thank goodness for handy hubby and his handy friends :j

claire-f_3

That's a shame, wrote a huge post with lots of progress piccies, to then click submit and be told I'm too new to submit links D'OH!
Any idea how many posts before I can post links?

Update: you can copy and past the link to see the photos and comments decided to make them into a page!
snow-puff.com/gallery/House/house.html

sunshinetours

claire-f wrote: »

That's a shame, wrote a huge post with lots of progress piccies, to then click submit and be told I'm too new to submit links D'OH!
Any idea how many posts before I can post links?

Thought it was 5 posts so you could try again with a quick link?

Pictures as below