First-time house renovation

lisal0u

kr15snw wrote: »

Oooh we got the mortgage agreed, Now looking to move in just over 2 weeks!!!

Hoping to pop over this weekend to measure do we can do proper floor plans etc

How exciting for you! I remember my exchange like it was yesterday (almost 3 years now).

Hope it all goes smoothly

ukmaggie45

Yay! We get phone and broadband and TV installed at the house today! :j We called in yesterday evening, and found a large coil of cable sitting just over the front garden wall, so looks like it's all going to plan.

Seem to have spent most of this week shopping online, and then yesterday afternoon we went to IKEA to get a couple of tables for all the computer stuff. Hoping to get proper stuff actually fitted along one wall in the living room, but have to get a new Motability car in September so not sure what my upfront payment will be yet so need to hang on to cash. 2 table tops and 8 legs only came to about £34, and they will be used elsewhere in the house if we can afford to get proper fitted stuff at a later date.

Have chosen the bed we want for spare bedroom in IKEA, and also discovered if we go buy it this weekend it's discounted - saving £40! :money: Have lots of bedding on order in John Lewis sale - it's going to be fantastic to have some decent sheets - all of ours are rather tired and/or ripped.

Really need to get some curtains sorted out for the living room bifolds, might have to do yet more online shopping... Too knackered to get out to RL shops after wheelchairing it all round IKEA yesterday. Am beginning to get a bit excited at the prospect of actually being able to stay over at the house the occasional night. :j

Better get dressed now, as need to prune the quince in the front garden ready for cable chaps as I only managed to do one side of it in the autumn, and it's the wrong side! :rotfl: Can't have them skewering themselves on it - it's very thorny, and there's a huge bramble suddenly appeared as well! :eek:

Must take photos of the final finishing off bits on the staircase too - brushed steel caps for the ends of the oak banister. And must also get onto organising the beeswax for finishing it and for all the doors too.

latecomer

@ maggie - TV and internet - just about moving in time

@stolt - love the look of the lighting - very nice and very unusual

We are getting some supplies ready for sunday when we are heading to the house to tidyup and also start painting some rooms - probably just get one or two done but it will be a start. Got some new rollers and brushes delivered this week. Also going to try and clear out some of the stuff from the garage - all sorts of things that we are never going to us which we can take to the tip.

Also got a load of material I bought to build some high level storage in teh garage which isn't going to happen now either so I'm hoping to bring that to the MIL's.

Noticed that B&Q have some very cheap slabs on offer at the moment which would be a good match for the ones laid at the back door (hopefully) so OH is off to look at them now and get some paint. Also thinking of putting down a smal patio where the old shed is at the moment as it would help tidy the garden up in that area as its an absolute tip.

Also finally got an agreement with teh loss adjuster (by harassing the insurers which in turn sorted out the loss adjuster) that we can settle for everything and deal with teh stuff from the police separately once we've got it back. And on that front we've finally heard we can get it back next week - just need to pick it up with 50 forms of ID for both of us. So we can then get it to teh cleaners for them to assess and hopefully sometime soon we will be able to finalise everything.

stolt

latecomer wrote: »

@ maggie - TV and internet - just about moving in time

@stolt - love the look of the lighting - very nice and very unusual

We are getting some supplies ready for sunday when we are heading to the house to tidyup and also start painting some rooms - probably just get one or two done but it will be a start. Got some new rollers and brushes delivered this week. Also going to try and clear out some of the stuff from the garage - all sorts of things that we are never going to us which we can take to the tip.

Also got a load of material I bought to build some high level storage in teh garage which isn't going to happen now either so I'm hoping to bring that to the MIL's.

And on that front we've finally heard we can get it back next week - just need to pick it up with 50 forms of ID for both of us finalise everything.

50 forms of ID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:):):)


talking about garages, after the utility room is done we are having a break form the hosue and will put money towards a holidya next year with the kids and i want a car, however next door is petrol head and i ve seen his immaculate garage, white painted brick walls, and a painted floor and some probably shelving rack system, now i want to do the same!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

kr15snw

Got to have a good look around the place again today and got to measure and take photo's, which means I finally have a floorplan!! (It's a private sale so we didn't have details).

And I know your all dying to see it

So we have current layout:


The bathroom (I am in LOVE with my wallpaper )

2nd Bedroom:

Master Bedroom:

Third Bedroom: (will be converted into ensuite for the master)

Upstairs hallway (we'll be putting more stairs in here to go up to a loft conversion):

Downstairs Hallway:

Lounge (the weather was pants, hence the darkness):

Kitchen:

Dining room:


And finally our proposed new floor plan....


So what do you think? Are we nuts?

Leif

kr15snw wrote: »

So what do you think? Are we nuts?

Let's just say that squirrels find you appealing.

I'm part way through modernising a bungalow that was in the same state as your house. I'm sure your house will be the mutts nuts when you're done. My only regret is not having a few more walls skimmed while the skirting board, radiators and pipes were gone.

I had a lot of work done professionally, including new boiler and pipes, new skirting board, new window boards, new electrics in kitchen, overboarding some rooms and plastering some walls. Oh and the fitted kitchen and (soon) the bathroom.

Good luck!

andrew-b

kr15snw wrote: »

So what do you think? Are we nuts?

Seems pretty ambitious to me if it's a first time renovation. Hope you've got a big budget for all that!
What's the plan for loft conversion? If your going up into the loft i'm not sure i'd be putting an ensuite to a bedroom on the first floor and would keep the small front bedroom as a study instead. I'd have thought it would be better to have an ensuite to a master bedroom in the loft..then you can probably locate it in such a way to use existing bathroom soil stack.

My sisters house had a similar sort of plan (just a mirror image) though they have lounge and dining room knocked through to each other and seperate kitchen. They did a loft conversion with the stairs to loft conversion up above the existing stairs - starting on the landing with a turn at top and bottom and sacrificing some of the small front bedroom which is only now big enough for a study. In the loft they've got the master bedroom and ensuite big dormer at back, skylights at front. In hindsight they would have moved house rather than go through the hassle i think!

With the downstairs i'd block up the dining room door and keep the existing kitchen door to make better use of the kitchen/diner space and it just makes it flow better IMO. But I'd keep the garage as a garage ..perhaps sacrifice some of the kitchen extension to utility and shove the loo under the stairs. The garage/gamesroom will be your only place for junk if you go into the loft.

I'm guessing if it's a semi that your plan with the utility will cut-off direct access from front to back gardens...so you'll have to drag mower, garden tools etc through the utility.

Either way think carefully about your plans before you start on them.

kr15snw

Hi Andrew, hubby is a builder so we'll be doing the majority ourselves. He's spent years rennovating other people's homes, just never done ours. So we thought what the hell! Our budget is tiny, but we have a lot of friends who owe us favours (chippy's, sparkys etc) who won't need paying / will do work for food.

For the loft we're planning on copying next door. They have a staircase above the existing one (so does not remove any space from the bedrooms) and upstairs have a small landing which leads to 2 small doubles and a cupboard. This is exactly what we'd want as we'd then have 4 double beds (the 2 small one's would be childrens bedrooms) instead of 3. We looked at doing a master suite upstairs but hubby doesn't like loft conversions enough to have one as his room (don't ask me why, he just says he doesn't) and we like the idea of the kids being on the top floor (our SIL converted her loft and has the 2 identical kids rooms upstairs and it has proved very handy).

With regards to the garage, the drive is too narrow to fit a car up (there would be about an inch either side) and we're not garage people. Behind the garage is about 15 feet of garden in which we'd either extend the garage to have a 'store' or build a big shed This will be our 'storage'.

Our concern about giving up some of the kitchen to utility is we have always wanted a separate utility area completely. Also this would make the kitchen rather small. Hubby is constantly washing up his brushes from work and I've always dreamed of him having his own sink! Lol. Plus we're getting a butler sink and he's not coming near it :P Friends our ours have a utility room and I love that they can hide all the washing out there and they use it as a place to dump muddy boots / coats. It works well. Tools / mowers, there isn't much of a garden to the front plus we've lived in terraced for so long now it will be a huge benefit not to have to drag through the whole house. Now we'll only have to go through one room

At the moment this is initial plans and the only feedback we've had is from BIL who's rennovated many homes. The plan is to have meetings with an architect once we're in to get it looking at properly.

kr15snw

Forgot to add: I've always promised hubby a games room, mainly for somewhere to put up his 7 framed football shirts, 4 framed footballs, 2 pairs of framed boots, a pair of framed gloves and about 40 signed and framed photo's. The deal was he gets a game room and I get an ensuite with a power shower, happy all round

Ill finally get my walls back in the other rooms!!

latecomer

kr15snw wrote: »

hubby is a builder

In which case you are not nuts - otherwise yes completely!

@stolt - ok 50 was a slight exaggeration - 4 forms of ID (2 for each of us). And it still took nearly 2 hours to get it all sorted.

We have a kitchen fitter arranged and OH paid a 25% desposit over the phone - she was told an interim payment would be required and details would be sent out with the contract - interim payment is 70% so they want 95% of total price before any materials are bought or work done. They also wont guarantee when the job will be done. They did mention that normally they would expect full payment if it was a full kitchen but that wouldn't apply as its a small job so hopefully its just a mix up. OH is going to phone as I'm not paying anyone 95% of the price without seeing anything for it and no promise of when it will be done.

We also did something productive this weekend - went to the house and took 2 loads to the tip using MILs jeep and then another full load back with us to put in their garage. Cleared lots of stuff from the garage to leave space for the builders who are meant to be coming next monday to do the guttering and build the ramp to the garage. If they do a decent job going to see if they are interested in ripping out the garage steps and constructing the new ones.

Also managed to get 2 rooms repainted so was a productive day all round. I'm going to try and stay in it for a few nights to get other stuff done - such as raising the new sockets upstairs to the regulation height.

But I also noticed that the boiler isn't working - nothing happening at all and the display was dead. There was the odd noise coming from it like it was trying to do something and I noticed that the pressure was down but topping up made no difference. Didn't have any of the manuals with me so will have a closer look next time although I suspect its going to require getting someone in