First-time house renovation

ukmaggie45

Oh kmmr how horrible for you. After all that time and sorting out to have it damaged in that way must make you feel both miserable and frustrated. Hugs to you from Abersoch. :grouphug:

aliasojo wrote: »

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@maggie...good to hear things are moving on and you're at the stage of being able to live in the place.....but surely you're doing something wrong if you're the one that gets the floor? :rotfl::rotfl:

:rotfl: I have back problems, so floor much better for me than camp bed. But we've got our beds in now - 3 trips to IKEA in 9 days, one visit was over five hours! :eek: OH never wants to go there again, but he did enjoy the Swedish meatballs! We have to go back for more bedding probably and a few more other bits too.

Photos will follow when we get back, OH is more concerned with boats and sailing right now! :beer:

kr15snw

Well we're in!

First few issues are the shower doesn't work and the gas cooker has no ignition, so Im convinced im going to catch myself on fire with it!!!

So we now need a new shower (plumber coming out this week, hoping he can 'bodge' something ) and Im hunting on ebay for a cheap cooker. Don't care the condition just want one thats more modern that 40 years old!!!

kmmr

Thanks all for the nice comments. The leak has finally been stopped, and now things are all drying out well, so I am much happier about everything now. The quotes to repair everything are coming in at about £3000, but all covered by insurance.

UK Maggie - glad to hear you are finally in! It's a great feeling, and you will eventually see the back of all the builders.

latecomer - Did you have a big break in at some stage? This is nowhere near as bad as that! It seems things have recovered a bit from then, as I remember you were willing to walk away from it all at the time.
Thanks all again, and hopefully I can celebrate my completion certificate soon enough!

kr15snw

O.k, so making the house ‘habital’ has started. We’ve scrubbed the front room and it actually looks semi decent with our furniture in it!!

We’re planning on creating the ensuite soon, so we need to work on the master bedroom. So we’ll be moving into the spare room, but it’s V-I-L-E. The carpet is so filthy (even after using the carpet cleaner) that Im avoiding the room. We need to get a new floor covering and soon.

We’ll be living in the room for a month or 2 and we have guests staying in this room in 2 weeks time. We haven’t checked the floorboards out yet, but we’re trying to work out whether it’s cheaper to get a carpet (cheapest at carpet right is about £60 to fit the room) or to buy lots of big rugs (where can I get cheap rugs??) and put this over dust sheets.

The spare room won’t get decorated for probably a few years (it will be one of the last ones as it doesn’t get used) so we need to make it decent until that time!!!

Any ideas?

suisidevw

Actually did some work thsi weekend sticking a slate roof on my log store and chainsawing up wood for the Winter. This week I'm going to make a kindling store and coal store

latecomer

kmmr wrote: »

latecomer - Did you have a big break in at some stage?

Yup - one with plenty of damage. Been out the house for months now

@kr15snw - cheap roll end/offcut is the best thing. You wont get much in the way of rugs for £60.

@suisidevw - looks great but I wonder how long it takes for some smarty-pants to comment on the angle of your slates and capilliary action

I finished off our electrics on friday night/sat morning and filled all the holes that were left using wood at the back to bridge the holes, then plasterboard over and finally filler. Sanded down on sat morning and they look pretty good. Might not be perfect but as I'm not going to have to look at them its not that important to me

We're getting someone out to quote for stripping the remaining wood in the house as we're just not going to have time. OH has found a compnay that will hand strip in place who appear to be reasonable, will see what they quote. Also trying to arrange replacing the back PVC door and frame and also getting the internal front door reglazed which were already quoted for.

Still no idea how we are going to get it finished and on the market as quickly as we would like but going to give it a good shot.

kr15snw

I've started blogging!!

http://riggsrenovation.wordpress.com/

Hope you like

sharloid

We've lived in our house since 2009. We've only decorated 3 rooms. I've kind of had enough! I wish we'd have bought something ready to move into. Arghh, it's a long slog. Your houses all look so beautiful.

aliasojo

sharloid wrote: »

We've only decorated 3 rooms. I've kind of had enough!

I sooooo know how you feel.

I'm on the last push to get things done and it's like when you have one last potato on the plate and you just can't face any more...well that's how I feel now.

I'm moaning about tradesmen just now, I'm really fed up with the amount of poor work I've had. I think I've upset some on another thread. I know you get some really good tradesmen, but a lot of them seem to forget we pay them for their services, they're not helping us for free so why do we need to put up with certain things?!

It's taken me years to find decent blokes and now we're moving away, I can't face the thought of finding new ones and I'm tired these days, so I think my renovation days are over.

I might get a tent. Little to do in those.

latecomer....when you say stripping the wood, is it painted wood or damaged wood?

typeractive

aliasojo wrote: »

...moaning about tradesmen just now, I'm really fed up with the amount of poor work I've had. I think I've upset some on another thread. I know you get some really good tradesmen, but a lot of them seem to forget we pay them for their services, they're not helping us for free so why do we need to put up with certain things?!

I hear ya there. I'm not looking for the cheapest trades people - I'm looking for the most confident and friendly. Some are just so grumpy it's beyond belief! We've just basically fell out with the plumber, whos' work I was concerned about anyway - so it's kind of worked out ok as I wasn't looking forward to telling him I've took him off the job.

What really annoys me is he broke a part on my mum's boiler and has basically took the huff as soon as I asked him for a quote to 2nd fix my house as I need to compare him to others. So now he won't come back to sort mum's boiler out - complete joker. We've given him loads of custom. I also think he over charged me on my first fixing, though that's my own fault for 'trusting' him.

When I've posted jobs on some of the websites I've stated I'm looking for friendly and helpful people! lol. This may sound rude to the trades people, but from my perspective I want, someone to help solve the problems and give good ideas and suggestions how to overcome the challenges - not huff and puff at literally the slightest little 'challenge'. It's not as if I'm changing room layouts etc - just little things.

On the flip side, of the trades people I have managed to build a good rapport with, I have a FANTASTIC electrician: competitive on price, well qualified, very reliable and punctual, great at overcoming any problems / changes. Fantastically detailed correspondence to every little request...and he lives over 60miles from my house - a gamble, but so far it's paid off! My builder who lives two doors along - again, brilliant! He has a great name around town, and is really good. Plus he's a neighbour and a friend now too. Found really good bathroom fitters and tilers who both live 15miles away.

The thing they have in common is they listen, suggest and compromise in a friendly manner. Plus there work is great and if I need changes they don't blink an eye - so equally I pay them and if I can afford too, tip them. So there are a lot of good trades out there, just takes an eternity to find them.

I'm still yet to find a good plumber/heating engineer yet though. Had a few come and quote, and there's a couple I am thinking could be worth a shot - just need to get the quotes in and see.