First-time house renovation

stolt

morning all, been a bit quiet havent i, didnt get the granite floor totally sorted but well it might have been me with an old dust cloth.

been busy trying to find a car which i managed after searching up and down the country to find one yesterday so thats another weight off my mind, stupidly sold mine a couple of weeks ago and that gave me exactly 4 weeks to find a car before i had to hand back the missus car so she can use it to take the kids to school.

Ive got next week off work, i'm going to fit a ikea kitchen in our utility room, which includes integrated washing machine and freezer.
not looking forward to it if i'm honest.... have got to do the plumbing aswell.

Will have to remember to drain the hot water this time!!! better google that and put it somewhere safe, dont want to do what i did last time...

harriwood

Hi all. Having read a lot of the previous posts I thought it was worth getting on here and posting myself. I have a 3bed house to refurbish but getting conflicting advice on the order of jobs. Windows and doors to secure house being done first, then the rewire. Then comes the confusion- do we get the central heating done followed by plastering, OR, do we plaster before c/heating to save needing to re hang radiator? I thought plastering last so that it doesn't get ruined by works to pipes etc.

Can anyone advise?

Following the above jobs will be bathroom refit, kitchen refit, flooring. I am also not living in the house so jobs don't need to revolve around 'comfort' of living.

Thanks, H

MaggieBaking

If it were me - a rewire is incredibly messy so do it first.

Rewire, - leave all the floorboards up, then central heating (then floorboards down), then windows and doors.

Then cleeeeaaannnnn.

Replaster (to stop the dust from the rewire making all your new kitchen dusty) then Kitchen, bathroom,

Another huge clean. Then decorating then flooring.

I can't emphasise the cleaning enough - the dust will pervade everywhere.

latecomer

aliasojo wrote: »

Ooooh where you heading? I'm leaving the Highlands on Monday (if last tradesman turns up on time) to go stay in the central belt. Can't say I'm looking forward to it tbh but trying to be positive. :undecided

Was up in Aviemore for the week - really ennoyed it despite the weather. Ended up booking a 4 bedroom house for the 3 of us despite only needing one room. Joys of last minute booking in the holiday period

Even managed to miss most of the weather which was good.

latecomer

MaggieBaking wrote: »

If it were me - a rewire is incredibly messy so do it first.

Rewire, - leave all the floorboards up, then central heating (then floorboards down), then windows and doors.

Then cleeeeaaannnnn.

Replaster (to stop the dust from the rewire making all your new kitchen dusty) then Kitchen, bathroom,

Another huge clean. Then decorating then flooring.

I can't emphasise the cleaning enough - the dust will pervade everywhere.

Definitely the best order to do things

latecomer

@harriwood - welcome and good luck

@kmmr - great news - we desperately need to get to that stage now.

We had kitchen fitters in last week who were up to the expected standard. Poor joins in the worktop and didn't even bother to properly clean off the colorfill they used so I ended up doing it myself. Extractor casing (with extension piece to reach the ceiling this time) looked like it had been fitted by a blind man - they had 2 goes at sorting it before deciding to do it when they come back - they need to come back as the kitchen assessor didn't bother to check the size of the upstands and hence ordered the wrong ones which were too small. They did ask whether I minded them being fitted though which was a nice touch.........

Plumber finally turned up about 6pm and couldn't fit the sink as the joiners had disconnected the old one at the bottom of the flexi pipes rather than the top and hence taken them away. He got round that with some plastic pipe but then found the waste for main bowl was incorrect so it couldn't be fitted. He did manage to install the gas hob though.

Boiler has stopped working again - think we're just going to have to try a new PCB and see how it goes. Will maybe try and get it under warrantly but I dont fancy my chances. that said its probably worth a try first.

Got a builder starting on monday to do the drive and garage steps so I need to get to the house and clear the 2 ton of sand and huge pile of York stone off the drive before then - also need to clear round the side where the path is being created and move the coal bunker (full of course!). going to be a fun few days......

stolt

latecomer, i could tell reading that, you sound fed up lol. i'm not laughing at you but have been there.....

similar probs to you, had the amtico floor being fitted and hes arrived on site and said he needs more screed because of the larger tile adhesive gap left behind by the tiles and we did say we want it really flat. so 8 bags later and another £250 which we hadnt budgeted for!!! what can you do he said he will do the floor without the extra screed but you have to go with what they say...

the downstairs bathroom and the old kitchen which will be the dining room has been floored, utility to do next week as he run out of time doing all the screeding and we only had him for 3 days.

doors on, got some danish oil for them, not tried it yet, not sure if i can get a similar colour to the doors.


heres some pics, got next week off to do the utility room ....kitchen units and integrated white unit, plumbing etc, really not looking forward to it. lol

typeractive

Well I've been grafting for approx 5 weeks on the house (not 5 straight - had 2 weeks of work in between). However this has been much harder than work!!

I don't feel like I have achieved a lot as such either. Most of the time has been spent prepping walls for plastering - with such old walls there has been a LOT of care to bring them back up to a good state.

Still waiting on joiners - 3 weeks late. When they return I will be back to work. Had to source new plumber. Been searching for kitchens (ugh - what a pain!), and a wood burner - so far this has not been too painful (sure I've just jinxed myself), and doing tip runs. Window company also managed to lose my order for a door, and will now not be here this week - !!!!!!!!

Uncle has started re-pointing the back of the house, long and slow process...my neighbours hate me. Well that's not strictly true, they're very nice people but it's obvious they're not best pleased as they have a lot on at the moment - I did forewarn them, and will pay to have their windows cleaned properly by a cleaner when the house is all finished.

Of the bad luck I'm having, the plumber arrived today to alter a couple of pipes, I asked him to check another in the kitchen ceiling before I plasterboard it (tomorrow), and water flooded everywhere! I'm treating this as good luck as we would much rather discover this now, rather than once the ceiling is plastered!!

Not done a blog post for a while either. Think I'm getting to the point now where I just want it done, as I'm getting sick of not being able to do anything else on holiday time. I'm forever covered in dust and eating way too much rubbish. Really gutted about the joiners. I've had others come and work to help me get motoring, but none of them are as good, MSE (yes - that's true, the joiners I want actually try to save me money and give good suggestions), plus they're cheaper than the others I've had, and get everything spot on! As you can see they're worth waiting for.

Primrosevilla

We are contemplating selling our home, moving 130 miles and buying a Grade II listed building (semi-detached) which is in need of love and care. I will now say that I am nearly 70 and my husband is 84.

I have an emotional attachment to the house, it is where I was born and my parents were tenants there for 70 years till finally my mother passed away last year aged 93.

After her death the house was put on the market and sold to a developer before we could complete a sale on ours. Our chain collapsed after six months of hanging around so we removed our house from the market and resigned ourselves to staying put.

The developer has subsequently put the house back on the market because he could not get permission to put a new build on the land as it is listed.

So now we have 'another bite at the cherry'.

Our house is back on the market and we have travelled to see the house which is now in a worse state than it was 18 months ago.

Are we too old to contemplate even thinking of doing this?

Should I instead book the pair of us into the 'funny farm'?

I have yet to make an offer.

typeractive

Primrosevilla wrote: »

We are contemplating selling our home, moving 130 miles and buying a Grade II listed building (semi-detached) which is in need of love and care. I will now say that I am nearly 70 and my husband is 84.

I have an emotional attachment to the house, it is where I was born and my parents were tenants there for 70 years till finally my mother passed away last year aged 93.

After her death the house was put on the market and sold to a developer before we could complete a sale on ours. Our chain collapsed after six months of hanging around so we removed our house from the market and resigned ourselves to staying put.

The developer has subsequently put the house back on the market because he could not get permission to put a new build on the land as it is listed.

So now we have 'another bite at the cherry'.

Our house is back on the market and we have travelled to see the house which is now in a worse state than it was 18 months ago.

Are we too old to contemplate even thinking of doing this?

Should I instead book the pair of us into the 'funny farm'?

I have yet to make an offer.

Wow! How interesting Primrosevilla, and quite a touching story. Initial thoughts are you are buying with your emotional attachment / heart. I've often thought about the house of my parents - it's my home and always will be I guess. If they were to leave / pass on I already feel obliged to keep it in the family! So I can *almost* appreciate what you're thinking.

In terms of your decision...to be honest if you hadn't listed your age I doubt many in this thread would say not to go for it (based on some criteria of course). It's biased round here towards the developments of our houses, and homes. However, my thoughts:

*if you're in a strong financial position / can afford to do it...
*prepared for the stress (which with the greatest of respect - at your ages I think you deserve nothing but fun and hapiness. I wish my parents would listen to me when I say the same to them...but that's another story) - if at all possible I'd try and get a project manager to sort stuff out and make it as smooth as possible.
*REALLY want it.

Then go for it. If it's what you really really want, and how you wish to live, then why the heck not? 130+ miles is quite a distance for such a development. My house is a mile away and I'm constantly back and forth, and luckily I'm close to a lot of builders merchants etc. It sounds to me you have already made your mind up.

I think my biggest bit of advice would be - work out how much you think it will cost to do it, and literally double that number!! Keep use posted. There's a load of great people on this site that will offer, advice, information and support!

:j