First-time house renovation

andrew-b

Spicey wrote: »

We were hoping to exchange on the bungalow by now but apparently it should happen in next couple of weeks.

Welcome to the thread! (ooops seems you've been on this thread longer than i realised! So many of us now i lose track! Don't count your chickens just yet then - don't mean to worry you but our initial purchase fell through the day before exchange!

Andy

TomsMom

We finally made our minds up about the basin in the main bathroom. We've dilly-dallied for weeks. First we were having a vanity unit but we couldn't find a floor standing one we liked. Then we were having a wall hung unit but found they were a lot more expensive than we thought, we were also a bit worried about the sit-on vessel type basins not being big enough and water being splashed on the worktop. We looked at pedestal basins and couldn't find one of those we liked either. Totally fed up by now.

While we were out choosing the floor covering for the en-suite this morning, we saw this. (It actually looks better IRL than it does in the photo.) Got a quote from Travis Perkins then promptly came home and phoned the people we're buying the bath/shower cubicle/toilet and basin for en-suite from, they beat the price by £40 and will add it to the delivery already waiting to come :T .

I'm now trying not to think about it any more, don't want to change my mind now the deed's done :rotfl: , at least it's quite contemporary so should go with the rest of the bathroom stuff.

helping_hubby

lisal0u wrote: »

KT1985 - you have been busy! My re-wire is almost finished and I cant wait. It's holding everything else up at the minute. Once thats out the way the plastering can be finished then we can get the floor down and then the kitchen. Then we are nearly done!

The plumber returned today to commission the fire so we finally have heat! Its brilliant, light and heat. No excuses not to get on now!

Its so lovely too! I put a video of it in action on my blog! Cant believe I'm getting so excited about a fire ha ha

I hope everyone has a productive weekend!

Lisa x

Saw your fire on your blog. Looks lovely We blocked ours in, but plan to knock it out again in a few years to put a real fire in of some sort. I've got plans for my fish tank to go where the fire will be, so I'm not sure where that will go after the fire is in.

We've got a long weekend off (go back wednesday). It's my birthday on Monday so some of it will be spent relaxing and we'll go out for a meal. But the rest is all DIY

Friday we went to Ikea first thing to buy my birthday present...got a desk, shelf and bookshelf for all my craft bits

We spent the rest of the afternoon moving our stuff from bedroom 2 back into bedroom 1. And finally slept in our proper bedroom for the first time in over a month. OH built the new furniture. I'm itching to get a photo up, but will wait till it's all nice and tidy.

Today we did more tidying and sorting and throwing away. Oh and then I realised that I'm a numpty and I left the shelf from my car boot in the car park at Ikea! Oops.

OH attempted to put up curtain rails, but he's struggling with the lintels.

I also need a rail where the 2 curtains can be pulled to one side, so been looking for wooden passover rings. The only ones I've found are £15.50 for 6 from John Lewis! Ouch. To buy everything we needed in the matching wood came to over £80! So given the tight budget, we've bought a £21 rail and we're going to attempt to make our own pass over rings. I'm not sure it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

Tomorrow we plan on finishing touches of paint (inside cupboard doors and final coat on skirting, and going over the bits where I painted the ceiling calico and the walls white by accident!). Then we're having the afternoon off. Going to see Benjamin Button.

TomsMom

helping_hubby wrote: »

We've got a long weekend off (go back wednesday). It's my birthday on Monday so some of it will be spent relaxing and we'll go out for a meal. But the rest is all DIY

Happy birthday for Monday, have a lovely relaxing day before you get back to the DIY.

Friday we went to Ikea first thing to buy my birthday present...got a desk, shelf and bookshelf for all my craft bits

If you're anything like the rest of us crafters you'll soon outgrow that space and need a whole room :rotfl:

BB1984

Right. Got loads to catch up on - you lot have been busy! I've been neglectful of this post over the weekend as it was David's bday on friday then we had friends over yesterday afternoon and evening.

TM - love the basin, it's really nice. I like the little shelves to either side - handy to put soapdish etc without cluttering up the bit of space around the taps (we do that and stuff always falls into the basin every time we turn the tap on...drives me nuts!)

HH - Happy Birthday for tomorrow! Hope you enjoy Benjamin Button, I want to go and see that. Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the curtain rail. The furniture sounds fab so looking forward to seeing pics of that too.

LL - well done on getting the electrics done. Plastering is so exciting as it makes a huge difference to the look of the place when it's all lovely and smooth and fresh! Your fire looks great too.

SH - sorry to hear about your condensation issues. Don't have a definitive answer but perhaps it might be worth investing in a dehumidifier? We bought one in our last flat that got very condensated, and it worked a treat. Maybe strip the wallpaper, then whack the dehumidifier on in there for a few days before re-painting. In the bathroom, any kind of vent would be worth doing, I'd have thought. Or perhaps for the time being just get into the habit of opening the window for half an hour after using the shower?

As for me, we are being rubbish at the moment and having another period of inactivity, I'm afraid! We've done a couple of small bits and bobs...
The roller blind arrived on Tuesday, and we put that up. I must say I was very impressed with the company we bought it from. They're called South Manchester Blinds and have a shop(s) up North but also sell via their Ebay shop, which is where I got ours. They sent fabric samples in the post, so we could choose what we wanted, then we just told them the measurements. It was £61 including P&P, and that was for a 2.1m x 2.2m window (much bigger than standard). I think that was a bargain, and it was such good quality and service. (And no I don't work for them, LOL!) Anyway, looks lovely and finally we can spend time in the kitchen without being on show to passers by!

Yesterday we bought a pine TV cabinet from a local pine furniture shop. Not much to say about that really, other than it was £81 (not too bad for solid wood, we thought?) and sits in the corner of our lounge looking very nice. We're still in desperate need of some wooden shelves to fit in our alcoves, any ideas? They seem so expensive in the likes of Homebase etc.

Bad news Yesterday we decided it was high time we cracked on and finished the as-yet untouched 3rd bedroom... Don't know if you remember, but this was the room suffering badly from rising damp, so we had the floor joists and boards replaced, air bricks installed, wall replastered etc, and we have been waiting for it to dry out. Well it seems that 4 months down the line it is still damp... There is mildew on the plaster in the corner, and it feels very cold and damp to the touch. I don't knwo what to do - I've exhausted all my knowledge of damp now! I think that best-case scenario is that the "damp" is in fact moisture that was already in the wall, slowly making it's way through the plaster, and will eventually dry out. Worst case is that the DPC wasn't sound after all, and that the damp is rising through it. In which case I guess we'll have to investigate the chemical DPC route....anyone any experience of this? It's only a small length of wall so I'd do it DIY if possible.

So anyway, our good intentions of decorating that room this weekend were scuppered. We cleared it out, at least, and hoovered it to try and reduce the dust that lingers in there, but couldn't do much more. I guess today we'll force ourselves to do some of the annoying little jobs that remain - little bits of paint touching-up, etc.

This long post has taken ages to type so I suppose I should stop talking about doing stuff, and actually go and do it....!

BB

Spicey

andrew-b wrote: »

Welcome to the thread! (ooops seems you've been on this thread longer than i realised! So many of us now i lose track! Don't count your chickens just yet then - don't mean to worry you but our initial purchase fell through the day before exchange!



Being nosey...which bit of Kent? Anywhere near Isle of Thanet where i am

Andy

Hi Andy, we buying privately from people we know so dont envisage a problem. You can be nosey :rotfl: we about 1 hour south of thanet. (Guess).:D

TomsMom

BB1984 wrote: »

The roller blind arrived on Tuesday, and we put that up. I must say I was very impressed with the company we bought it from. They're called South Manchester Blinds and have a shop(s) up North but also sell via their Ebay shop, which is where I got ours. They sent fabric samples in the post, so we could choose what we wanted, then we just told them the measurements. It was £61 including P&P, and that was for a 2.1m x 2.2m window (much bigger than standard). I think that was a bargain, and it was such good quality and service. (And no I don't work for them, LOL!) Anyway, looks lovely and finally we can spend time in the kitchen without being on show to passers by!

Bad news Yesterday we decided it was high time we cracked on and finished the as-yet untouched 3rd bedroom... Don't know if you remember, but this was the room suffering badly from rising damp, so we had the floor joists and boards replaced, air bricks installed, wall replastered etc, and we have been waiting for it to dry out. Well it seems that 4 months down the line it is still damp... There is mildew on the plaster in the corner, and it feels very cold and damp to the touch. I don't knwo what to do - I've exhausted all my knowledge of damp now! I think that best-case scenario is that the "damp" is in fact moisture that was already in the wall, slowly making it's way through the plaster, and will eventually dry out. Worst case is that the DPC wasn't sound after all, and that the damp is rising through it. In which case I guess we'll have to investigate the chemical DPC route....anyone any experience of this? It's only a small length of wall so I'd do it DIY if possible.

Sorry to hear you've still got a problem after all that you've done already.

We had a chemical DPC done in a previous house. We didn't do it ourselves. The firm hacked off the plaster to a height of about 1 metre. Holes were drilled into the brickwork from outside and from inside, and the chemical damp course injected. Then it was replastered. There was a lot of mess from the hacking off of the plaster. It couldn't be redecorated for a few months. Not only has the plaster got to dry out but also the damp that is in the wall. We had it done because the building society valuation said to get it checked and the damp proofing firm said it needed doing - don't they all! However, we were inexperienced and accepting then and wouldn't have thought about looking into it and getting advice from different people.

You could always get quotes from a few places and see what they have to say.


Have you seen this article? Also google Rising Damp and take a look at the other articles - Ultimate Handyman, DIYdoctor, etc., and see what you make of them.

Hope you've had a good weekend otherwise. Belated happy birthday to David.

Beth, can you PM me with the ebay ID where you got your roller blind please. I found a nice metallic venetian in Wilkinsons today which would be great for the en-suite but it was 600mm wide and we need 570mm so I'm assuming it's not a standard size so may have to think about having something made. I've done a search for roller blinds on ebay and it's come back with 3655 results :eek: .

OK Beth - forget about the ebay ID. I just went back and clicked on the first one and it was the one you've mentioned. Silly me, I should have looked first!

helping_hubby

Sorry for the short one...it's late and want to get to bed (OK so it's not late for most people but is for me ). Just been skimming through posts and it reminded me about roller blinds.

I wanted one 186cm long, but it seems the standard max length is 183cm for ready made ones. Anyone know anything different?

jamtart6

hi all been at work all weekend so done nothing on the house my OH has created double wall sockets on the 11 sockets in the house, I'm proud of him I was so sad that we didn't do anything else, but we aren't doing bad for only having the house for 5 weeks.

We are getting plans drawn this week of the extension!!

latecomer

Looks like everyone has been making some good progress while we've been away.

Nothing to report here apart from there being good skiing at Glenshee last week

Actually thats not entirely true, we had our skirting boards delivered on friday while we were away and although they look good, there is a lot of damage to them and thats just from a very quick glance when we got home last night. also looks like quite a few have split at the ends too. I'm hoping its just the very ends and then it wont matter too much as they are all going to be cut down to size. Still its annoying having paid a premium for them so I might get onto the supplier once I've checked them over and see what they have to say about it.