First-time house renovation

jamtart6

whoop! my lovely OH has ALMOST finished stripping the living room tonight bless him. One wall to go and then the whole house is stripped!!!

latecomer

Well I've done nothing on the house but I have upgraded and am currently installing a fresh copy of windows (I'm on the laptop at the moment)

@shimmey - I just looked up the details of our drill and found that it didn't. most of cheaper ones dont so unless you have a good quality one its pretty unikely. The clutch is to prevent it being wrenched out of your hands if the drill gets stuck. I'm going to try it anyway so I'll let you know how I get on.

latecomer

And OH is just off the phone from speaking to the MIL and she has located one of each of the baths that we wanted to see so we should be doing that next weekend. :j

PS - is it sad to get excited when little things start to go right?

PurpleK8

stilllll haven't completely finished my tiling - its the mosaics, they're taking 3 times as much grout and 10 times as much of my time as the rest of the bathroom!!! I'm determined to have a shower in there this weekend though so I will keep going!

I've finally got round to sorting some photos out but I can't find my camera battery charger to get some new ones, I'll have a good search again tomorrow. Anyway, you can see some of the mess here (I am going to start adding to this as soon as I find the charger!) or the direct link here

latecomer

@purplek8 - I cant see any photos from your link? fixed it. Needed to click up to your main page.

@Andy - that sounds like a pretty serious job you're doing. Nothing worse than trying to get through something when you cant get access or a swing at it.

I'm nervous about the cavity insulation for when I drill through the walls for the extractors and while I'm sure it is self extinguishing, I'd rather not test that theory

no update on the skirting boards but hopefully I'll get one today.

And its almost certainly going to be a slow week on the DIY front as I've got the upgraded PC to get setup and enjoy first. Afterall everyone needs a little time off

jamtart6

latecomer - glad things are going well for you

purplek8 - wow that is a serious renovation - mine is mainly cosmetic and its stressing me out!! You look like you are doing a great job !

OH is finishing the living room paper stripping tonight Hurrah!

TomsMom

Purple K8 Your renovation looks to be the same sort of big job as ours, which we knew would be the case in the loft as it was originally a bodge job. The rest of ours was mean to be cosmetic but each job threw up other bodge jobs which made major works necessary. I looked at the spreadsheet yesterday and saw how much we've spent :eek: and we're still not finished!

Andy That's certainly keeping you busy!

Latecomer Enjoy your upgraded computer. When we move we'll get the local computer expert to install it for us and give it a health check too, neither of us are very good at knowing what's right and wrong and I do worry sometimes when it seems to be on a go-slow.

Jamtart Oooh, a nudey living room. Will you re-paper or are you painting? Have we badgered you for pictures or a blog yet?

When I hear what you are all doing, and see the pictures, I marvel at the enthusiasm and energy you all have and admire you so much for tackling such major jobs. Well done all of you.

We're waiting here, fingers crossed, for our delivery of tiles from Wickes today. Anyone care to place a bet :rotfl: .

jamtart6

I have tried to budget as high as possible, so when it is cheaper it is a nice suprise. I had £1000 in mind for the electrician as I had NO idea how much it would cost, turns out he only wants £85 and we don't need a full re-wire Love it when that happens. Cost us £40 for the fuse box and £20 for the sockets and £35 for labour which is really good I'm very proud of OH for learning how to put new sockets in which doesn't appear to be hard, but I'm still proud of him.

Many people of our age have commented that they wouldn't know where to start with renovating a house, or even decorating it, and most of our friends have had workmen in to do it for them, so anything we have done ourselves makes us even happier



I will try and upload some pics on my blog later on. We are going to get all the walls skimmed (£200 per room) and paint over it. The walls are bumpy lumpy at the moment, so we might as well do it properly

I will keep all my fingers and toes crossed for Wickes

Spicey

http://www.wickesbathrooms.co.uk/bathroom-suites/java

This the bathroom I ordered yesterday. I got it 1/2 price. what you think?

Spicey

I paid £717.00 for the bathroom. We took ownership of the bungalow friday and spent the weekend, cleaning the drains (they were blocked yuk!), demolishing cupboards, stripping paper and cut the brambles etc in the garden, the garage is now visable!. Also found boarded up and old cast iron fire place.
Yes I ache all over.:rotfl: