First-time house renovation

Shimmyhill

Looking really good Tomsmum

Our bathroom is tiny, leaving it to last to sort but have not got a clue how we can make the layout better - certainly no room for a separate shower (number 3 on my list of things to have when buying a house was a .... separate shower ) We will also need to move the waste pipe for the loo as it is the old fashioned type and quite a distance from the wall - previous owners solution was to put new loo in and put some wood between it and the wall - classy !

helping_hubby

I've been so busy at work this week I've not been able to sneak on...lots to catch up on again!

I've seen the blog updates - good work everybody.

@BB1984 - regarding the knobs, I would go silver, but that's only because I don't like brass (think it's old fashioned) - sorry! Don't want to offend anyone! My parents have brass in their house. And we have brass fittings on our front door - but I'll be replacing them at some point. We also replaced all our window handles which were 'gold effect' with silver ones.

@TomsMom - flooring. We've got tiles, not by choice, from the hallway through to the kitchen. Now I've lived with it we won't be changing it, and if we did, I'd go tiles again.

I wouldn't have wooden floor in the kitchen but I am a clutz. I heard it stains if you spill oil and I'm always doing things like that.

I've had laminate in my rented house kitchen and never had a problem. The odd spill won't do damage, but I guess if the pipes leaked it would...but you could say that for anywhere in a house that had laminate.

@Tomsmom - re: your shower and loo - looks fab! The house is really starting to take shape for me now.

@latecomer - OMG you have a blog! Yay!

How come everyone else has loads of followers? I only have 3

My update:
Last weekend I filled holes in the bathroom ceiling, primed all the skirting boards for hallway, lounge/dining room and my mum kindly stripped some architrave for me.

Yesterday I ordered a bath panel, radiator, architrave, inhibitor and artex from Wickes. First time so I used code CAT09 which gives you 15% off. I paid for £5 Saturday delivery though, but saved £10 overall. Not bad.

So up and coming jobs are finishing the bathroom (I'm artexing the ceiling, fitting bath panel and fitting the architrave round the door). And need to replace the radiator (the bedroom 1 rad is broke. Sadly I found this out after painting it with 3 coats of red paint!)

TomsMom

latecomer wrote: »

@TomsMum - managed to get to the blog from one of the other links and then navigate to the other posts. still cant get to the home page though?

Oh dear, I can't get on either and I couldn't view the blog after I published the post last night. The message is saying "We're sorry, were unable to handle your request. Please try again or return a bit later". Is that the message you're getting? I can sign in and get to my dashboard but when I click "View Blog" that's when the message comes up. I've posted the problem on the Blogger help forum to see if anyone knows what to do. I hope I haven't lost it :eek: and I'm not that techy minded!

Anyway the tiles look great. I looked back a few pages to find out what they were called but gave up and decided to ask instead. What are they called?

Thanks. We are really pleased with them. They are called Murano from Wickes link here. We didn't pay that price. We've found that Wickes are very good with online offers (possibly in store too but not sure). The normal price is now £15.99, but when we bought them but there was a special offer on at the time of 33% off so they were on sale at £10.65 I think. I had a code (from a voucher code internet site) for another 20% off so we got them for about £8.50 per sq.m. when we ordered the 34 sq.m. for the bathroom.

When we bought the same ones for the en-suite they were still £10.65 and I had the CAT09 code for 15% off so we got them for about £9 per sq.m. then. You'll know the saga of the botched deliveries with this order and with the gesture of goodwill we've actually paid £2.37 per sq.m. Whilst we were waiting for this delivery, Wickes actually reduced them again on the website for one weekend down to about £5.65 per sq.m., an absolute bargain. It's worth keeping an eye on their site.

The border tiles are by Dune and are called Nebraska. We had to source these on the 'net as our local supplier was too dear. We made a saving of about £1 a strip by buying on the net, they were £4.75 each :eek: but they went best out of all we looked at.

TomsMom

helping_hubby wrote: »

@TomsMom - flooring. We've got tiles, not by choice, from the hallway through to the kitchen. Now I've lived with it we won't be changing it, and if we did, I'd go tiles again.

HH - do you find they make you feel cold, psychological thing I mean. What colour are they, perhaps a warm colour wouldn't have that effect. Do you have the same tiles in the kitchen? Do you find them cold underfoot when standing in there for any length of time?

I wouldn't have wooden floor in the kitchen but I am a clutz. I heard it stains if you spill oil and I'm always doing things like that.

No, I don't think we'll be going for that, I don't think it would look right. We have wood kitchen cupboard doors so I think it needs a contrast, too many woods don't look right together.

@Tomsmom - re: your shower and loo - looks fab! The house is really starting to take shape for me now.

Thanks, it's getting quite exciting now!

How come everyone else has loads of followers? I only have 3

I've only got 5 (perhaps we haven't got as many friends :rotfl: )

Great to hear your update.

TomsMom

Is anyone else having trouble getting onto my blog?

If you can get on, can you post the link so that I can check it that way. I'm dreading finding out that all my hard work has been lost _pale_ .

Shimmyhill

At my last house i tiled the floor in the hall, kitchen and downstairs toilet - same tiles all the way through. I did not find them cold, well they are colder than carpet but the positives outweighed any negatives. Easy to clean, ideal in the hall with kids trapsing mud in etc !! Better if you spill water on them and in the hallway no 'track' like you get in carpet.

In this place the kitchen and bathroom are tiled, neither of them are in good condition with badly laid tiles so some of them move as you walk on them ! They have a certain charm tho and i am considering trying to repair them in the kitchen but not the bathroom. I was automatically going to tile the hallway but the house is cold enough already so no i am not sure what to do either !

More stuff to add to 'the list'

Shimmyhill

TomsMom wrote: »

Is anyone else having trouble getting onto my blog?

If you can get on, can you post the link so that I can check it that way. I'm dreading finding out that all my hard work has been lost _pale_ .

Yes, just the home page - all others work fine

TomsMom

Phew! Everything OK now. I found a "known issue" topic on Blogger help and it said to create a blank post and save as draft and it should re-set the cache (gobbledegook to me but I did it anyway) and it's now working again for me :j . Hope it works for everyone else.

helping_hubby

TomsMom wrote: »

HH - do you find they make you feel cold, psychological thing I mean. What colour are they, perhaps a warm colour wouldn't have that effect. Do you have the same tiles in the kitchen? Do you find them cold underfoot when standing in there for any length of time?

Not psychologically, no. They are cold though, but I wear slippers. Our tiles are orangey. Not my choice, but I guess they do give a warmer feeling just looking at them.

Yes the same tiles run from the hallway through to the kitchen. If you can picture it, you come in the front door, go straight ahead through a door into the kitchen. Then its all open plan to the left of the kitchen into the living room. We'll be having carpet in the living room. Not sure if this link will work:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mHRvA87Ysuo/SP-LQKMEHGI/AAAAAAAAACs/-4B5q-5wTKw/s1600-h/152-5298_IMG.JPG

You can hopefully see the kitchen floor and the floor does continue under the door into the hallway.

Wickedkitten

TomsMom wrote: »

Is anyone else having trouble getting onto my blog?

If you can get on, can you post the link so that I can check it that way. I'm dreading finding out that all my hard work has been lost _pale_ .

I'm actually following yours along with pretty much everyone else's via the rss feed which work fine.