First-time house renovation

helping_hubby

Lisalou: If it helps we had our towel radiator installed in December and it was the recommended BTUs (whatever that was - forget now). Our bathroom has been warm over the winter.

How's everyone's weekend been?

Does anyone know if you have to use Plasticisor when making mortar for a brick wall?

We laid our lawn and have plans to do the patio over easter weekend.

Had a terrible experience in B&Q today - really getting fed up of them. Wanted to order 1 tonne of sand and got sent to the end of the store to the trade bit, only to be ignored by 2 members of staff and then finally told that the trade bit doesn't open on a Sunday. Find someone to put the order through - 20 minutes later after answering all the questions and waiting for him to phone other people etc when he got stuck, it turned out that they don't have any deliveries for a month!

On top of that we had some poor service at the till area too when the !!!! didn't know what brick we had and wasted 15 minutes trying to get someone to find out (we offered to go and get the barcode number ourselves but he kept saying no - there's someone that knows them off by heart). I lost it in the end and told him to scan a more expensive brick so we could just get the hell out of there. Poor people behind me in the queue.

Tomorrow I'll try Jewson and Wickes, failing that we'll buy 40 25kg bags of sand (but not from B&Q).

julieq

You can usually deal with plaster debris under vinyl by putting a wide scraper on the offending spot and hitting it with a hammer, it breaks the plaster up and flattens it, with the scraper spreading the blow and protecting the vinyl. But obviously you have to be pretty certain it's plaster rather than a sharp stone.

jamtart6

helping hubby - no idea about the wall sorry! How did the laying of the lawn go? We have cut bits up and moved it to fill in the borers and giving the front more paving so it looks like a malnourished patchwork quilt at the moment! we had to leave a gap for the utilities points which are all around the front of the garden (with lots of concrete v annoying!) so we bought some plants today and I planted them, when they grow, we hope they will cover the ugly manhole! I will post a pic of my handiwork asap

TomsMom

helping_hubby wrote: »

Had a terrible experience in B&Q today - really getting fed up of them.

Isn't it frustrating when that sort of thing happens. Hope you have better luck at Jewsons or Wickes. We have a Jewsons fairly local and they've always been pretty good with deliveries.

We've been busy over the weekend. Done a lot of cleaning up - it's amazing how much dust building works creates and what a pain it is to try and get rid of. I've cleaned so many UPVC doors and frames these last few days that I'm mightily sick of them, but have to say they've come up lovely and my windows are sparkling.

I can highly recommend these products if anyone is in the market for them. The solvent, although smelly, is fantastic and the glass cleaner is wonderful.

OH has now put the old kitchen units into the utility, just waiting for the worktop and sink to be fixed. We moved over the washing machine and tumble dryer and have started fill the cupboards in the utility and kitchen.

Tonight I cleaned up the pleated blinds (installed by the previous owners) and OH fixed them back onto the sun room windows. I was going to have something new, perhaps Roman blinds, but we really need to get curtains for the other rooms first as the budget is running out quickly. They're like this but were from Thos. Sandersons (and probably expensive!). They're very practical and will do the job well enough for now (the sun is on that side of the house from mid-morning till sundown so it can be quite blinding and hot at times).

It looks like the decorator finished the loft on Friday so I've cleaned the windows and vacuumed as much as the floor as is showing. We'll start moving more stuff over and store it in that room for now. He also finished wallpapering the two bedrooms so should start painting them tomorrow.

My grandaughter brought me some violas this afternoon and helped her mummy plant them in two stone urns at the end of the path. The weather has been lovely, it makes you want to get out and do the garden but we'll get round to it once we've settled in.

I hope everyone else has had a good weekend and managed to do everything you wanted to, or did you all get tempted by the sunshine and do the garden instead?

latecomer

Good morning everyone.

We had a bit of a mixed weekend. I was out with a work thing on friday afternoon and hence wasn't fit for anything on friday. Saturday mornig got off to a better than expected start as apart from a couple of moments, I felt pretty good considering :what I'd been up to D

And of course the first job on saturday was to remove all floorboards and sink from the bathroom. Lots of banging and general labouring. cleaned out a whole lot of rubbish from under the floor which some previous builder had just dumped. Then started on sorting out the pipework. Finally got one sheet of ply ready to go in which was rather difficult to the fact its the exact length of the bathroom (except where the walls are not straight and it doesn't fit of course!). We'd left the floorboards coming into the bathroom slightly long so we could cut it to the plywood as closely as possible. We also left a couple of square feet round the toilet to leave it usable overnight
Final act of the day was to knock out the wall next to the damaged joist ready for the new one to go in and then treat the old one.

Yesterday saw another old lesson relearned. After the joist was inserted and fixed to the old one, there was a pipe which was cut diagonally just under the floor which left a nasty spike projecting upwards. As it was open at the end and the rest of the water systems were completely drained (with the exception of the heating) we presumed it had to be empty. Big mistake! As soon as the hacksaw cut rhough the other wall there was a spray of water from it. Mild panic ensued and a bucket was put under it while we tried to prevent if soaking the new joist and everything else in the vacinity. The compounded the error by presuming it was just water in the pipe spraying through the small hole and hence a larger cut would drop the pressure - BIG MISTAKE TOO! Cut a very long story short we finally managed to get it capped but this was after shutting off the mains at the road (after getting 2 different shutoff keys - never buy one from B&Q!) we finally traced it to a drain point near the boiler got it drained. Still no idea exactly what its connected to. Finally last night we managed to get the second sheet of plywood cut to size and with cutouts for pipes and placed in. Got the toilet back in which was a big relief after spending the majority of the day without services.

Hence its been a very busy weekend but with little progress. We still hoping to get most of the bathroom installed next weekend but thats very dependent on the suite arriving and the walls/ceiling being ready. I have a feeling its going to be a long week

helping_hubby

jamtart6 wrote: »

helping hubby - no idea about the wall sorry! How did the laying of the lawn go? We have cut bits up and moved it to fill in the borers and giving the front more paving so it looks like a malnourished patchwork quilt at the moment! we had to leave a gap for the utilities points which are all around the front of the garden (with lots of concrete v annoying!) so we bought some plants today and I planted them, when they grow, we hope they will cover the ugly manhole! I will post a pic of my handiwork asap

The lawn looks great I think. A bit patchy, but I'm sure it will grow nicely. Me and mum spent ages leveling the ground out. Here's the photo (3rd pics down): http://thehouserenovationinsurrey.blogspot.com/2009/04/garden-update.html

I ordered the skip and the sand this morning. £64 for sand and £161 for the skip Not to mention the £150 we spent at the weekend on turf and other bits. Oh and a bed and BBQ. Skint again.

Shimmyhill

I was working this weekend but last week we got the 2 rads moved and plumbed in - all working well but i need to balance them yet.

Have temp lost the rad in the 3rd bedroom as that is being moved and the pipes dropped in from somewhere else - the rad fed the 2nd bedroom so the piping was cut and redone so it feeds the 2nd bedroom still. All pipework ready in the loft and capped so should be easier to plum in - esp as some isolating valves where added inline !!

Shall be filling holes in the wall today, removing what is left of the old pipework and ordering the new windows - have been doing some serious haggling and very pleased with price now

latecomer

@helping_hubby - grass looks fantastic. did you seed or turf?

I'm hoping to get our looking better but we'll have to see. Apart from anything else its got more hill and valleys than the Himalayas

jamtart6

helping-hubby, it looks great well done you we aren't sure whether to do ours as it will then be significantly lower than next doors (shared front lawn)as the road sort of slopes downwards a bit when we have looked. so it would encourage water seepage onto our lawn and thus be really soggy, so I think OH will have to live with 'the himalayas' as late comer put it

Paving slabs for the front would be £70 - don't know what to do, whether to get them and make do, or save up to get a proper paving and drive way. Feel like £70 could be put to something else but don't know if we will have the £2-3k needed for a drive any time this year....

BB1984

Hello all! We had a very productive weekend, although haven't got round to adding to my blog yet.
We mostly spent our time in the garden, though, enjoying the nice weather!
On saturday a chap came round to measure up our front door, as we're finally getting around to having it replaced. He's supposed to be phoning me tonight with a quote...no idea what to expect! I know I should get a number of quotes but to be honest, if his price seems fair I might not bother - it's such a pain having to get people round, then wait for the quote, etc. (I'm getting lazy!)
We also went to homebase and spent some "spend & save" vouchers on some plants and pots for the garden - didn't go too crazy as we haven't got any flower beds yet, but it's nice to have some pots with herbs etc in. Feeling frivolous, we then went to our local hardware-type shop and bought a garden shredder! £75 which is a very good price, and it's reasonably hardcore - takes branches up to about 1.5". So then David spent the afternoon hacking at trees and shrubs, and I fed it into the shredder Great fun!
Sunday was mostly spent in Weymouth, seeing my Nan for lunch and meeting the dressmaker and trying on my wedding dress for the first time....exciting! And my nan gave us a Rhododendron for the garden.
The burglar alarm is now operational... So Chester gets shut out....but at least it's warm and sunny!

BB