Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

I thought you are meant to bang the other elbow for luck?

Anyone else heard that, or do I just have very superstitious ancestors?

That sounds like "joke advice" from a joker .... to a fool that believed it and passed it on

chris_m

silvercar wrote: »

I thought you are meant to bang the other elbow for luck?

Anyone else heard that, or do I just have very superstitious ancestors?

I've never heard that - maybe it's a regional thing?

PasturesNew

For people who like "old/untouched houses".

A bloke bought a house in 1887 and moved in with his wife and had a family. The man was a painter/artist who was involved in painting a lot of intricate work in places like churches and posh houses .... and in his spare time he did it to his house too, for about 40 years until he died.

When he died in 1927 his grand-daughter, aged 12, moved into the house to look after the widow until she died in 1949.

The grand-daughter married and brought up her two daughters there.

In the main, nothing was touched/altered in the house at all.

The grand-daughter (b 1915) of the original owner of the house (the painter) stayed there until 2013 when she died aged 98.

They've got funding of over £625k to preserve it all.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridges-unique-david-parr-houses-12407120

My aunt lived in that road.

You might think "how much?" to do a bit of maintenance etc, but houses in that road cost typically £700k to £1million for a "bog standard terrace" these days. Although this particular house was sold by the family to the Preservation Trust for "just" £325k in 2013.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/CB1-2LW.html

Doozergirl

Wow. Some decent paintbrushes required there!

I don't watch Homes Under the Hammer anymore, it drives me insane but when it started today they did have a lovely old house that was bought as a family home - I can deal with that as it's nice to watch.

But then it carries on and I am angry that a woman (who is not very savvy at all) has also been told by her "builder" that she needs planning permission to knock a hole over 3 metres wide in a wall and so doesn't have two months to wait for the permission to open up some tiny rooms at the back of an unattractive mid-century box in Stoke. If a "builder" doesn't know about building regs, I don't know what she's hired. Thankfully it doesn't need much work now that she's realised that an extension and loft conversion (budget £40k?!) isn't going to improve the value by more than £15k.

edit: what a nice lady. She's converted the lounge to a bedroom for a student let (4 beds) and left them with a small table in the kitchen with 2 chairs as their 'communal space'. Not even a sofa.

And she's spent more than the top value of £110k house is worth. Estate agents are wetting themselves at the quality. It has a shower over the bath for four students and the expensive doors haven't been oiled. That will be fun next year.

Mental note to switch over at 9.25 before the rip off program starts, even.

Loanranger

The David Parr house is the subject of an article in this week's Country Life.
Amazing story of it being left in its more or less original state. It is in the Arts and Crafts style, I think. Mr Parr was a very talented artist. The funding is from the Heritage Lottery Funding pot of money.

Loanranger

ETA, David Parr used the house to help him cost his work. Clever.

michaels

Doozergirl wrote: »

Wow. Some decent paintbrushes required there!

I don't watch Homes Under the Hammer anymore, it drives me insane but when it started today they did have a lovely old house that was bought as a family home - I can deal with that as it's nice to watch.

But then it carries on and I am angry that a woman (who is not very savvy at all) has also been told by her "builder" that she needs planning permission to knock a hole over 3 metres wide in a wall and so doesn't have two months to wait for the permission to open up some tiny rooms at the back of an unattractive mid-century box in Stoke. If a "builder" doesn't know about building regs, I don't know what she's hired. Thankfully it doesn't need much work now that she's realised that an extension and loft conversion (budget £40k?!) isn't going to improve the value by more than £15k.

edit: what a nice lady. She's converted the lounge to a bedroom for a student let (4 beds) and left them with a small table in the kitchen with 2 chairs as their 'communal space'. Not even a sofa.

And she's spent more than the top value of £110k house is worth. Estate agents are wetting themselves at the quality. It has a shower over the bath for four students and the expensive doors haven't been oiled. That will be fun next year.

Mental note to switch over at 9.25 before the rip off program starts, even.

Eyes were not open at 10 so watching on catchup. Only seen the before of the Eltham house so far and it is amazing.

Edit: done now, not bad although personally I didn't like the kitchen.

Edit2: !!!!!! did the 20k go on?

PasturesNew

Doozergirl wrote: »

I don't watch Homes Under the Hammer anymore, it drives me insane

I've not been bothering to watch it, although it was on so I did see the old house, but wasn't watching it, so didn't hear what she had planned and what she did. I saw the original house had patio doors with side windows like mine so thought "Ah, I'll see how she dresses those", but then she said she was knocking through and I thought "I'll not bother watching then".

I'm more interested in the next one: Wanted Down Under. Weird couple today - woman had a monk on all the time

PasturesNew

Loanranger wrote: »

....this week's Country Life...

Posh alert!
You can't have been reading it free at the NHS Dentist as you said it's this week's

He's somebody whose life would've gone pretty much unnoticed, except for the fact his grand-daughter kept the house "as is".

He didn't even get an obit in the local papers when he died. He was just "a bloke who had a job and went to work", unnoticed.

I need to send links across to somebody I know that lived in that road so might've been aware of the family; same age as the daughters.

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's 12C in here, so I just decided to turn the heating on as that is a bit nippy. Frosty outside!

Forgot to reply to this one earlier.
I'm very glad that I refreshed my browser befor worrying about the weather - on the initial load, Netweather was claiming that the temperature was -50, yep that's MINUS fifty. Brrrrrrr.
Luckily, reloading the page inserted a bit of instant global warming and gave a more believable (and bearable) -2