An in-between phase

KajiKita

PennysIntoPounds said:

Build admin.
Today's highlight was finding out that what we thought would be a simple and reasonably quick and affordable job will actually likely be an extra 10k and take nine months. 

OMG … 😧 Argh …

PennysIntoPounds said:

Went to the pub.

I’m not surprised! I suspect you needed to …

KK

badmemory

You must feel sometimes that they are extracting the Michael.  As for a beer - I think I would be looking at a keg.

PennysIntoPounds

Of course it's the bloody council again @KajiKita, if we ever actually get to move in I am going to be such a pompous complainy busybody and see how they like it. Will also be interesting to see how I vote in that constituency as I would usually lean towards them if no better options presented themselves, yet here we are still waiting for a reply from the MPs office about the same party council lying, about a year on... 

I'm tempted to move in there instead @badmemory 😁

Anyway, we have done our sums and can still be on track with lots of surveys, sales, and winnings, and shamefully accepting the offer of a large loan from an elderly family member, which we're very grateful for but not happy about needing for so many things. They have said they won't charge interest but would like to put 20k in their ISA this tax year so we're budgeting to ensure we can do that.

Unfortunately it seems like we're going to need to borrow much more from them (which they offered) as several of the large payments are things we need to get done or pay for before we can get our mortgage money.
On the one hand, it is such a fortunate privilege to be offered a loan with no interest but on the other hand we feel shoddy for taking money from them.

Going to have to accept it and be gracious and make sure our priority is paying them back. They're compos mentis and want to help, and we need somewhere to live and to pay these bills, so we are going to try to focus on the being grateful for the privilege bit and not the feeling shameful bit!

Sun_Addict

Don’t feel bad they’ve offered to help you out it’s not as if you’ve asked. I’m sure it’s made them feel happy to help and they obviously trust that you’ll pay them back. 

Fingers crossed for Ernie throwing a decent amount your way 🤞

PennysIntoPounds

Thank you @Sun_Addict, that was what I needed to hear.

beanielou

Absolutely no need to feel guilty. They obviously really want to be of help to you. 

EssexHebridean

Another vote here for the fact that if they hadn’t wanted to help they wouldn’t have offered - and it is very probably giving them pleasure to be able to help. 

We took the remarkably lazy but very effective step when we did the bathroom and kitchen at the flat of using the most basic square charcoal grey floor tiles for both - and in fact when the flooring was done in the entryway later we used the remaining tiles there too. None of the spaces was large, and we wanted something almost but not quite plain so as not to look too busy…we were amazed how well it worked. Using the same flooring in several separate areas made the whole thing feel quite cohesive, and they worked brilliantly against the beautiful bamboo flooring that we used in the hallway as well. In terms of the fitting out, in both kitchen and bathroom we looked for things we liked regardless of cost, then secured suppliers to find more budget friendly things that looked essentially the same. 

Spend money on decent extractor fans though - if anything will save your grout from going manky it’s a good extractor, plus a rule about always using a squeegee in the shower after you’ve used it! 

PennysIntoPounds

Thanks young bean @beanielou. I know you'll understand when I say I think I feel okay with it as the shame feeling will have to get in the queue behind the shame feeling of still being unable to squeeze let alone open my condiment bottle, and that I had to awkwardly stab my food with my fork like a particularly rude ancient king, and that I gave up eating my dinner before I wanted to because it was just too tiring.
Back of the line, money borrowing shame, other shames booked their place long before you! 😁🥂

PennysIntoPounds

Ta @EssexHebridean. I love a charcoal grey but think it'll make these small spaces feel even smaller. Please send me link of bamboo flooring if you get a mo, liking the sound of it for other spaces though budget, availability, and how much of a stress builder is having will be main factors 🙄
And I want to enjoy designing the bathrooms, this is the bit I was looking forward to! Everything else is going to have to be what we bring or scrounge or save up for, but the bathrooms we can actually (within limits) choose all to ourselves what will make us go 'this is actually a proper nice room' every time we step into it. 
I expect it'll be a panic job all round like the rest of this build but I'm at least trying with just one room to make it nice 😂

EssexHebridean

https://www.bambooflooringcompany.com/  Bamboo flooring was from these people - excellent to deal with, and they send samples so you can see what the various colours look like in your light/space too. We’d go for it again in a heartbeat as and when we come to have flooring done here, it’s just such a beautiful product. Not “cheap” but not anything like the price of engineering wood type flooring, and so much nicer than laminate! 

I’m with you on making the most of the stuff you can “furnish from scratch” as it were too - I know bathrooms aren’t furnished as such but you know what I mean! We opted for what could have been quite a stark look with the charcoal floor tiles and white tiled/grey painted walls - but lifted the effect with iridescent mosaic tiles - in a downward drop from ceiling to bath, and as an accent splash back along behind the sink. We also used that for the bottom shelf in a little alcove designed specifically to stop bottles of shower gel/shampoo etc accumulating on the edge of the bath. Because those tiles continued masses of different colours it meant we could then add proper bursts of colour with the towels and bathmat - and having those in a couple of different colourways meant that we had several quite different looks to the room - it worked well! (And handily one of those sets of towels turned out to be exactly the right colour for the bathroom here, too - the other, less so, but it will not surprise you to know we’re still using them regardless!