to be pissed off that my neighbour is pinching all my ideas for home improvements

[stoppinattwo]

She "borrowed" my plans and now is miraculously doing everything i had planned that doesnt require planning permission.

Thos plans cost me £550 to get drawn up!!!

Oh i am so not happy

That is so cheeky of her - a real brass neck. Once you get over the shock and annoyance, you probably still want to be on speaking terms though. Not worth falling out over, but still upsetting.

You could always lightheartedly say something like "God I thought you were joking about copying the plans - I didn't think anyone would really do something so cheeky".

But try not to let it stop you enjoying your own ideas being done in your own house. Just imagine copying someone else's ideas and that will tell you the reason you wouldn't want to do it. It is much nicer seeing your own idea put into reality than someone else's.

we do get on very well,

There was one thing that i am so excited about doing and shes done it[grr]

but i suppose you look in magazines and watch thes house programmes for ideas.

I wont be able to do mine for at least another 12 months

You could apply for pp now though.

sa2, I suppose the bright side (and being charitable as you are friends with her) is that you now know there is no risk to going ahead with the plans, and you know it will look as good as you thought it would.

I would still be excited - you had a great idea that was so good that she copied it. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery and all that.

I have all the planning approval through liz and the building regs approval, there were a tonne of structural calc, but the changes she's making dont require these calcs.

Cloudhopper, you are such a nice person, that is definately the bright side i would like to be looking on, its just frustrating thats all, I wish we could do ours now.

sa2, you are right to be peed off. I don't mean to make you feel as if you shouldn't be upset, because you have every right to be annoyed.

I am just trying to think of a way for you to accept it over time, once the anger dies down and in order to remain on good speaking terms with a friend.

You could mention in passing that your plans were subject to copyright (owned by the architect) and that you hope she didn't copy the plans as she could be in a lot of trouble .

Stoppinattwo, my plumber popped in today to tell me that next door (who are using him after seeing him working here) have exactly the same bathroom as us....they have similar lounge, the kitchen we were getting (until we changed our mind at the last minute in the shop), same worktop, same utility room with same washing machine and tumble dryer.

I did care, I dont care. If I am worth copying, I must have style or they must be mad.....

stoppinattwo, yours will be better than hers because you are doing the whole thing. And by the time you end up doing yours you will have thought it through even more and come up with extra little touches that make it even better than hers.
I am an architect and I am forever coming up with cool things to do to our house and my dh is a builder so he builds them for me. And then when someone comes over, sees what we have done and then copies it, and my dh gets really irate because he want to be the only one with the cool things. But I find it flattering and anyway, I can tell that the copy isn't as good as ours because they didn't have my expertise during construction and my dh's expertise at construction.
When you get to your construction CAT me and I will happily give you a couple of little tricks to add on that will make it look really different without adding much to the cost (this is my specialty).

Sofia, you are right, I dont wish to sound catty but one of the impressions i got was it was a bit rushed and suprficial. I like to knock back to bare brick and start again, where she has skimmed, iyswim (sort of an analogy).

I had another idea to change our hall stairs completely which should be realatively easy and create bags more space.

I love my house and take loads of pride in it, I always have ideas.

at your DH being a builder. DP is useful from time to time, but he takes some motivation

There are lots of things you can do with lights to make things look really expensive when they aren't. We installed small led accent lights in the wall running up the stairs. They just gave a little glow (whole thing cost £200) and look like the type of thing you would see in an expensive house. Also check out rope lighting (it's about a £1 a foot) and if you hide it behind something, it give a cool glow and again looks really expensive. Trick is to make sure the rope itself isn't visible, just the glow. You can hide it with a piece of molding or aluminum trim (depending on the situation).

our hall is a cool size it is about 10 long and 2-3 m wide, I want to open the stairs right up, and make a feature of the space we hav in the hall, so it makes an impression when you walk into the house. My friend used lights on the stairs it looked fantastic, also v practical for visits to the kitchen in the middle of the night .

I am having to save up to do each room, the major building work will have to wiat £30K ish to do, so i have to wiat till we have enough equity in this house to afford to do it.