Support thread for House Renovators/DIYers

[LPlateFlyer]

Was wondering if anyone wanted to join me in a support thread for all of us doing lots of renovating, odd jobs, diy etc. This can be somewhere we can do some well deserved bragging on a job well done!

I have sooooo much DIY that needs to get done.

I almost finished the downstairs loo yesterday. All that needs to be done is a second coat of paint on the door and a towel rail and toilet roll holder to be put up.

Yesterday's Tada list:
Painted skirtings in loo 2x coats
Painted door frame in loo 2x coats
Painted door in loo 1 x coat
Put together and installed a small bathroom cabinet


I'm about to start putting together an Ikea book case so that I can get some of the books out of storage!

[hinkyhonk]

• cow and

[MrsMangoBiscuit]

Those teens think it's ok to graffitti a house because you are about to move. Sophie has somehow managed to annoy them enough for them to write that. I like Sophie already!

Hello puffy, and welcome. I see you your artex ceilings and woodchip, and raise you anaglypta, in odd abstract patterns! We even have a mix of designs in the dining room. It does hide a multitude of problems, doesn't it. I can well believe your 2 bedrooms being a much bigger task than it sounds. We've just painted over it in our living room. At least it's just one design in there, small flowers, which kind of goes with the rest of the room. Looking forward to getting rid of it in the hallway, but that will be a truly mammoth task. Did your hall renovation include stairs and landing? If so did you get someone in, or brave it yourself? Ours will all have to be done together, so we're currently saving up for that. Pretty certain we will have to get the whole thing replastered, so I'm hoping we can save up enough to get someone in to decorate it all too.

[puffylovett]

Hi mrsmango
We did our hallway ourselves. It took me weeks to peel off woodchip and layers of vinyl wallpaper that wouldn't come off even with a steamer, serious elbow grease! The manky old red carpet revealed a lovely black and white Minton floor though

Luckily my DH is a big bloke and a spark to boot, so has much experience of house bashing (hates doing it though, i won't tell you my patented technique for getting him to do jobs around the house ) We opted to use artex fix on the ceiling, easy filled the walls and he spent a few evenings precariously balanced on the banisters reaching the bits I couldn't get to on my ladders!! It was a massive job, and the first we tackled - im so glad we did it first as you spend so much time walking through the hall and I just love it, it looks amazing. Silky smooth f and b walls, Minton tiles and a stripey red runner up the white stairs

I hope that motivates you enough to get saving!!

[hinkyhonk]

The orange is gone and I'm done in

[Aethelfleda]

Hooray for hinky!


today I ......wait for it..... Nailed Three sheets of MDF panel over exposed beams in our eaves cupboard to stop the fibreglass from falling out and make it a more useful storage space. Baby steps!

Though in all seriousness PLEASE everyone be super careful in your DIY. I managed to hit a live cable at the weekend putting in a tiny picture hook. Am OK but it was a hell of a shock (in both ways) due to doing stuff while jetlagged. Just didn't think about leccy as on automatic, it was "only" a little hook.....

[MrsMangoBiscuit]

Ouch Aethelfleda, I hope you're ok. I took a shock from fairy lights years ago, still have the scars where the wires burnt my arm. The mental shock was worse than the physical damage, really shook me up. Not pleasant.

Well done on finally getting the MDF in though, did it work well?

Good work hinky!

puffy, I want your hall! Ours is dreadful, nasty anaglypta, frayed carpet, big dents in the wall, I tend to keep my eyes focused on our lovely front door when walking through it! I'm fairly certain we will have to get people in, neither DH or I are good on ladders. Just trying to decide if we do the hall as our next big project, or if we turn the conservatory into a laundry/sewing room rather than the dumping ground it currently is. We've got part of the storage in there (left overs from ripping out the ex-kitchen) but it needs a lot more.

[Liara]

Ooh Aethel, that sounds nasty. I hate electricity with a passion. Fortunately dh doesn't so he's lumbered with it.

I spent all weekend sitting on a digger. I feel like I've been shaken to within an inch of my life. Had trouble going to sleep as I had that feeling when you're finally in dry land after being on a boat and your balance is all shot. Would hate to do it for a living!

Still, at least the trampoline is buried....

[Aethelfleda]

How's everyone doing? I've started on our top dressing room, it needs a complete repaint, have done the replacement skirting boards with one-coat satin gloss (I hate oil-based paints but that's what we had). Now need to get two coats of brilliant matt white on the walls and ceiling, then trim the carpet (we have a remnant that doe half the room where the old carpet was damaged. Hope to find another cheap remnant to do the other half til we can afford to recarpet properly). And then want to get it organised as a spare room/storage area. Started off OK but then got interrupted mid-paint... Need to restart! Oh and want to hang an electrical extension cable on the wall so it's out of DS's reach, but not even thinking about that til I've found the hidden-wire-locator as am now so paranoid about hidden cables!!! On we go....,

[hinkyhonk]

Am in awe of aethel keeping up momentum I've ground to a halt. Still need to focus on finishing off bits for the ds' rooms, pipe painting and curtain taking up, more graffiti over painting them a top coat of emulsion. Also need to decide on curtains to soften the blackout blind in mini ds room but want something that will last. Are camper vans an odd choice?

Next mission is the kitchen but need to figure out the cost of the roof and windows to decide budget. How much does everyone else spend on kitchens. I know it depends on size and complexity but we are only after a straight run of base units and an island. Surely that can't be too expensive... Am on denial re the cost of new appliances too

[Aethelfleda]

well, I've definitely had grind-to-halt moments hinky, I think it's inevitable whenever there are lots of things needing to be done, and then real life gets in the way all the time! I;ve nearly done the first coat of white on the top room now, Have wrapped the rollers and brush up in plastic bags so need to finish the painting before they solidify!!!!!
Will try to have another go sometime this weekend.....

Regarding kitchens, it's really a piece of string. My SIL got a nice IKEA setup including new appliances for about 3,000, but they saved by fitting it themselves. I have been ogling very expensive Lacanche ranges (strictly window shopping!) and John Lewis/Bosch full height fridges and freezers..... fortunately perhaps, we have no cash to redo the kitchen so are making do with the 12 year old but perfectly servicable one we have already. oh for a bigger freezer!!!

[hinkyhonk]

we managed to put up two curtain rails over the weekend and some garden hacking was done which always puts me in a good mood!

the aim this weekend is to finish painting the boys bedrooms and we have a plan of how to do it this weekend so it might actually get done. if those are done then at least we can move on to do the next bit, although which bit is currently up for debate.

DH wants to do the spare room which I think is bonkers seeing as we are never in there and i would rather do our bathroom as it has no curtains and massive windows and was very chilly in the cold snap last week. it needs sorting asap imo and its somewhere we go every day so would see the benefit of it. but again what colour scheme in a bathroom?

so can we have a survey: what colour palette is in your bathroom?

[50shadesofmeh]

Hello just coming over from buyers thread , just moved into lovely 4 bedroom late 1970s house that literally hasn't been modernised since then, Avacado bathroom suite and the original wooden kitchen that's seen better days, just pulled out dishwasher in kitchen to discover its been leaking and damp all along floorboards.
Ikea kitchen all designed online and plan to fit that ourselves in the next few weeks whilst simultaneously painting , filling, plastering and re flooring nearly every other room in the house.
We have already finished one bedroom so my sons furniture is going up today and we start my 2 younger girls rooms to tomorrow .
Bloody harder work than we thought it would be :-/

[MummytoMog]

I want to hear more about the trampoline burying please - I have a digger in my garden right now and it sounds very enticing to bury the trampoline at the same time.

Other than that, we are living in hell. I won't ennumerate our woes again, but suffice to say that there is a single sheet of ply between us and the outside world in the living room, the bathroom ceiling has fallen in, the kitchen ceiling is on the kitchen floor and the plumber who moved our boiler ballsed it up.

BUT we got the chimney swept and a nice fire goes a long way to making me feel better. And I have a cupboard to paint tonight. And the remortgage came through. And Pinterest is giving me lots of brilliant ideas for how to use the new space in the house. So it could be much much worse.

Ikea kitchen planner is great though isn't it! A bit clunky and won't think outside the box, but I love being able to see how a room will look in 3D.

[Liara]

What do you want to know about the trampoline burying?

We just made a great big hole, then levelled it using stones, built a stone wall around the leg bits, filled the gap to the rest of the hole with soil and more stones, flattened the area a bit, and then for good measure decided that what the area needed was some raised beds made out of stones and a path and a whole load of paving around the beds made in yet more stone.

Are you getting a picture of the kind of area we live in?

[MummytoMog]

So did you just drop the trampoline into the hole? So then it was level with the surrounding garden? And you don't have to have a net? I quite fancy that, and it would make the trampoline less 'dominant' in our garden...

[MrsMangoBiscuit]

Hello again. Not gotten much done in the last week or so. We decided on a black/white/grey colour scheme for the hallway, so I bought fabric, and managed to make the new hallway and landing curtains last Sunday night. Was somewhat busy on the Monday, and DD2 arrived 00.16 on the Tuesday morning. Can't see us getting much done for the foreseeable future, other than maybe a bit of planning.

[Aethelfleda]

Yaaaayyy!!! Congratulations mango, that's lovely!

[hinkyhonk]

Welcome mini mango!!

[Liara]

Congratulations Mango!!

MummytoMog, yes, I dropped the trampoline into the hole. I still have the safety netting on, as it was on a slope so the ground still falls off to one side, but it is still much less obtrusive.

Many people do remove the netting once it's sunken, though.

[MummytoMog]

Congratulations! Liara, trampoline burying sounds awesome. I might make my builders a cake and see if they fancy digging me a big hole at the bottom of the garden with their mini digger in exchange for a sneaky backhander. Our trampoline is quite attractive as they go, but it does LOOM.

[Liara]

I didn't have to because of my terrain (it's stony and sloping), but if water tends to accumulate where you are planning to put it do put in some form of drainage, or your dc could end up jumping on a pond.

But, yes, it does very massively reduce the amount of loom. It was getting me down, now I am suddenly quite fond of the thing. We have put some pretty coloured pebbles in front of it too, so I'm finding it almost appealing. Not sure what an attractive one would look like though, can you send me a linky to yours?

Any chance of a baby photo, Mango? [pleading eyes] I'm in a mood for cooing...

[hinkyhonk]

Managed to paint another bedroom yesterday so both boys rooms are now blank canvases to put nice pictures up. Not a jot of graffiti in sight.

Next target is the royal blue bathrooms walls...

[MrsMangoBiscuit]

Baby photo now on my profile Liara :) She had her first bath last night, and DH stripped her off in the nursery, to which she responded by peeing all over the landing carpet as he tried to run to the bathroom with her! Good job we're looking to replace that carpet next.

[Liara]

Oooh, thank you! So very cute!

Going misty eyed at the thought of all those pees triggered by taking off a nappy :) and blanking all those nights of not sleeping

[Aethelfleda]

Awwww mango she's lovely!

Right, after another embarrasing break, this weekend I have planted 5 Hebe bushes in the garden. Wanted to do six but have been thwarted by discovering an enooormous lump of buried SOMETHING slabbish that I can't get all around quite yet... Need to excavate it and see how enormous it it (gulp), so far its about a yard wide and slopes down into the flowerbed and (erk) under the edge of the lawn... Part of me thinks I should just rebury and ignore it, the other part wants the Darn Thing Out....

And have finished painting the top spare room Brilliant White: it's by no means flawless but looks a lot neater than it did. Now need to fit two carpet remnants I obtained cheaply to provide short-term clean flooring (the old one was grim) until we recarpet the whole of upstairs properly when we have more ££.