Anyone starting an extension imminently?

[Karcheer]

Ours has been a long time coming, planning permission was granted 18months ago, but our builders finally start on Tuesday.
Would be great to have some build buddies

We have got storage built in under are eaves but as its tight for space it's not massive but has swollowed up a lot of stuff.

Our loft bathroom floor was laid and I love it, but stuffling to find a nice wooden oiled floor for the loft and suggestions welcome?

More progress. We are hoping that the roof will be on this week. Once the roof is on the dwarf wall from the old conservatory will be demolished (builder rests his tea on it at the moment). The the screed for the floor will go down. With that the builder will be done!

So the builders left for the weekend and after fitting the temp kitchen I was looking forward to getting some washing in the machine. Nope, they set it all up but none of it connected Launderette here I come.

Bit depressing here, the reality of not having a proper kitchen until end March/beg April is sinking in. Also, our bastard useless architect has not drawn a soil pipe to the new bathroom and due to the joists being the opposite way it looks like the pipe is going to have to be boxed into Bed 3 and run out of the house that way NOT HAPPY. We already had the boiler moved in that room. It was supposed to be a small double and will now look like a cramped single as we need to build wardrobes to cover said boiler and pipes.

Supposed to be picking tiles for new bathroom today but I cannot be faffed as constantly making decisions on the house and juggling it with the busiest time of year work wise I am a bit flat from it all and just want to zone out. Considering the builders started end Sept I think I am entitled to a few pissed off days

AesopsMables, that does all sound miserable. How could an architect forget a soil pipe for a bathroom? He must have had a funny turn and thought he was in a different century!

I have a recollection that the original plans for the Royal Crescent in Bath didnt have stairs. They turned out alright in the end so there is hope.

We are experimenting with our new kitchen layout. I persuaded DH that how he really wanted to spend his Saturday was by knocking out kitchen cupboards! The kitchen now feels a lot more open. Dog wasnt impressed by all the crashing and banging and sulked on the sofa. Cat was most intrigued by the dark spaces revealed when we took off the kick boards.

I have done yet another recosting of the kitchen. We are now going to go with new cabinets from B&Q and the doors from a door supplier. Now all we need is some money!

Aesops DP and I take turns at having a pissed off day, usually one of us has one every couple of weeks. I hope your architect is planning on doing some serious grovelling to you!

Gnome yours looks like its coming along well. Have you decided what style of doors you're going with in the kitchen?

We are temporarily a scaffolding free zone! All came down yesterday which was very exciting, especially as the garden now looks much bigger. Currently costing up having the rewiring done downstairs and horrid tasks like that. I am dreading the rewiring more than I did the whole of the loft conversion! Although I think the worst will be removing the chimney breast. At least we will be able to hide out in our lovely loft conversion.

Madblondedog the rewire will be messy but the electrician will (if he is anything like my DH was when he was trading) keep the disruption to a minimum.

Get as many sockets in now as you can. It will be far less disruptive now than trying to add more later.

The kitchen is going to be handleless gloss white. The doors will be from the company I gave you the link for. What I really want is to have the worktop one of the sparkly composite ones. We may need to leave that until later though.

Yeah, I'm resigned to it being messy but important! We've gone for quite a lot of sockets (I think) so hopefully it will be sufficient.

I love the sparkly counter tops, we're resigned to a laminate counter top for now and changing it in a few years. Tortured ourselves by going into a lovely high end kitchen shop at the weekend

We've a similar issue with joists and waste, the plans had waste going one way but we've discovered old metal steels that mean they've got to go another way and I'll have to have a raised shower in the bathroom so pipes can go above it. The loo needs to move.
Originally we weren't going to touch the bathroom in this phase...

Gnome Mad and Karcheer thanks for the responses.

Just closed down computer after spending all day from 7am engaged with Builder/Structural Eng/Architect and fitting in my day job hosting various conf calls and submitting forecasts etc. Oh, and changed mind on kitchen , in addition to ordering tiles for bathroom and making numerous cups of tea for 8 workmen all of whom are here knocking out walls downstairs/fitting walls upstairs and doing first fix electrics and plumbing. I cannot wait to get back to the office tomorrow for a rest. Letting DH sort out the issue now with bi-fold door sizing tomorrow that seems to have surfaced today.

Toilet problem sorted. It is moving onto the outside wall and the shower will be going in its place

It is crunch time here. It is cold, dusty, noisy and expensive. The last 3 months have been the honeymoon period. BUT, this is the hardest week and by end of it we are nearly over the worst bit and begin to rebuild ground floor. Windows are being fitted on Thursday (excluding Bifolds which are due early Feb)

Need to confess something though...They had plumbed in Washing Machine on Friday eve!! It just needed plugging in - My DH is the first to admit he is useless at DIY but that just takes the biscuit yes I know I could have tried it but not the point

Hope all having a good start to week

Mad Electrician and Chimney Breast is messy but I am amazed how much space the CB removal makes in a room. Step away from the high end kitchen shops, we committed a hefty kitchen price prior to starting the job and it just makes it more pressure to keep in budget. One for lessons learned is price and commit to kitchen midway not at beginning as you have a better understanding of overall costs.

Night all

Karcheer its frustrating isn't it when you don't plan to redo an area just yet but you end up having to.

Aesops glad you sorted the toilet issue, and its improved the room (your secret is safe with us).

I keep thinking "do we want to lose the chimney breast, is it worth the mess" but I know the answer is yes. It doesn't even go to anywhere so its pointless having it and its rather large! I do wonder if we could save money and remove it ourselves but I don't want to start, make a mess then have to call in the builder anyway. I wonder if the mess is any worse than when they knocked the wall out downstairs for the stairs to go in, does anyone know?

does it support a chimney at all Mad? You prob need to get a builder in to advise on this and then see if you need any structural calcs for support drawn up.

We have decided not to remove the chimmney breasts I can't cope with the additional mess and losing two more rooms as we will be left with two bedrooms, lounge and toilet. Despite no longer having a chimmney on the roof as it was falling down when we had the loft/roof done.

It doesn't support anything anymore, the chimney had to come out for our loft conversion to be done. I do think they would get it done much more quickly and easily

We have a roof! All that timber in the photos on Saturday is now covered with tiles! Cant wait for the weekend when I can see it in daylight.

Skip arrives today so that the final demolition of the dwarf wall can take place. I am hoping that we can be looking at putting the windows and patio doors in at the weekend. We have planned out where the sockets etc will go. DH will do the first fix on the electrics then get the studwork up for the plasterboard.

Last night we were drawing the french doors which will go from the kitchen to the sitting room on the temporary plasterboard partition. Perhaps that is the way to go, just draw things!

How many bathrooms do you all think are needed in a 5/6 bed room house?

We have one in loft, one on middle and toilet downstairs. We were going to put another shower room on the middle floor but thinking of ditching it for a walk in wardrobe storage space is needed.

Hi McBaby, I had a look at a few new build 5+ bed houses in my area. The norm seems to be 2 ensuites plus a family bathroom. How many bedrooms do you have on each floor? How many bedrooms sharing each bathroom?

We have 4 bedrooms with 1 ensuite and one family bathroom. We are a family of five (three teenagers). The DCs share the family bathroom.

Congrats on your roof Gnome

That's it for us on this phase, the final invoice came through today! Starting to get downstairs jobs arranged, builder and electrician are tomorrow to look at the electrics so we're plowing on.

Can anyone recommend some software for room/kitchen planning? I'd prefer to do it online not on paper.

We will have 3 ensuites and a family bathroom upstairs and a shower room off the family room to bath the dogs and a loo and basin off the hallway downstairs.

We've been breaking through from what is currently a bedroom into the new bedroom today, you need a lot of imagination but it's looking good. :)

Eventful week here...

Half the new windows were delivered and fitted (whilst both DH and I at work) They are wrong type and not as drawing - our contractor is starting to really piss us off now.

New bathroom delivered and awaiting plastering before fitting which will be done next week. Finally. I have selected and ordered the tiles. Going for carrera marble effect to walls and same tile in mosaic to floor. does not help that DH leaves me to make every single decision on internals

Feels like 2 steps forward and 1 step back every week.

Still a mess here but I am resigned to it a little more now and just waiting for them to get it all finished so we can get back to some form of normality.

How is everyone else doing?

Aesops that's awful on their part, are they going to swap them out for the correct ones? I'm in the same boat, all internal design details fall to me (make that all details actually). Although I do enjoy it on the whole sometimes its a bit tough going.

Our chimney breast is coming out this week, I am dreading the mess. I'm trying to make space so I can put the sofas elsewhere as I love them and I don't want them forever filthy and stinking of dust.

Mad can you not just tape dust covers over them and an extra layer of plastic. Our CB's took no time at all to knock down (allow a couple of days for dust to settle) then uncover?

Re windows, I sent off a snarky mail to contractor Friday afternoon just telling him factually they were incorrect and asked him sort and to check the other two that have not been fitted before even attempting to do so. Got a standard reply back saying he has mailed the window supplier.

aesop where are you getting your tiles from? I'm struggling to find nice Carrera tiles for our ensuite.
What a nightmare about the windows! I'm really nervous about things like that.

What will be our new bedroom 3 is really taking shape, although I do think we maybe should have put a velux in (anyone know if I need planning permission for this?).
The electrician was here today, I need to revisit the placement of switches lights etc. I originally did the plan over two years ago. My builder reckons he has received this from the architect, but I don't recall seeing it. My friends hubby is the electrician so I think he'll be quite flexible.

How much lighting/switches are you putting in your bedrooms?

Karcheer I have just sent you a message for my tile suppliers

I have gone a little overboard on lighting to bedrooms and bathroom

My job means I stay in a lot of hotels which means I get a lot of grandiose ideas on a basic budget!

Larger bedroom is having 6 x LED spots and 2 wall lights over bed
Smaller room is having 4 x LED spots and 2 wall lights over bed
Bathroom is having 6 x LED spots and 2 wall lights over mirror
Dimmers to all rooms

Feels like major progress has been made here. Doors and windows are in. Loft insulation is in. The temporary partition is down and the extension is now part of the house!

DH has started putting in the studwork to allow us to have French doors off the kitchen into the extension. We will need to have that done before Wednesday as the builder comes back then to screed and level the floor.

Heating for the extension has now been ordered. For the time being we are going with electric panel heaters. We may go to radiators once we have got used to the room and how we use it.

I wonder when we will stop referring to it as 'the extension'. It seems very 1970s, Abigail' Party and Demis Roussos. I may need to put a kaftan dress on.