Home Extensions 2017 - come along on the journey

[RedRobin1]

Hi just wondered if anyone has recently started or about to start a home extension. Haven’t seen a 2017 thread so starting one here.

Our two-storey extension is due to start on 1st March and we have just started packing boxes. The planning and research has been ongoing for 2-3 years. Had planning permission approved a few years back and completed all the research around what we would like in our new extended and how we would like to design it all - extending the kitchen / dining area downstairs to create an open plan living, dining and kitchen space and an extra bedroom upstairs.

Have two DCs under 4 and need help / advice / tips and general hand holding.

Is anyone else starting theirs soon?

Yay after a 2.5 week wait we finally have some more bricks to finish off the walls! So its all systems go again..... Starting to get nervous about the break through! Really not looking forward to the mess and upheaval....

Me neither jojo. Think that will be worst bit. We're having an internal wall taken down as well as the external one. The whole of the downstairs back of house will be out of bounds. We'll have to put fridge and microwave or something into the front room. Trouble is the back currently has temporary kitchen and playroom which is full of stuff and it needs to be totally empty. We've decided to hire a shipping container for a month or so.

Hello. Our walls have gone up to damp proofing level (even with the incessant rain they dug and pumped, dug and pumped!) so we're still on schedule. Unfortunately, some local reprobates decided to chance their luck and break in last night. They smashed two windows upstairs and down but luckily only got away with a couple of radios and a hired ground breaker (we've moved out and the builders take most of their tools with them). Sadly, the house two doors down which is also having building work and is vacant didn't get off quite as luckily. They nicked a load of tools and a lot of materials including the entirety of the poor sods' underfloor heating which has yet to be laid! Idiots!

First electric fix next week so need to spend the weekend plotting everything I need on the kitchen plans ...which I haven't got yet !
Velux windows are in ..look great ..builder said it will all be quite quick now so lots of decisions to make ....haven't chosen floor tiles yet so that will be next ...
Just had the floor up in the existing kitchen and discovered that has woodworm due to the damp wood from leaking dishwasher etc over time and so wood needs to be replaced and all treated ...not a big deal by the sound of it .It's the only hitch (so far) so count myself lucky !!!!
Builders have been spoilt this week with ice lollies nearly every day ! Blessed with the weather !!!
Hope everyone else on track

Jigster- Ive been dishing out the ice lollies too. They are very well received! Our poor groundsman currently working on the patio are sweating buckets.

Tatler- The break in must of been a shock for both you and your neighbours. Cant believe some people!

Things are flying here at the mo. People in and out, its like Piccadilly circus! Tuesday there was 7 tradesmen in the house.
First fix plumbing and electrics are done and the boarding is going up ready for plastering on Monday. The patio groundwork is coming along and the new slabs are going down Monday.
Hopefully not too much longer. :)

Yay we have roof joists (or whatever they are called) they have been working amazingly hard since the bricks arrived!

My bricks have arrived but still no bricklayers! Absolutely nothing at all has happened this week!
I'm pretty pissed off!

Hipigley we are planning patio atm and my sis was looking at stones and I thought they would be around £15ish m2 ...but most seem to be £40+ ...and that's for nothing fancy ! Any advice where to buy etc ? My builder goes to a place but he's so busy on the extension that he hasn't looked just yet ..thanks

Jigster- Our builder quoted for £22 a square metre but looking around the tiles we wanted were £45 so we are paying the extra for them.
We actually went for Porcelain tiles. These ones. We ordered some samples from here first then the builders ordered the bulk from them too as they couldnt get them cheaper. simplypaving.com/bradstone-mode-porcelain-paving-dark-grey-textured-600-x-600-x-20-60-per-pack.html.
They have just started being laid and look fab!

Team Rick- How frustrating! We had a few weeks with not alot happening and it really pissed me off. We had a bit of a moan.

Funnily enough I looked at that website pigley it says the samples are n/a....how did you request one ? Are they good with delivery in regard to times they say ? Many thanks

Jigster- I think DH rang them up as we wanted about 5 samples. I think you could only get 1 free? So we paid a small bit extra to get more. We wanted to make sure it was def what we wanted so thought it worth it.

Re delivery- The builders ordered them but said delivery would be approx 5 days. All arrived fine and VERY well packaged.

I'm only at the research stage so fascinated to read your posts. Does anyone know of any specific self-build or extension forums? I think Homebuilding & Renovating used to have some but seem to have disappeared

We are so close to the end, but everything is really dragging. Chippy is fitting doors and I guess the next step is getting the floor down. But getting hold of the floor fitters is a problem. New bloke came to fit the curved island worktop and has made a real mess of it. To the extent that we ate now reconsidering laminate on the island and possibly choosing quartz -in red as a contrast to the well fitted black laminate. But the builders can't fit quartz so that will have to wait too.
Plumber's gone on holiday and the whole extension and bathroom are filled with tools. Haven't seen the electricians in a week either.

I feel I have a play kitchen at the moment. All installed but not working!

I'm a bit over it all now

Hi! Can I join please? We are in the middle of a large double storey side extension and single rear. This will create a garage, utility & toilet, knock through to create a much larger kitchen/diner, porch, and upstairs 2 bedrooms (1 with en-suite) and new bathroom.

This started in October and we're still only at (almost!) watertight shell stage. Although we have our new kitchen scattered around the house which we brought in November (on a great deal) but really didn't need to buy so soon although felt a bit pressured by the builder not to miss out.

Has anyone else's work taken so long?! We're starting to get slightly frustrated.

Oh, and the builder has gone over budget by like £20K!! We are rapidly running out of money...

So after what seems like much procrastination, we have walls going up. It's an utter tip though, so messy it's hard to imagine it finished!!

I am jealous spie, we have ground to a halt about 2 days work in the last 3 weeks!
Pissed off doesn't even begin to cover it!

Just doing all the electric 'placements' now ...trying to mark out 3 island lights when we are still bare walls/floor is a bit scary ...but hopefully measurements are ok ...
Getting electric meter /power cable moved out of loo to outside wall- £700 if we excacate or £2000 if they do it (another job for my builder !!) easy to see how it soon all adds up

trick feel your pain!! That was us a couple of weeks back, delay after delay and nothing at all happening!!

I hoping when I get home today to find some walls! They were supposed to start earlier in the week but various delays and not much has happened.

End of week 2 here. Our damp proof membrane, insulation and concrete are going in the floor today and building control man is coming. A gas man is plumbing so that when we eventually replace our combi boiler it can be put in the utility, currently in a bedroom.

My beautiful kitchen light hangs too low. Electricians are doing what they can but I've had it for more than 35 days so can't return it to john lewis. I can tell they think it looks shit too

After delays in starting, the concrete for our foundations went in today. They will be doing some brickwork next week but we have already been told that not much will go on the 2 weeks after that. He is finishing another job as well as getting married.
This is looking like a long process already- supposed to go away mid July for a few days which is looking doubtful now due to the delays.

I am finding some solace in the fact that everyone seems to be suffering from delays!
Maybe we're all using the same builder!
Luckily DH is the one dealing with him, I think I'd have told him to do one by now which wouldn't be very helpful!
Apparently bricklayers coming Monday & he expects to be roof ready by the end of the week! I don't believe him!

Hi all,

Can I join too? We started just over a week ago. It's been good progress so far: externally- foundations dug, concrete in and bricklaying started. Internally, we're knocking down the chimney stacks downstairs and knocking back one of the walls. They've managed to gut out the insides and steel beams coming in next week.

We've been advised to order the sky lantern in but somewhat confused by what to go with. Is anyone else getting a sky lantern/flat sky light. We hoped to have a 4x2m lantern over the new kitchen area and a 3x1m flat sky light over the dining area (our ext is 6x6m). There seems to be a variance in costs of sky lanterns: one from glassrooflantern-direct.co.uk/index.php?route=products/grey-frames-with-standard-glass/grey-frames-standard-glass-2000x4000 seems to be much cheaper than say, www.rooflanternsdirect.co.uk/

Has anyone else ordered their roof lanterns yet?

Exciting to read about foundations, walls going up etc

We've just had a short break away so not much has happened in the past few days here but good timing really as the plaster was drying anyway.

Electricians are here tomorrow so hopefully will have electricity back to the rear of the house soon! Having nothing in our bedroom for a few weeks has been interesting! Decorator is in tomorrow too, then the Kitchen fitter is due Thursday. Hopefully should look more room like soon and have a working kitchen very soon. 4 weeks without a kitchen is more than enough.
A little nervous that im still going to like the kitchen or it looks completely different in real life to what I imagine. We choose/ planned it all last year!

Picture was from before it was plastered. ( Couldnt get in there to photograph before we went away and its too dark now with no lights in there)