Home extensions 2017 - Christmas is coming

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Oh you are probably right! I have seen them using that before. I want to watch them plastering as I always find it fascinating and oddly soothing. They do it so fast. The guys doing it on stilts are the best.

Whisky, do you have any pictures / drawings of your study cupboard? It sounds fantastic. We’ve ended up with a large hallway cupboard which the builders suggested could have a fold-down desk in, as well as being used for coats / wellies etc. I don’t have a clear idea in my head yet of how it might be laid out.

It's actually going to be a cupboard in my dining room namedy!

I only have some poor technical drawings at the moment - here is one of the slightly crappy CAD files of the interior, which doesn't really give a sense of what it will really look like. Bear in mind that the whole thing wraps around a chimney breast - so there is shallow CD storage in the middle section, surrounded by deeper shelves either side. The right-hand side will house all our hifi and camera kit. The left hand side will be the pull-down desk and all the house filing, receipts, paperwork etc. and other stuff that wants a home (I have a long list, but won't bore you with it here!!). The whole thing will be CNC manufactured.

Of course, it will have doors on, which will look like the photo when shut. Our ceilings are fairly high - 2.6 metres - so it looks tall!

That sounds very cool whisky.

much we are only having a small extension so there weren’t many decisions like yours to make. Our only big one was whether to have a downstairs loo or a utility. Originally I wanted a utility, but agreed to the downstairs loo on grounds that this probably isn’t our forever home and a downstairs loo is more attractive to buyers. Plus it means we can knock our upstairs bathroom into one room and fit in a walk in shower. If we didn’t put the downstairs loo in I would have kept the current layout upstairs where our toilet is seperate from our main bathroom.

I have a sample of Dulux Midnight Teal which I thought I wanted to use in the dining area. Except on the wall it looks really dark and just grey, not teal, so I am unconvinced. More samples required.

I like your thinking Whisky! We did similar!

The utility is big but there will be a large cupboard not only to hold the hoover, ironing board etc but also coat hanging space (we all have too many) so that we can get rid of the coat mountain on the bottom bannister!
Laundry will be washed dried & put away in 3 drawers then 'people' will be responsible for putting their own stuff away!
I see it as taking pressure off other areas of the house & just trying to make us more organised!

And I hear you with the post! Our dining table is always covered in it! It drives me bonkers! DH's man cave will have the filing etc in there!

Dust how disappointing midnight teal sounds such a lovely colour!

I'm thinking of wallpapering the wall where our dining table is! We wanted an industrial look to it all but I feel it needs softening up abit. I think some wallpaper might go that! Goodness knows what though! I find myself drawn to the mad tropical parrots & monkey wallpaper - (see the funky downstairs loo thread in home decoration) I need to keep well away from that! 😬

dust - my experience with greys is that the colour depends SO much on the existing light in the room. I know that's true of every colour! But with grey it really seems to change it. Some colours can look almost lilac in one light and greeny-grey in another. It makes it more difficult to choose!

rick - Love your thinking ESPECIALLY the laundry plan. We also have the coat mountain problem and an understairs cupboard going in to try to solve it. I'm hoping DH uses it or I will wail like a banshee at him.

I am in a lot of pain today and feeling rather despondant. I feel like my job of wandering around the house pointing out all the things that need changing is draining me now. Even though the builder has so far done everything we have asked without complaining, I still worry about his reaction and feel stressed about having to do it. Also, we've found a joist that is rotten at the end and it's worrying me. It was right under where the washing machine/sink used to be, so I think it's probably just an old leak - the house used to be a rental, and before that belonged to someone with MH problems who did nothing to it, so it has a legacy of neglect. Everything is dry now, and the wood is sound about 10cm down the joist. The kitchen floor (and joists) have clearly been replaced at some point and they just sawed it off there because there used to be a wall in the way. So it all makes sense as wet rot. But there's this horrible voice in my head intoning "What if it's dry rot?" Like I said, I'm spectacularly doomy today.

much we have done similar to others with prioritising our wish list; we don’t have anywhere in our rented house at the moment for laundry, storage isn’t built on so doesn’t really work that well and have nowhere for coats and shoes so the hall is always a dumping ground. In our new extended house we have therefore prioritised a big utility to house a downstairs loo, laundry area and coats storage. Others would have probably put a tv/snug in the space but we will have a separate tv room so don’t see the need at the moment.

whisky I love your new built in cupboard setup...

Wow whisky, it’s amazing. Ours will be nowhere as high-spec / well thought out as that, but it has given us some ideas. I’d like it finished sooner rather than later but I think it may be worth getting a few joiners round to quote. It’s only a small room / cupboard but so important in supporting our war against clutter.

whisky the light is definitely important. With the right light on it this is a lovely blue grey. With no light it just goes dark, dark, dark grey. We need something with more colour in that area as it won’t get a lot of natural light.

I am adding significantly to our build costs as I have told the builder to fully redecorate our hallway. We had intended to wait and do it later in the year possibly. But so much of it has been affected by the build and it is in an awful state already as we rewired when we moved in but didn’t redecorate. I decided it will make me miserable to walk through my lovely new porch and see an awful hallway before making it to my lovely reception rooms and kitchen. I have money in savings that my dad left me which I can use. They weren’t intended for the house, but it feels silly to leave the job half done. And we’d never be able to decorate the hallway ourselves. High ceilings and a dark burgundy staircase.

Thinking of your problems and coming up with solutions seems like a great idea! But now means I need to come up with a way to hide the coat mountain (both on the coat rack & the bannister) the loo full of shoes and the endless mountain of clothes in the utility. I'm thinking storage in the hall where the door will be blocked up and some sort of system for 3 laundry baskets in the utility to sort clothes into. The rest of my issues will be solved by my big kitchen and wall 'command centre' 🤔 Time to get my thinking cap on for cheap solutions!

Hi all, happy new year :)
Some wonderful pictures of your almost finished kitchen's. So great to see the end in sight!

We're in week 8 of a (supposedly) 12 week build. I think we lost about a week due to the snow and a roofer with flu. But tbf the builder is making up time quite well. We now have a roof on and windows in. Tomorrow they start the knock through upstairs. Scaffolding is coming down on Thursday and the bi fold doors go in on Friday. So we're getting close to being watertight, yay!

We've ordered the kitchen. Which felt monumental as I'm quite indecisive! And i think we've decided on a floor, a beautiful herringbone wooden floor... over budget, but dh and i both love it :)

So it feels like it's coming together.

Sorry for the lack of paragraphs, my phone doesn't seem to like to add spaces!

namedy - definitely get a few quotes, there was a big difference between ours! Though we went for CNC manufacturing in the end (laser cutting) just because we were curious about how it all worked . I am seriously tempted to learn AutoCAD properly now - I can get the software free through work. But I don't know if I'd use it frequently enough to make the time investment worthwhile. On the other hand, the idea of being able to design anything is tempting...

dust - I think I remember your picture of the area - it was lovely, but not right by a window, right? Colour is not my forte, but just judging from my dining room, which is the darkest room in the house, I think if you want teal, you might need a blue, plus some nice lighting to make it feel cosy rather than dark?

I think it's a really good idea to have your hall done at the same time. You might as well get the disruption out of the way all at once, plus with decorators already on site, you'll surely save a bit? I've been living with a hall in a dreadful state for the last 10 years and it really gets you down. Definitely do it!

sherbet glad you are cooking on gas again now! However, who was it who was saying just the other week that builders ALWAYS say "12 weeks" for a build, but really it's more like 16+? Spot on observation!

Sorry dust that was supposed to say "if you want teal-grey, you might need a blue and then the light will darken it down". I dunno how I managed to delete half the sentence

I think you might be right whisky. I have more samples coming. Your right that it isn’t by a window. It used to be a kitchen and what was an external wall with window is becoming the wall for the downstairs loo. I think the wall is coming far enough back that it will get light from the bifolds but is the edge of them.

I have more samples coming. We are going to do the other side in white for now so we can live in it a bit and see where to paint & what colour. But this area will have built in bookshelves so if we don’t paint it now we never will!

Thanks whisky and all for your responses. Writing a list of routines that go wrong is a good idea. I'm liking the idea of draws or space for baskets that clothes are folded straight in to in the utility.

We've also got to decide if we take a tree down in the garden as it may affect our ability to get planning once the council know it's there. There's no TPO on it at the mo but we live in an area where the large majority of trees are protected. I'm not sure the effect this will have on the ground in terms of moisture. The ground is quite wet and I guess the tree drinks a lot of water so removing could potentially result in even wetter ground. It's a lovely oak tree though and I feel quite attached. I guess I could plant another further from the house.

Oh don’t take your oak tree down! What a lovely tree to have. Is it right where you need to build?

Sherbet sounds like progress to me. Why do builders say 12 weeks though? Your floor also sounds lush.

Another vote for keeping the tree! They are lovely! Do you really have to get rid of it? And yes, they are brilliant at removing water too.

dust - great plan to get the white on the walls because it'll really boost the light levels and then you can choose the darker colour more easily. It's really hard doing colour this time of year, though. I'm trying to choose between three whites that are very close (though anyone in real life who tells me this means it probably doesn't matter gets their head bitten off!!) and I'm rushing from window to window whenever there's a gleam of sunshine!

The electrician is here fixing some outside lights and hopefully doing some sockets in the utility for a freezer, dryer and washer. But I can't have my lovely machines yet because the tiling isn't done.

It sounds like everyone is making good progress. Our time estimates have ranged from 8 weeks to 24 weeks!

We're doing things a bit ass backwards as we still haven't confirmed a builder yet, but we're ordering the kitchen tomorrow to take advantage of the DIY kitchens 10% off sale 🙈🤷🏽‍♀️

I need help ladies, which navy for the island? 1. Is F&B Drawing Room, 2. Little Greene Basalt, 3. Crown Midnight Navy.

We're having copper handles & River White Granite, the island is a mix of granite & oak.

We went for Hague blue for the island and it’s lovely.

Just dropping in quickly to mark my space to reply properly later. Currently digesting a £10k quote for the garden patio

I like the first one which looks the bluest one 4years, I think that must be the F&B?

believe -10K! What are they paving it with, platinum??!

4years - I'm looking at that fabric and thinking that you're going for classic-but-modern, rather than uber-modernist. If that's right, then I like no 1 or no 3. I think 3 might have the edge for me, but I am not a fan of really royal blue navies because I had a headmaster at primary school who regularly blazers in royal blue with gold buttons, and I was very naughty so often in his office for one reason or another. He paired that look with aviator shades. .

Builder just casually said “oh yes, kitchen delivery booked for next week Friday, should all be fine”. Eeeek! Kitchen! I thought it would never happen.