Home extensions 2017 - Christmas is coming

[Believeitornot]

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No the 5.5k is what's left for tiles, floor, fitting of both, and fitting of new kitchen.

Thank you, feeling generally terrified of it all at moment

The good news - my ovens are in and working!

The bad news - they're not fitted correctly. Because they didn't bloody well open the things and take out the spacer bar that was packed in the main body. So I will have to get the builder to fit them again tomorrow.

Ahhh, I'm having a bit of a bad day.

Oh no, whisky, what a pain. Stuff like that is annoying as it is so unnecessary if the people installing just took a minute.

We have discovered we have no cupboard handles, which is annoying. The builders have rigged up something with tape so I can get into the dishwasher now the worktop is on.

I also have no more cupboard doors on because the guy who was meant to be doing it today completely wasted the day by not having his tools with him. God knows what he was doing. Main Builder has shouted at him so I don’t need to.

I can get into my proper oven now, I love the hide & slide door! The combi is definitely in the wrong position though. With the door open it is right at chest height and I cannot reach far enough into it. Builder says it should be fairly easy to swap them around though. I should have maybe seen if they did a hide & slide door combi too.

I'm glad you can swap the ovens dusty - sounds like it'll work a lot better that way around. You don't realise how high a lot of things will be until they're in place, do you? I've done that with my ovens - the top one is a bit high up, tbh. But then I am a towering 5' 4". Hope your cupboard handles turn up soon.

I am just so tired today. I haven't slept more than 3 hours for the last two nights because of this wretched back injury. When I get this tired, I also get very teary and overwhelmed. I'm honestly the worst person I know at surviving on low levels of sleep. I should be celebrating having ovens on. I thought I would want to bake a celebratory cake, and cook a pizza. Instead, I just feel defeated.

Hugs Whisky, I think tiredness gets to everyone. It will have been built up so much in your mind that now it's finally in, the excitement isn't there.

Jelly do you have a contingency? Our big kitchen is an estimated £1500-2000 to fit. You'll save a lot with ikea if you build the carcasses yourself. Wickes are also 4 years interest free and good quality.

Our 66sqm of Amtico flooring is £3500, other quotes were £5600 so shop around! When we were looking at tiles, Tons of Tiles were the best value at around £16 sqm for large format tiles. Floor tiling we were quoted £43 a sqm to lay them by a builder. I haven't shopped around for this as BIL is a tiler and I've asked for the 3sqm we're having around the island as a Christmas present. X

Dust, did you order handles and they've not turned up? Good luck sorting the ovens

Yes, I ordered them but no sign of them. So annoying.

66sqm...OMG... Ours will be 22sqm I guess a bit more as will do utility room too.
Yes there will be a contingency as well.

Oh I like wicks kitchens... :)

So do most people get kitchen fitters to do kitchen?
Or do you expect the builders to organise the kitchen fittings?

Our builder fitted our kitchen redjelly. But he is more of a general all rounder. That and fitting the utility room was £2k. We have upstands in the kitchen but I'll tile the walls in the utility (not too much to do!). I might even attempt to tile the utility floor.

4yearsnosleep: where did you get your Amtico from? That's a super saving, and we are currently looking but it's all coming I'm so expensive.

Dust, that's massively frustrating, I'd be furious. Give the company hell!

Ours is a local guy that pretty much works in a 5 mile radius. Everyone uses him for their flooring in the town so he's very busy and doesn't need to go further afield, so unless you live in Faringdon, it won't be much help! He's actually found us an equivalent to the Spacia, 0.7mm wear layer instead of 0.5 and the same price, so we'll be going for that (I need heavy duty flooring!)

"You'll save a lot with ikea if you build the carcasses yourself."

Just coming back on this because I had issues with it! I booked our builder to do the kitchen. However, before it had all arrived (thanks to the massive delay), I became aware from the utility installation that the builder wasn't that good at second fix. I tried to jump ship to an Ikea installation team instead, but I couldn't because I'd already put the base cupboards together myself. These days, they will only fit if they get the entire job, start to finish. I had to stand over the builder and watch everything like a hawk, which was incredibly stressful and upsetting (and am still having to do this, witness yesterday's fracas over the ovens). In future, I'd always get a second fix joiner, not a builder to do a kitchen - but that's just my personal experience, and maybe I'd feel differently if things had gone another way.

Ebay is really great for LVT. I managed to get 20 square metres of Amtico signature parquet in a herringbone style for £300! It's about £75 a square metre normally. However, because you're buying what's left over from a project, quantities tend to be small. There are larger lots too, but these are rarer to find! I'm hoping it'll be enough to do my study and my hallway.

I agree Whisky. My brother in law is a tiler (part time as he's a fireman) and he told me to only get a kitchen fitter, not a builder. You've really had a bit of a nightmare, I hope it's all perfect soon x

When I did our old house we had an Ikea kitchen installed by a joiner + they laid laminate throughout and replaced the skirting for £1500; it would have been £300 extra if they had to build the units too.

Thanks everyone for helpful advice.more questions :
What are upstands?
And has anyone used diy kitchens?
If you have do you have to fit in with standard units or can they make bespoke ones?
I am going to have a lip of wall sticking into a breakfast bar, as cannot take wall right out as it's an external corner. I want a double width work top with cupboards one side and stools the other if that makes sense. The work top and potentially cupboards would have to made to fit around sticky out bit of wall...

Our builder fitted our kitchen and I have to say he's done a great job. He is a carpenter by trade though and his dad helped who is also a carpenter.
They've also laid our flooring and again done a grand job.

I would definitely get a professional to do tiling. Our ensuite is fully tiled and is unbelievable.
We got a mastic man to do our mastic. I didn't know this was a thing but he's coming at the end to mastic everything so all our cutting in will suddenly look like a professional job 😂

There's such a thing as a mastic man? WOW! Wonder if I can get one to come out and reseal my bath and neaten up around my kitchen sockets?

Upstands are the bits that are vertical next to a worktop redjelly. They are generally squatter than splashbacks, which extend up the wall. You can just turn your upstand into a splashback and have it all continuous, though. I did this - will try to post a picture later on!

I think a couple of old timers on the thread, who are now enjoying their wonderful, perfect houses, used DIY kitchens to great effect! Maybe they will pop in and post some pictures

bax - your kitchen is lovely, so clearly a vote for the builder model!

Redjelly I’d have simply gotten the builder tonfit the kitchen or any joiner/cabinet maker. But we’ll have a bespoke kitchen and the manufacturer will install it.
A friend of mine told me that the Ikea fitter couldnmt install their own units properly (apparently ovens and dishwashers are tricky).

A couple of weeks ago I enthusiastically announced the imminent arrival of my bifolds. That hasn’t happened yet. The frame is in but supplier messed up the order and the wrong panel is the traffic door so that needs to be changes. The glass has been at the supplier for a while who’ve been waiting for anreplacement as one of the internal blinds got damaged in transit.
UFH had been done, I’ still teying to tackle the dust as I didn’t know they were foing to drill and the utility has open shelves and used for food storage.
On the plus side I’ve found a Carluccio’s panettone that we totally forgot and already chewed myself half way through it. :-))

Oh Tika, tell me about traffic doors please. I hadn’t realised traffic doors were a thing and still can’t work out if they fold with the other doors if you want the whole thing open.

I hope yours get sorted quickly anyway.

I have just ordered tiles for the splash back. I went with the yellow as they pop more than the blue and brighten things up.

Yay! I was slightly rooting for the yellow dust but didn't want to say anything until you'd made your decision.

tika - how frustrating about the delay on the bifolds. I really hope you get them soon. On the upside, it's good that you have a company that is conscientious about quality in that way - they are an expensive item and it would annoy you forever if anything were wrong.

I've had 2/3 of my glazing panels changed, because of all kinds of problems. Some bright spark at the glass factory decided that we didn't need the thickest glass, on the basis of some dubious engineering calculations. The result was that the huge panes in the doubled glazed sliding doors started to warp alarmingly until they were actually touching in the middle! This made a condensation mark that was the exact shape of a cartoon ghost. Then there were roller marks in other pieces of toughened glass, and tiny fleck-like imperfections in others. The company have been great and very no-quibble about exchanging everything, which has significantly reduced my stress levels over the problems we have encountered. The boss man came out in person to apologise and reassure me this morning. They were really quite inexpensive for aluminium glazing (note the qualifier there!) so I am pleased that they are taking everything so seriously and putting the issues right so promptly and so nicely.

My black Kungsbacka kitchen doors, which I had to wait months to get, are finally going on!

I was rooting for it too whisky.

I’m so pleased to have found this thread! I’m only on page 4 but so much helpful info!
I have no idea what a mumsnet tap is?

This is the legendary Mumsnet tap - stylish yet bargainous

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as posted by @HideHide! Unfortunately it's out of stock, but there are others on Amazon that look to be very similar!