Home extensions 2017 - Christmas is coming

[Believeitornot]

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[Baxdream]

I went shopping and bought lovely new bedding instead! It's from the white company. Throw is h and m but matches perfectly!

[Baxdream]

Red jelly - try not to get too disheartened. I guess it might make sense. I started in the summer in glorious sunshine so we didn't have weather issues early on.

[FiloPasty]

Bax love the dog & the bedding!
I have the last quote coming in tomorrow morning, we’ve pretty much discounted the others and I have a good feeling about the builder and company, but can we afford it? That’s the question. Doing a ground floor extension, and there is so much to budget fir as well as as the building/labour costs. Fingers crossed it comes in under 80k (my husband was hoping for 60k but we’re London so I think it’s unlikely)

[FiloPasty]

Whisky do you have lots of DIY experience? I’m wondering what if any I could do myself to bring the costs down overall.
RedJelly I can see how annoying that is but I wouldn’t have wanted to work today it’s awful isn’t it!

[whiskyowl]

No, not at all Filo. I'm the most unskilled of labourers. The varnishing is really easy, though. I'm using this great product called Screwfix Trade Varnish and it looks like milk. So when you put it on, you can instantly see if you have applied too much as it looks white (when you brush it out, it is clear). It's about £8 a can too. Brilliant.

Danish oil is super easy to apply too, if you like a darker finish. You literally just brush it on.

Painting is also straightforward - even a dummy like me can get a good finish by taking a load of time over it (80% of it is prepartion, though you get to skip that bit on fresh plaster, brilliant!). But it is very time-consuming to do.

Bax your bedroom looks like something out of a magazine!

[FiloPasty]

I want Bax’s dog! Too cute, love the wall colour, what is it?

[Baxdream]

Ah thanks he is a poser! I actually have forgotten the colour now but it's a charcoal/khaki colour- the throw matches perfectly. It's sort of got a Moroccan theme

[Frillyknickers41]

Been lurking on this thread for a while .... all your stories have reassured me I'm not the only one finding this renovation thing stressful! Just having a moan really .....we bought a house back in Sep that needed everything doing. Living there now and just finishing the bathroom having ripped it out back to the brick (full of ancient rotting tongue and groove).

Somewhere along the line I sort of became the project manager for this but I feel like I'm totally messing it up. Every single day it feels like theres a problem....today the underfloor heating mat is WAY to big. I ordered (or thought I ordered) 3m but 7m is what came. Electrician said he can make it work but now he and the tiler are chatting away upstairs about how its gonna be a sauna :-(

Just feeling so useless and stressed by the whole thing. Of course I should have checked the mat when it came. I will never get the hang of this.

[whiskyowl]

frilly - I could have written your post. I really do feel the same, and have had tears on several occasions because I have made mistakes, or I can't get tradesmen to do a job properly and I feel completely frustrated. Being a woman does not help. DH gets way more out of the crew saying the same things as me because they actually listen to him.

It IS stressful. It IS exhausting. And it takes a massive bloody chunk out of the person who is having to do the day-to-day managing of it. It's the endless kinds of difficult conversations that have to be had, the amount of detail that has to be overseen, the living in chaos for week after week after week. It's the loss of trust, too and the heartache and disappointment of living with a finished article that isn't the lovely, perfect result that you wanted.

After a few months, "It'll be worth it in the end" feels like an empty platitude that you're just saying to yourself to prevent you rocking with grief at how awful it all is. To be honest, there have been times when I have HATED my house through the process. I would not go through this process again, not ever.

[FiloPasty]

Whisky & Frilly have a huge hug from me x

Our quotes have come in and all the slick firms are so over budget, there is only onequy quote that I think we can make work, he seems honest, I’ve seen a house he did for a friend, but he’s not worked with an architect before and I’m worried there will be issues. Can’t say your honestly is very reassuring, the question is will it be worth it in the end? ......

[Fianceechickie]

Has anyone found their old pipework unable to cope once the new radiators and underfloor heating added for the extension? We've found new plumbing work has been fine but have had to keep getting the plumber back to fix leak after leak in our old pipework in the rest of the house. Plumber says there's more pressure/strain on the system from the work itself but also just from having more pull on the system. May have to have all old pipework replaced now. There were no issues with it prior to getting the extension.

[Linguaphile]

Ah Frilly I totally get the stress. My biggest worry is that we'll get to the end and I'll hate certain things I've chosen or find that they just look wrong or function really badly. I have nobody to blame but myself if it all goes horribly wrong, which is terrifying!

[4yearsnosleep]

Frilly & Whisky big hugs!

This is undoubtedly 'my' project, my OH will eventually help me choose things after a lot of prompting, but doesn't really have a clue as I've dealt with everything. I'm an experienced project manager at work, but this is a whole different headache, I'm under no illusions that it will be stressful and drive us crazy, but I too am worried that I might make some big mistakes and it won't work as imagined

I feel my builder is a goodun as he's been in business 25+ years and is highly recommended, but for the most part we'll be managing plumbing, electrics, kitchen design (DIY Kitchens), installation and flooring. I do have a realistic project timeline for each phase, but my concern is that if time slips on the shell build, then we may end up having difficulty re-booking the other elements in a timely fashion, which would throw everything out and possibly not get us completely finished before Christmas 🤷🏽‍♀️

[whiskyowl]

4years - I wouldn't worry too much about slippage. I did the same division of labour (shell under the control of the builer, self-managing everything else). As you already know, there are many stages of electrics, plumbing etc. so they will be prepared for repeat visits. Most of mine have been really accommodating and have dropped everything to come over to ensure the build hasn't had to stop - most of them live really locally, and this is a great advantage of that. The bills you will be paying them are large, and they will want to help.

Filo - Hmmmmm. I hate to be the bearer of negative advice, but I would have some doubts about working with a builder who hadn't worked with an architect before. The issue for me would be a simple one: can they read plans and spot mistakes? I know that sounds ridiculous, but the huge headaches I had with my electrician were due to the fact that, despite the fact that he was 65 and had been an electrician all his life, he couldn't work off a plan. He also wouldn't listen to me as I tried to reorientate him, or pointed out he'd got something wrong. In the end, I resorted to writing where things were to go onto the walls!! If this had been the shell, I think I would have been going even more spare - you do NOT want expensive mistakes with dimensions, as they may put you in contravention of planning! However, just because someone hasn't done something previously doesn't mean they can't do it. It just means they are untried at it! Attention to detail, care, precision, honesty and decency are often a matter of character.

I have had a bit of a showdown with the builder this morning. He put my oak upstand on the kitchen and steps yesterday and it was AWFUL. It was every combination of poorly put together and wonky. I cried when I saw it, and couldn't stop crying all night - all of the stress (and all of the tiredness of varnishing for 12 hours yesterday) just flooded out of me. However, while he might not be the most skilled joiner, he is a decent, honest guy who genuinely wants to please- so he has spent the entire day today sorting it out - and with much fettling, planing and sanding, it's looking very much better.

[4yearsnosleep]

Oh Whisky, what a nightmare! Hugs, I'm glad he's sorting it out at least.

Our electrician is old but very good; we've worked with him before. He gave me the number of a brickie who didn't want to do our extension as it's too big, but he said if Mick retires he'll stop building extensions!

Hopefully everything else will flow ok 🙈

[Badweekjustgotworse]

Hi everyone, can I pull up a chair to the big table? We’re 3 weeks into big renovation and thought it was about time I came and said hi. We’ve been lucky in many ways, bought the house a year and a half ago but it was empty and hadn’t been touched since it was built mid century. We had to wait to start building works to get the reduced vat rate on empty property to be able to squeeze everything out of our budget that we wanted. That’s afforded me the luxury of time to really search for everything I wanted and do a million Pinterest boards! We’re not in the house as it’s a total gut out job. Rewrite, replumb all pipe works, extension on the back, new kitchen and bathroom, rebuild chimneys, and a loft conversion... the whole shebang
So far so good, despite choppy waters with the architect early on. I’ve read back a few pages to see where everyone’s at, seems like there’s a few different stages, which is great, lots of been there done that to benefit from!

We’ve two small toddlers and I’m tying to work freelance and fit everything around minimal childcare (we’re on austerity measures!) so it’s all a bit overwhelming.

Red, just wanted to say that out buildeds said they could do anything external if it was below 2 degrees because they couldn’t mix mortar. Our builders are on first fix inside though so had plenty else to do but all external works stalled end of last week for the weather. Don’t despair just yet! You’d rather try didnt start puttinh up walls with inadequate mortar!

[Badweekjustgotworse]

sorry! Wall of text

[whiskyowl]

Welcome badweek sounds like you have your work cut out there! That's a massive built. Must be amazing to have a totally untouched mid century place... Did it have any original furniture, carpets etc?

I am waiting for the bookcase guy to come show me how my design is progressing. I like the bookcase guy, he is really creative and always trying to experiment and find new ways of doing things. He's hopefully bringing me a sample of a new way to cut and fix plywood, which I am excited to see!

[whiskyowl]

BuilD NOT built!

[Badweekjustgotworse]

whosky there was nothing left in the house at all apart from a really dodgy carpet, but we did find the original parquet underneath that throughout the downstairs. It’s not is great condition but the builders have lifted the back room that we’re putting the new kitchen in and saved it forbid us so I can refurbish the floor in the front of the house and patch in any bits that need replacing with matching original from the back of the house. And there’s a cracking light fitting that the builders think I’m crazy for wanting to keep. It s a bit of a running joke but I love it and will not be put off!

Bookcase guy sounds amazing. I really wanted a birch ply kitchen but we’ve ended up going for something else asi couldn’t find someone skilled enough that I trusted to get the detailing right. Take pics of the bookcase samples, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s lievto see them!

[Frillyknickers41]

Hi Everyone - thanks for your responses. Knowing I'm not the only one in this boat has made me feel better! My Mum has managed to cheer me up re the 'sauna' issue. "It will be great for drying washing"!!! (We also have our washing machine in the bathroom on purpose which most tradesmen who see think is CRAZY. I think a lot of our problems have been down to trying to get a nice neat modern finish in a victorian house (avoiding pipe boxing for example) and also tradesmen who are not very open minded / not keen to do something they haven't done before. I don't want to slag the plumber as overall he's been brilliant but he's been faffing about for days trying to avoid making the sink cut out in the worktop... I get that he's nervous to do it - he doesn't want to mess it up etc but its an IKEA laminate worktop and its holding the tiler up!

I like the sound of bookcase guy too - how did you manage to find him?

[theredjellybean]

So builder came back and dug, said existing foundations don't meet building regs, but then wittered a bit about good soil and other stuff (I was standing in garden in my dp's wellies and dd coat with freshly blow dried hair in cornish drizzle.. All I could think was 'hurry up man I am cold and my hair is fizzing'.
Upshot is he was coming back today with building regs guy... Fingers x

[mum2015]

Frilly,

I would really like washing machine in bathroom. Is it allowed as per building control? Also would it make more noise on floorboards upstairs?

[Baxdream]

I've added a new thread everyone