Home Extension thread 2018

[Baxdream]

Thought we should get the new thread ready!
Our front door is in. Long story but it arrived damaged 😫 it's in and lovely but it's going to be replaced!
Our fencing has started today, the short ones are new, the others are getting ripped out

I think one of them is actually working on our stuff while not physically here. They are building book shelves for us and decided to do the messy stuff in their garage. So while it seems I only have one guy here sanding woodwork, there may be more going on elsewhere. The others are getting ahead on another job so the skilled people they need are here for when the weather clears up.

Sorry everyone the rain is for our new shrubs that we planted around the new driveway 😬🙈

Sounds rough tika we’ve made some progress with pulling out bathrooms etc but no progress on extension as yet... discovering more things that need fixing; the roof is leaking, windows are leaking, toilets leaking... at least this rain is useful for something! Have bought all of my bathrooms fixtures now and just editing the kitchen order (I.e pushing back the delivery date as there is no way we will be ready for a mid April delivery)

I have spent some(most of the day) looking at Howden kitchens.. And flooring.. Ordered samples and booked kitchen planner.. OMG... It's going to happen

Ah that sounds rough Tika. :( I sympathize with the slowness. We’ve found to a halt after our first fix plumbing and are waiting for the electrics to start. They say they are waiting on us to make decisions to start, but it took them about a month to give us a quote in the first place, and then when it was too expensive it took them another 2 weeks to even give us a breakdown of the prices! Feeling discouraged as the bill is really about 7k more than we want to pay, but there aren’t any really big things there that we can cut down—it’s sort of death by a million little things, so there’s no one big thing that we can lose to bring costs down. At this rate we’ll blow through our entire contingency just signing things off and getting the first fix done, which I definitely think would be stupid, so need to sit with the price list and just be brutal. Same story with the tile/flooring, about 7.5k over budget. Biggest problem there is that we had no idea it would be so expensive to do the tile for our Italian showers. 2.5k extra per shower x 3 showers. 😭 Can’t back out now because the plumber’a part has already been signed off and installed, so just have to eat the cost. Feeling so frustrated now and just hoping it’s all worth it!! :( Last night I had a nightmare that all of the doors, wood floors and skirting boards had been installed in an awful 90s shiny yellowish red wood, and they said it would be 10k to change. I was so upset it woke me up! The only good thing from this week is that yesterday we visited my in-laws new house that they’re renovating, and it turns out they’re installing basically the exact same engineered wood floors that we’ve chosen and they look brilliant. So that was a phew moment!

linguaphile it’s so hard to keep a handle on costs isn’t it? Lighting is going to push us over the budget I think and I’ve not even got full first fix costs pinned down yet. I had a dream the other night I had an extra two bathrooms I’d forgotten about and had more fixtures and fittings to buy...

I feel for you all dreaming about the builds. I hope you can make the budgets work.

My cooker hood went in today. I really wasn’t sure how I would feel about it as I still slightly regret not buying Bax’s fancy hood (it was you with the copper hoods Bax?”

But actually it looks better than I thought and I think makes it look a bit more of a kitchen. Pic attached. We still have the cardboard down protecting the floor for now. I love the kitchen so much. Now I need the rest of the room done!

It certainly was me! I absolutely love my hood but your kitchen is looking absolutely showstopping! The floor/worktops/tiles are so stylish!

It's so odd seeing others starting, I sort of pull a face as if it's a bad thing. The thought of going back to the beginning fills me with dread but having a gorgeous house all to your own taste and style is absolutely worth it.

I do wonder if I'm a years time if illl have forgotten and be on the market ready for the next adventure 😂

baxdream...can we have some more pics of your kitchen please as i am now being lulled into thinking a navy kitchen would be nice...not sure about whether it would feel 'dark ' but our kitchen and new extension is light, having a latern roof and double doors onto garden...so maybe get away with it..its kitchen is currently 5m by 5 ms and new bit will be same again so its not a small room...if you dont mind can you show your worktops too..think i maybe stalking you rather though :)

I can honestly say ours is not dark whatsoever. Our garden is west facing but it's hardly sunny yet..
Here's some photos

Just to add I don't regret going for an on trend colour. I know people will say it'll go out of fashion but in my mind if I change it in 7 years it's not the end of the world. It's half the reason I went with howdens!

Ceiling light or extractor?

Yours looks so classy I can’t imagine it going out of fashion, Bax. It is just stylish.

And thanks for the compliments, Bax. I do love it. Even the builders are impressed with it! They keep warning me about the importance of oiling the wood.

Bax... Bloody gorgeous. I might copy

www.lightingcompany.co.uk/aurelia-15-light-cluster-pendant-in-copper-dark-copper-and-black-p7221

Such a gorgeous light.

Just for fun I measured up floor this morning... Need 47sq metres, roughly, this will do kitchen, extension, hall, utility and downstairs loo.... Gulp

Flooring is depressing. We're doing our hall too and it works out at 67sqm so it's a big chunk of our budget. Will be amazing when done though as we currently have old stained oak flooring that's so bad when we moved in I went to chuck the ugly doormat and have had to keep it for over 4 years because it's too big to replace and the floor is a completely different colour.

Anyone have amtico in utility room? We are going most of our downstairs in amtico but not sure whether to continue this in the utility room. Other option is porcelain tiles but not sure whether to continue the amtico theme or something completely different.

Humpty, purely due to cost we're going with sheet vinyl in the utility. We had some installed in our bathroom last year and it looks great! So different to the utterly awful vinyl that was fitted in our kitchen 15 years ago! I will be getting it fitted wall to wall so that we can move appliances easily, but it's so much cheaper than Amtico or tiles 😊

4years who are you getting vinyl through? I’m thinking we
Might put sheet vinyl in downstairs loo and utility for cost control.

We will be having polished concrete in kitchen and plan to strip and stain the current floorboards in the hall and living room-which one should I match to? Or should I/can I go for something else?