Anyone else going through loft conversion hell?

[Sallycinnamum]

First world problems I know and I had prepared myself for mess but we're 4 weeks in and it's awful!

We've had water pouring through our bathroom and DDs bedroom, soot coming down our chimney and covering our lounge and yesterday they unexpectedly broke through the ceiling to fit the stairs. My god the dust was horrendous.

Our builder is great but the mess is not what I expected. I feel our house will never be clean again!

There still not fitted the windows on the dormer so now we've got a hole in the ceiling and cold air circulating through the house.

I know it'll be worth it in to end but it's hard to see an end in sight at the moment.

Sympathy, remember this. It was stressful, but lovely when it was done. If your builder is good that’s the main thing!

Any chance of escaping temporarily anywhere?

I wish we could escape but not an option really. I just hope the bulk of it is done by Xmas.

I remember this well from many years ago in a house we have long since sold. Great when it was finished but hell to live with. Why have you got water pouring through rooms though? That doesn’t sound right.

Well fuck me. I wish I’d not opened this thread.....loft conversion starting in 3 weeks....

Have you got my builders in? 
My loft is done and I love it, you will too. Try to make comedy stories out of your adversity. Like the time I was lying in bed and a leg came through the ceiling. Oh how we laughed!
I'm now having the 1st floor remodelled and trying to live by that advice. Still have the extension to do. Get some gin in, invite friends round for a tour, drop your cleaning standards, you'll be fine. Good luck x

The rain came in before the roof went on the dormer. There's only so much water tarpaulin can hold!

To be fair the builder did come out at the crack of dawn to fix it but the damage has been done. They'll have to skim the ceiling and repaint it.

I've become slightly obsessed with weather forecasts now.

I thank God the DC are at school all day. It would have been ten times worse with toddlers.

The end is finally in sight for ours... just waiting for carpets and render outside. We started in August and thankfully they broke through when we were on holiday but the constant living in dust was the worst part. It is definitely worth it but always takes so much longer than you think especially the end parts...

Yep at the end of ours now - 8 weeks. Just waiting on a few snags and our decorator to finish. Space is amazing: dust is relentless! Hopefully getting all the furniture in this weekend!

We're about to start one - scaffolding is up and building starts next week.

Our downstairs is fully open plan - stairs come out of the open plan living area (so we'll be having a mist system fitted to meet buildings regs).

Now getting worried about the dust. Should we plan to empty downstairs (move it all to storage and do without a living room) or will dust sheets be enough?

We’re in week 8 of ours so final plastering and second fixes next week. Can’t wait for it to be over - had a baby in May so it’s been a hassle juggling him alongside the building work and my 3 year old when she’s not at nursery. I’m going to spend a fortnight in my pyjamas when it’s done - being up and dressed before the builders arrive is very tedious!

In terms of dust though it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be, they’re really good at cleaning up at the end of each day. I’ve been trying to keep doors closed as much as possible and have kept my cleaner coming each week which has helped me to keep sane, although I suspect she thinks I’m bonkers. It’s the mess everywhere though - stuff stored in the corners of all the habitable rooms. I also hadn’t thought about the level of decorating that would need to be done to the rest of the house - the whole hall will need redoing as it’s filthy and has been knocked, and there are lots of places where bolts have come through the ceiling. Also hadn’t planned on the boiler going kaput at the same time.

It will be lovely, it WILL be lovely...

Ask them to tack a tarpaulin to the ceiling when they break through if it’s going into an open plan area. There will be parts to make good anyway and should help. Plastering is dusty. It just kept settling then when they were doing the plaster boarding it was the amount of leaves etc from outside that just kept blowing into the house. Keeping doors shut helped but with children and work I couldn’t clear it up quick enough before they’d trasped it into all the other rooms.
Like the person above though-hadn’t anticitapted the amount of stuff to store and a lot of it is in the garage. Having to have the entire contents of our airing cupboard in the bedrooms while they extended the plumbing and as we remodelled the second floor at the same time the kids are living off of floordrobes! We currently have three new wardrobes in our dining room all waiting to be built as the day they were meant to move into the loft we had discovered a leak in our existing bathroom (nothing to do with the loft) which had to be ripped out and repaired and parts replaced.

We decided to get a decorator to do all the painting as we’d have spent weeks getting it habitable and he’s done the loft in a week and we are having him redecorate the existing hall/stairs/landing too so it looks nice and fresh. Recounted and we are actually week 9 but the end is in sight and it really does look awesome up there! It’s definitely worth it in the end-I just have to keep telling myself that!

The good news is our builder reckons it will be finished by Xmas and we're ordering the en suite bits this weekend.

I had a sneak peak yesterday and the space is huge as we're having a small front dormer too.

That’s brilliant! Have fun picking bits out. It looks even bigger once it’s decorated and has carpets down!