Home Extension Thread 2019 - The Extension

[TheFatberg]

Only a few posts left on the first thread of 2019, so here's a new one to get us started.

Oh! A different question now. Has anyone had foam insulation? It's been "tossed about" as an option and as it's more insulating we are quite interested but have not seen much about it before.

Yes that would look great Soaked! So just a off-white grout that matches or is there something special that you can get?

Just popped into howdens as I was driving by. Really impressed with their selection actually and looking forward to my design appointment later! Hope the guy comes up with some good ideas!

If cleanabilty is a problem, look at resin grout. Much more stain resistant than cement grout.
The chap in tile place where I hope to get flooring (wood effect porcelain - very "woody") recommended it. Otherwise when you wash your floor the dirty water coming off the tiles stains the grout.
Colour of grout makes an enormous difference too. We've just done our bathroom with beige tiles with toning grout and it looks lovely

@soakedat3 I'm hoping we will pull them up during most of the day to maximise light. It's only early morning, sunset and at night we'd pull them down.

We currently have wooden venetians but they are heavy to pull all the way up for full light so they stay down most of the time. Gloomy.

@northernruth I will be interested to hear how you got on at Wren. We went at the weekend & all was going well until we wouldn't commit to putting a 10% deposit down there & then. Our designer became very aggressive, accused us of wasting his time & wouldn't shake our hands, just walked off to slag us off to his manager. We left in total shock, as we actually really liked the kitchen & probably would have gone with it, we just wanted some time to mull it over.

@Dogzndiamonds That is absolutely terrible. Unfortunately that is not the first time I've heard of similar. So not the way to do business. We had a very different experience. The designer was great and was more than happy to give us time - sent through all the designs and a 3D video of it for us to think about. We didn't go with them, but it was due to a local company coming up with something that was as good, with better appliances and included fitting - and worked regularly with our builder, which was worth it's weight in gold in itself.
I did feel though that Wren and Magnet were a bit 'how many cabinets can we fit in the space' rather than actually designing it in terms or use and footflow.

Fatburg and Worrisom - We've also been told that our DIY Kitchens units are due to arrive next week. They were only ordered about 3 weeks ago, so if they do turn up, we'll be pretty impressed.

@Dogzndiamonds I lost my bottle - they couldn't show me the colour of the door I was interested in (they had every other colour but that sample door was missing) and the guy didn't seem interested in planning out the kitchen. The doors were painted though, which means that I should be able to get a similar finish from Naked Kitchens. there's just something about that whole "discount offer ends today!!" modus operandi that I don't like at all

@northernruth I've never really felt comfortable with the aggressive "discounting" that some companies do (see national double glazing window companies)
If they start off telling you it's 20k then 15k then 12k as far as I'm concerned, they are not actually discounting (as 12k is the figure they had in mind all along), they are actually admitting to trying to rip you off by overcharging in the first place!

I'm too nervous to google "naked kitchens" in case something dodgy comes up!

In other news, today we received contracts from both kitchen supplier and Beardy Builder!
One was full of excessive detail, and the other...was not.
I have subcontracted dealing with this to Mr WhereDoes

:D :D @ subcontracted to Mr WhereDoes! Mt Soaked just wants to know numbers.

That's a terrible way to treat a potential customer @Dogzndiamonds. It's a lot of money you are spending so why can't they be a little patient?

We have more concrete down now and the rain actually stayed off! But maybe that just means it'll rain for days on end now...

@avocuddl, you can take the sample tile to a tile place and look at the colour options for grout. I think there is a lot to choose from. Also I think you can ask for very thin grout lines to make it look even more like one bit of stone.

@northernruth what was the Wren door style /colour you wanted?
Maybe someone on thread has seen similar elsewhere

Extension built, we started mid March. Kitchen arriving Friday and hopefully he footed and fully functioning by middle of next week, then we can start moving furniture into new extension to get ready for stud walls going up and creation of new utility and shower room (from current kitchen). So far been stress free and not affected us. The work inside will but we're prepared for it!

patio doors......SE facing room.

I'm getting ahead of myself as we don't even have plans yet but want to start looking at window options whilst I have some time. We have bifolds at the moment that have built-in Venetian blinds. they are great as they don't need cleaning and give shade when we need it on very hot days - but in the new build, we are likely to get sliding doors or stacking ones.

Any good ideas /experience on how to shade the doors in this case ? MN wisdom appreciated

If your existing ones are the blinds sandwiched between the panes of glass, that sounds ideal.

Darn. Went to Wickes today to look at Alusplash and should have done so before ordering the samples. Totally Teal is lovely but far too bright, should have ordered Ocean Wave instead.
In pictures Ocean Wave looks like that faint green that very thick glass looks like - gorgeous. But the sample in shop looks really turquoise--nice but a bit bathroomy.
Arrived home to find samples have arrived already!

Momentary disappointment when v helpful woman in Benchmarx branch looked up sizes and found that the long panels are 545mm wide - pretty standard worktop to wall cabinet spacing.
We are having wall units raised to stop units on three sides feeling too oppressive, so bigger gap.
But apparently they do 610mm wide panels too, just not from Benchmarx.
This picture shows Blueberry with white units. What do you think?

@Wheredoes I like the new Macaroon range - it's just a slab kitchen but painted in ice cream colours. This image is from Naked Kitchens

@lightlypoached can I ask what the blinds look like when they are completely pulled up? Would you mind taking a pic? I've struggled to find a picture online of what they look like. They only show halfway down

@northernruth i love that colour!! 😍

I'm going to ask my builder about blinds which are set into the ceiling so hidden. I think it looks fab but no idea about the cost!

@northernruth that is such a cute colour! Would you have gold handles too? I'm sorry but I've only seen them in magazine ads for Wren. Not in real life :(

Blueberry looks great with white units @WhereDoesThisToiletGo.

A lot happened today. New Dad and team worked a full day AND it didn't rain!! We have floor joists and some pipework for heating. I didn't know I'd have to decide on radiator placement so early on but makes sense that they want to feed the pipes into the right areas ahead of time.

Insulation tomorrow and I think we are getting a quote on the foam wall insulation too. Quite happy with the progress today. :)

Am I one of the few having floor tiles instead of wood or Lux vinyl?

Yay soaked that sounds like great progress!! Hoping for no more rain for you and more days like today! They've done loads since they started considering the rain tbf!

🙋🏻‍♀️ floor tiles here! Thinking of having sandstone type tiles. Hoping they won't be too cold! But I just love them! What are you thinking?

wheredoes, I love the blueberry. Looks fab

pin.it/cbvjlrsylxo2pw going for this look with the tiles, grey cabinets and oak worktops. Except I will have dark grey units for the island with a light granite/quartz worktop

@northernruth I saw some of these candy colours in Wren last month and they are lovely (they had the pink on display) but you have the style to carry off such a strong colour (hint, I don't so a having a white kitchen!).
It's quite niche so not many suppliers will do baby blue unless you go seriously bespoke or paint them yourself
Not so keen on the yellow handles

I had to seriously scale down my floor tile ambitions @avocuddl. Initially I wanted some lovely hexagons because I love geo things. But they were about £34sqm. It doesn't sound like much but adding in wastage I would be looking at £1700 just for the floor tiles!! About 50sqm is needed. :O

So now I am getting a plainer grey tile which is on a sale. I do love the sample though. It has a lovely texture an grain to it which you can't see. I had originally just put it in my basket of samples to make up to 4 samples!

www.directtilewarehouse.com/legend-grey-floor-tiles/

What are you thinking of?

The really scary think is the cost of £30 sqm for the tiler!!! Plus New Dad has to prep floor for tiles which is either tile backer stuff or thick plywood. So that the floor doesn't flex too much and crack the grout. I just did not know!!!