Extension thread 2022 part III.. celebrations, crises and will it be finished for Christmas?!

[NewHouseNewMe]

3rd thread of 2022 - can't believe I'm still here!

We are done! Well nearly. The decorator finished the kitchen and dining room on the 16th December.
we still have plastering and decorating to do in the lounge and music room but they’re useable.
8 weeks became 12 £100k became £110k and we still have to take down and pay for the old conservatory to be moved.
What used to be 3 small rooms is now 1 large light kitchen with a sofa. Our dining room is significantly lighter. We have relocated the utility and shower room and divided the lounge into a snug and a music room. Lots of structural work, lots of plumbing, lots of swearing and a few tears but the space is now what I envisaged it to be

Oh wow that looks amazing

Love a terrazzo tile! Looks great!

Anna, that looks fantastic. I love your shower room tiles. It must feel so good to be on this side of it :). £10k over budget isnt terrible these days, was it upgrades, material increases, or unforeseen issues?
Our builders are starting the knock through this week, so we are spending this weekend emptying the kitchen, and decluttering. We are being ruthless!

Kitchen is looking good @AnnaCmass.
Is that a marine blue by the way? We've got similar from Howdens. It's getting installed this week so hope to finally have a working kitchen soon!

Yes Marine blue with compact laminate work surfaces and mosaic tiles from B and Q. I love how it’s turned out. It was previously kitchen, shower room and utility room. Now 1 room with a much larger opening to our dining room.
increase in budget came from me changing my mind about a few things (the beam in the ceiling was originally going to be exposed, we took out the fire place in the dining room and had that plastered)
there were also a few additional costs with replacing fuse boards and bits of plumbing.
overall I’m glad we spent the money but the garden will have to wait

Beautiful pictures. You must be delighted. We are at a massive lull, kitchen company have stopped replying to us and we can’t get and installation date (small boutiquey firm but not local to us so we can’t just go in). The showroom aren’t authorised to give us a date so can’t help and the new site manager (original one was sacked just before Christmas by them) just ignores our emails and doesn’t have a phone number. Tried to get in touch with the owner but haven’t heard back yet, so it’s pretty stressful here. We haven’t had a kitchen since mid November, all our furniture is in storage so four of us round a coffee table eating microwave meals has lost any element of fun it ever had. I think I’m getting to the stage of contacting my credit card provider to claim back and starting again, but would far rather just get this one as I loved the shaping on the doors. I might pop in to Tom Howley this weekend and ask their lead time just so I have an idea.

Hi all, we've had carpet laid throughout the whole house this week and lino going down in the bathroom today. We won't have to wear our "upstairs slippers" anymore!! Now carpet is down, we also built our beds which felt incredible last night. We have been sleeping on mattresses since we returned from the Travelodge in September!

Painting also coming along well. Keep going everyone, we just don't want to leave the house now!

@Martinisarebetterdirty , that sounds so stressful. Totally understand the dilemma of wanting to wait for the perfect one but also that you want to cut losses and just get something. We are living in and are currently without kitchen, we just have the microwave, kettle and toaster in the utility room and it’s annoyingly cluttered. Fitting is planned for mid Feb but who knows if we will be ready then.
@GardensandGrandDesigns , it looks fantastic. Very cosy with the new carpet.

We had concrete poured over the sub floor yesterday, and then came down this morning to the builders dealing with a pool of water on top, which had leaked from a radiator pipe. Plumber arrived before we left for work, and all was well when we returned. Knocking through and plaster boarding happening early next week, so it all feels like it’s coming together.

how is everyone doing?

I have paid for the patio railing glass, a couple of weeks for delivery I’m told.
had one security firm round this morning to assess the alarm system and what needs adding.

To Do List:

The original old sash window halfway up the stairs - back, installed, still haven’t risked opening it yet, not sure if I can?

Security cameras - have a new number to contact

Patio glass balustrade - just waiting for glass to arrive and be installed

Downstairs loo: pick a mirror. Long bare walls atm - thinking maybe a large wallpaper sort of mural thing?

I keep adding bits
Including:
Broken tile in upstairs bathroom to be repaired

Broken edge of tile in kitchen to be repaired

couple of broken kitchen bits/edges of shelves type thing
downstairs loo seat seems to have come loose?

door seal of bifold door is loose

touching up edges of storage area once builders have moved their stuff out

tidying up random piles of crap in the back garden - old bits of tiles mostly I think?

Deep clean post build, need to find a company - have a recommendation,not contacted yet, may wait until Jan and post Christmas mess

havent actually progressed with much but have been focusing more on clearing out clutter

Holy crap, it’s cold. We’ve a good bit of snow here, and while the roof light got delivered and installed, the sliders and windows still aren’t here and it’s only boards between us and the elements 🥶.
We have knocked through now, and electrician has tracked for sockets and lights. Plasterboarding ongoing, and we are choosing doors, floors, etc. kitchen still booked for installation mid-Feb, so the end is in sight.
Living, I hope you make good progress through your to-do list.

Grr I can I Imagine @SheriffCallie, I am
freezing even with an intact building and heating on.

Going to site tomorrow for first time since new year. Spent my lunch hour choosing ironmongery.

Not knocked through yet, focusing on inside still and still seem to be “planning” for things like replumb and rewire.

Seemed odd picking door handles and hooks when my house currently looks like this inside!

Have organised quotes for removal companies next week (to move in March), then panicking that the renovation will slip and won't be ready in time!

In our experience this really puts a rocket up the builders. As long as final flooring is down in majority of places where your furniture will go.

So latest "heated discussion" with builder - I expect his carpenter to come back and amend and rehang the doors now carpet has been laid. He thinks I should pay and I think it's included in our all of house reno. They knew we were having carpet all along. The quote includes hanging doors but they are having to come back a second time because carpet lead time was so long. What do you think?

@GardensandGrandDesigns i think they should have held off hanging the doors until the carpet was down so yes, should come back unless you told them to hang the doors.

I got a sample of the carpet and got them to trim the doors allowing for carpet when they hung them. They moaned about that but it worked out ok.

They are effectively having to hang your doors twice so i can understand why they are moaning but it depends what was said.

@GardensandGrandDesigns agree with @nomoneytreehere.

I am learning hanging doors is quite a job - so not surprising they don’t want to do it twice if only being paid for once. Seems they should have left them until carpet was down, or explained the risk that you were taking them hanging them before carpet delivery.

I think they hung them to get building regs sign off so we paid our bill. We asked the carpenter at the time about what we do when carpet is laid and would they like the thickness. They said no, we will come back after. Then we were annoyed when builder wanted us to sign off the cost. Anyway, builder has accepted the cost now but we're not in his good books!

Yep we have flooring fitters booked in for February but just a bit worried it'll get delayed. In theory they're doing screed on Monday but they haven't finished putting the UFH down yet. Scaffolding was coming down last week but it's still there and the solar panels aren't on yet!

Interesting re the door hanging. I was wondering when they'd do that as they've been finishing second fix joinery this week (this actually happened!) but perhaps it's after the floors are down?

The door hanging something I hadn’t even considered, tbh, so this thread is really helpful in helping me think about the timings of things.
Our kitchen can’t go in until the floor is laid, so I assume our floor will go down first, and then doors. We have an issue, in that as well as flooring the open plan space, we want to replace flooring in two ground floor bedrooms at the same time. But we have no space to put any of the contents of the rooms, as everything we own is crammed into a small amount of non-renovated space. Ideally we could put everything outside for the day it would take to floor, but the weather we’ve had wouldn’t really be conducive to that option 😬.

Site meeting on Friday was positive. And some drilling through was happening into main house 🎉 - though so noisy I felt sorry for neighbours (even the hellish one) and pleased I wasn’t living there.

I did discover one potential fuck up. I saw a version of site drawings that showed the bifold doors are to be triple glazed except we have ordered double glazed. Bloke in shop told me triple glazed was unusual and heavy/ difficult to maneuver and double was perfectly fine for heat retention etc so we went double glazed by default. Called architect and am checking with manufacturer what u-value is (we need it to be 1.1 and I didn’t even ask 😳). What have you guys that have glass doors got? double or triple - those with triple are they difficult to use?

Triple glazed here and no issues.

Had to search for the info about mine but they are triple glazed and no issues so far.

The glass railing people have posted me some extra metal brackets they’ve decided I should have. But not the glass yet.

it’s the last big thing to go in, then I hope the team can crack on with the snagging - the longer they leave it, the more little jobs keep appearing, I suppose that’s the way of things.

I just want to say we’re finished, we so nearly are!

Thanks both. Hmm supplier we are using doesn’t even supply doors that achieve that u value and architect is suggesting we compensate by adding more insulation elsewhere. Building confused.

Good news you are nearly there @LivingInaBuildingSite!