About to start a 6-month extension build...

[AppropriateAdult]

... and moving in with the in-laws for the duration. Come join me on this wild ride!

Thanks for this - I will create the design using the diy kitchens planner and send it over to them to cost - as it's a utility it's more appliance housings and a vacuum cupboard

Should be sufficient time at least to receive any replacement parts if needed and it can just get fitted when they return.frustrating albeit to have to wait

my builder is on holiday next week, one labourer has been away this week, and I am not sure about the rest but the plumber and electrician are my key people now and my understanding is they have holidayed already! Meaning I have to get this utility design sorted out...

@Jesusmaryjosephandtheweedon, can I ask how your kitchen from DWK worked out - were you happy with everything?

They have been brilliant and very obliging. Any issues we had (one door was marked) they replaced it straight away. We also had to get them to take the island back out so we could fix the floor and they were straight out to do it (there was a charge but I expected that). They didn't have the handles in stock that we wanted and when they come in they are going to replace them. No issues so far.

Did you go with them in the end?

Oh, that's great to hear! Yes, we picked a gorgeous kitchen from them and are just impatiently waiting for the house to be ready for the installation.

Oh lovely! I loved picking the kitchen it was my favourite part. And the finished version looks so much better than the plan they gave us! I'll attach some pics

@Jesusmaryjosephandtheweedon your kitchen is gorgeous!

Things are moving here, but not fast enough. It’s looking dangerously like we may not be back in before the Autumn term starts.

They are doing such a lot every day now, but it’s not enough to catch up on the time the’ve lost, especially as between them have holidays booked from next week until the last week in August.

Funds are also very tight at this point. We’ve been fairly lucky until now, but they have just identified two issues that have the potential to be expensive. So, we are going to have to find some way of covering the extra costs, when we really didn’t want to go into debt.

Feeling very low tonight. I know it will all get done eventually and it will be worth it, but my family needs to be back home together and we are all struggling with no end date in sight.

Frustrated. Our painter and decorator has now moved his start date back twice, which means he won't be finished until 3 days after he was supposed to which would delay the kitchen being put in. He also tripled the price to get others in to help him.

Have sourced a potential alternative, but as I need someone to start Monday it's going to be expensive 🤬

Does anyone have any experience with getting home insurance to cover the renovation? We’re doing both a side return and loft conversion so an expensive job but many insurers have a cap on a JTC contract of X. We want to make sure we’ve got protection if any damage is caused to ours/a neighbours house during the work.

Yes the insurance took me ages but I got it sorted out via a broker in joint names with my builder as per the JCT contract.

Thats absolutely fabulous! Enjoy it!

That's fabulous, @Jesusmaryjosephandtheweedon! We've picked a very similar design and payout, can't wait now to see it all in place.

Our builder had insurance @Firsttimebuyer192

We used Adrian Flux for specialist insurance and paid for the builder to have the insurance the partial funders wanted. Even minor house works invalidate most house insurance policies

The broker we use for buildings insurance sorted our insurance for the build. Can’t remember who it’s through right now though.

Well we finally have a floor in the extension, plumbing for the bathrooms is in progress and I think the wires have now finished being run for all the sockets and lights in the whole house. Hall stairs, landing and upstairs is all plastered and upstairs fully mist coated and woodwork primed and undercoated. Still need mist coat and woodwork done on the stairs and in the hall.

But, still no consumer board for the electrics (all still on temporary circuit) and while some gas pipes are in, we still don’t have a boiler.

in other news DH was made redundant this week and today we both tested positive for covid, so are now stuck in different bedrooms at PIL’s. Dh was supposed to be off to a music festival with one of our dc next week and I was going to stay at my parent’s ehile they were away. Nothing to be done about it, except keep trying to move forwards though I suppose.

Hi everyone, jumping onto thread to ask some questions, hope that's ok.

Firstly though @Driverpicksthemusic very sorry about your DH's redundancy, plus Covid on top, that's rubbish - what's the saying, when it rains it pours?! Hope he gets a decent amount of notice/redundancy pay and finds a new job sooner rather than later. And hope you both feel better soon.

Anyway, I've (skim/speed) read the thread in an attempt to convince myself NOT to embark on a load of work (!) - those of you whose work is finished or nearly finished, do you feel it has been worth all the stress and disruption? Do you have any advice for minimising stress as much as possible? I gather some people have moved out and rented or stayed with family, some have continued living in the house... I think someone mentioned a mobile home in the garden?

DH and I are considering making an offer on a house with loads of potential but it needs work to make it how we want. We wanted to avoid a big extension/renovation project (we have an autistic 7yo and a 3yo, life is pretty stressful without extra stress) but we want to move to a very specific area and there are so few decent houses that come up, and then there's so much competition for them... I'm worried that if I don't go for this house we won't find a better one and will lose our buyers to boot. Am wondering if we could have a mobile home in the garden - it is huge - but access will be an issue, side access isn't wide enough I don't think.

Please tell me I'm crazy and not to do it!

(loving all your photos though, especially the gorgeous kitchens, roof lights and bifolds!)

PS We have no family we could stay with, they live too far and/or dont have space, so I think we will probably have to rent...

@Driverpicksthemusic wishing you both a swift recovery and your DH, I hope he finds a job better than his last that makes him happy and pays better.

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared what sort of extension will you need? We've stayed in the house but we've only had a single storey to the rear. They are shortly to come in and do a new kitchen and bathroom.

Tbh if you choose the right builder it takes a huge amount of stress off.

My DSS is autistic and he's been fine with it, but he is of the age where he hides in his room playing ps4.

So sorry @Driverpicksthemusic that totally sucks , what a blow! Has your husband worked there long ?
Hope Covid isn't too rough and you feel fighting fit very soon.

Sorry I've not been as active on here we are prettt much finished other than the driveway we are having done in resin at the end of Sep as that's the soonest they had.
We've had big issues with the roofer he came yesterday finally after my husband having to turn up at his house and on another job of his to do what he was apparently meant to do my husband went up to check when he got home and they had done the work but cracked 4 tiles in the process so he spent an hour up there after a long week missing kids bedtime to sort it. Pisses me right off.

Honestly ?! @OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared we have both said we wouldn't do this again we are thrilled with the extra space it's added to our house but in hindsight we would have got a bigger mortgage and moved. We have a 2 and year old and I'm 7 months pregnant we have no family support and my husband works away every other week he has his own business. So not saying my life is as stressful as yours or the other way round but I definitely feel stressed day to day anyway so it's been hard. Sorry if that's no helpful x

Thank you. He’s been there long enough to get a reasonable redundancy settlement, but only just. Ironically he was headhunted for the role he’s in and has been doing really well in it, but of course that doesn’t matter when a company decides to cut costs. Thankfully he is very good at what he does and has already had interest for new roles, so we are trying to stay positive, as he’s in a better position than quite a few of his colleagues. It’s obviously really bad timing, but we will cope.

To be honest, the worst thing about the covid is the worry about passing it on to my PIL’s. Dd is clear so far though so, bless her, she’s been fetching and carrying for us so we don’t have to leave our rooms.

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared as you will probably have read, we have had massive delays for a variety of reasons. We should be back in by now, but are not even close. Our builder is lovely and his work is top quality, but after a flying start it has been so slow. To be honest, dh and I have both said we would rather have our old, scruffy, cramped house back than go through all this again and definitely wouldn’t do it again unless we could afford at least a year’s rent to live off site from day 1 until it’s fully finished. We have had a full back to brick renovation, re-plumb, rewire, new boiler and a ground floor extension though, so there’s not a square inch of our house that hasn’t been affected.

Ds1 has ASD and some other issues, but is a young adult. He and dc2 (also a young adult who is chronically ill and has a physical disability) moved in with my parents very early on, so they haven’t had to deal with most of the chaos, but are very homesick. We have all really missed being together as a family, especially as we were assured it wouldn’t be for this long. We have been putting off doing it for years because we felt ds1 wouldn’t handle it well when he was younger and that was definitely the right call for us.

Thank you all for your honest and helpful replies.

@Toooldtoworry
The house has an existing two-storey side extension and single-storey rear extension, but we would basically want to redo them both (!) changing the footprint and the layout, so the whole house would be affected. We definitely couldn't live there while the work was being done, and it's about £2k/month to rent so we'd spend £24k on renting somewhere else for a year. Having slept on it, I think we'd be mad to do it and should probably just keep looking I am open to somewhere needing less work, something a bit more self-contained and less disruptive, but this is too much really.

@mrssunshinexxx
That sounds very stressful indeed! Hats off to you for getting through it so far. I hope things are on track to be finished before your baby arrives!

@Driverpicksthemusic
It sounds like a mixed blessing that you've had family options nearby, great that your older children could stay with your parents but yes I can imagine you've been missing each other. It will be so lovely when you can all move back in at last!

We love the space but def would never do agsin. Our builder has been a twat and the finishes have not been great either. It’s also cost us about 425k and still stuff to do. House not worth what we’ve spent as we also bought top of market but trying not to worry tooooo much about that as plan is to stay there 25-30 years until we downsize, plus we have an acre plot so if push came to shove we could apply to demolish and build houses or sell off part for development . But I do worry even though o tell myself not to!

@OverwhelmedAndUnderprepared we've done it twice now, and I think it is worth it for us. Same as you, very few detached houses come up in this area, in this school catchment. Also, nowhere we have ever viewed has the kitchen, bathrooms, layout and flooring that I would have picked for myself, so this has gotten us something exactly to our taste. It's been a rough year (we have a two year old, a five month old and a dog) but we're in now.

I'd recommend doing one floor first, then getting the zipper doors to prevent dust. Also getting a really good air purifier with an air pollution monitor on it. It's amazing what difference it makes, especially with young children. Also, for peace of mind, we got a full asbestos survey (and had it professionally removed and the. air tested) and also tested for lead paint throughout. Just because we have young children and I was pregnant (and now nursing) for a lot of it, and we wanted to minimise and health issues

@Driverpicksthemusic so sorry you're sick and re: your husband. Additional stress you just don't need. Hope he finds a decent job soon

@sickofbuilders if you're planning to stay there long term, I always think it doesn't really matter. Especially if you have a decent sized plot, so options. Glad you love the space!

Wow @sickofbuilders that's a lot !