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!

Next door have asked for a party wall surveyor. Knew they'd want that.

Joining as we are at the very beginning, just starting the plans and know its going to be super stressful.

So relieved we have this thread to vent our frustrations.

Hello, we are just starting our loft conversion and kitchen extension project, but we will be very stretched with total cost and trying to see what we can cut out in order to save. May I ask what is the cost of your IKEA kitchen? And which one and what colour you are going for? We have an online appointment with them next week. Did they also help with the kitchen design or did you already know exactly what you wanted?

Can I join please? I practically have steam coming out of my ears over our extension and renovation which is due to start the week after Easter. It’s been one hold-up after another to get to this point. Pleased to be starting, but also full of dread for the coming months.

We were all sorted and ready to go, then the property we were planning on renting after the first month (as we’re staying put till they knock through) suddenly fell through. Can’t stay where we are as the house is far too small - hence the need for the extension - and there isn’t a room that’s not being gutted.

Absolutely nothing else available locally, anything that does come up is over budget, gone within hours and we can’t find a short term let anywhere. So it’s looking like we will have to split up. Older two dc to my parents, me, dh, dd and dog to PIL’s. While it will free up some funds, I am absolutely dreading it. PILs and I have never really been comfortable around one another and it will mean a 45 minute drive to drop dd to school in the morning and pick her up again in the afternoon. Dh is working long hours, often away for days and I have developed driving anxiety following an accident. It’s going to be horrible.

PWA’s were done late, but attached neighbour at least is happy and doesn’t want a surveyor (to be fair they did theirs a year ago and we didn’t request one either, plus the builder is a relative of theirs, so all very supportive). Other side, where we are digging within 3m of the boundary, decided to go on holiday for two weeks just hours before we took the PWA round. They should be fine, but we won’t know until they get back.

I feel so stressed already and we haven’t even started yet!

Hold your breath and jump into the chaos @Driverpicksthemusic …. It’s all madness but you will get through it and it will be worth it!

had my knock through today started it at 8am it’s still not done will take 2 days to do and the patio doors and windows are being installed as we speak will be probably be a few more hours, currently a massive whole in the back of the house and it’s getting colder by the second.

kids just got home from school to a house that looks like a bomb has gone off, they are in their bedrooms playing Harry Potter and don’t seem to care whatsoever…. I am waiting until 5pm to have a glass of wine 😂

We started our extension/renovation start sept. Went without a kitchen (washing up in bath) from end oct until 1 Jan then moved out into a short term rental.

it’s tiny and I’m bloody sick of it.

2 kids (5&3) plus 1700 a month rent on top of mortgage etc.

we’re supposed to be moving back in 28 March (still wouldnt be finished). Builder asking for another 2 weeks - I just can’t. Been signed off with stress as it’s all getting too much (85k of unexpected extras also due to finding a fucking swimming pool under the house).

I have had enough!

@sickofbuilders a swimming pool!!!!! You win is all I can say to that, so sorry that’s unreal extra stress to deal with, you will look back at all this soon as just a memory, not long for you now

Thank you. Well, not a real swimming pool but tons and tons of water and everything had rotted

Lucky you. I'm 2 years and 3 months in and had no kitchen for the majority of it. Living with the dust is a shocker.

@Driverpicksthemusic I actually took a rental slightly earlier than I thought we needed - it worked out in the end as the builder started 2 working days after - but nothing suitable has come on the market since - nothing. And we are paying a bit over the budget we set as prices have skyrocketed. My best advice is to speak to the estate agents with rentals as much as is feasible, so you get to see a property first or they call you when something comes up.

Over 2 years in! I take my hat off to you.

I think I would actually prefer just staying put and camping if it was possible. In fact dh and I considered shipping everyone else off and camping in our bedroom with the dog, then doing that room last, but the builder doesn’t seem to think that’s workable. To be fair, it is a tiny house and once they knock through we will lose the kitchen and bathroom, so I can kind of see his point.

We considered booking into a local caravan site until we realised dh needs wifi when he’s wfh and our caravan is vintage which, whilst lovely and lots of fun for festivals etc, isn’t really up to the job. I may reach the point where I am tempted to put our tent up at the end of the garden if we have a nice summer though, as our wifi signal is stronger in the garden than it at the front of the house and it may be preferable to months at my PIL’s. 😂Dd would definitely prefer that, as she’s already moaning about not being able to just pop out and see her friends over the summer holidays.

@pashmina696 we have spoken to pretty much all the local rental agents and they all said the same thing. We will only get a 6 month let as a minimum, which we don’t want as the cost will eat into our contingency budget and that we will just have to put alerts on all the online search places and hope for the best. Couldn’t have been less helpful really, but rental properties are practically letting themselves these days, so I suppose they have no incentive to be helpful.

They also told us that once the advert is up online for the let, you can be pretty sure it’s already gone. So why bother listing them? Surely that just results in lots of people phoning to enquire and being disappointed. The whole thing is madness and extremely frustrating. The let we had arranged was via a friend and has fallen through due to the owner’s illness. Nothing to be done, just bad luck all round unfortunately.

We looked into renting a local holiday cottage, but the cost was eye-watering, even with a special deal for a longer than usual holiday let.

@Driverpicksthemusic that's frustrating- we do need to be out for 6 months at least so that's wasn't an issue for us but the estate agents will be calling people when properties come available. Personally in your circumstance I would be trying a local facebook group or similar - there is often people asking on mine.

Dh has put it on the local FB page. Nothing yet, but you never know. We only found out the planned let had fallen through at the weekend. I’m a bit wary of FB to be honest though. A friend suggested one that was advertised on there and thankfully, we did a bit of digging before following it up, as it turned out to be a scam. The same property photos were cropping up as being in multiple towns all over the country and the contact number had been reported as ‘dangerous’!

Dd’s friend’s family ended up staying at a local hotel for two months of their build in similar circumstances, there’s no way that’s affordable for us, even for just dh and I.

I’m sure we’ll cope whatever happens. I am just having a moan really.

@sickofbuilders OMG YOU DEFINITELY WIN!!! That is horrific.

I went around to the house today, builders are motoring away, downstairs extension windows going in this week and getting to stud wall location etc so motoring along at the moment. But they showed me where they had taken plaster board off above a current external door and there were bits of rock haphazardly holding up a lintel that was supporting the whole side of my house. They were appalled. Thankfully they will fix it but Jesus. I hate the people that used to own my house. Lazy, tight, dangerous f%ckers. It literally could have fallen on us or the kids. Unreal.

Anyway attic work will start in a couple of weeks and we will see how we are going.

Christ, sounds like my place. Sick of finding stuff to fix.

Had windows and patios doors put in last night, and they are not even!!! One window is bigger than the other each side of the patio doors…. I just stared at them and cried and thought great that’s going to cost a grand!!! Nobody thought to tell us one window would be 12cm bigger than the other 🙄 looks awful

This has been our experience too - a single wooden beam holding up our kids’ bedroom floor, roof resting in windows. The previous owner was a bloody engineer! Just hope he didn’t engineer anything I’ve ever got to sit in!

these old houses are such houses of horror.

but we viewed over 60 houses and literally could not find anything else (we were only looking for 3-4 beds with a decent sized garden for growing - not the earth!). Why we didn’t just stick with our old place (I mean we had a list why not) - we’d be mortgage free right now!

That’s so frustrating.

We had something similar when the builder started getting quotes in for our patio doors. (We are having a downstairs bedroom built, due to mobility issues and had chosen to have patio doors with side windows on the back.) I specifically asked the architect to design them so the side panels had opening windows, as I can’t sleep without airflow at night and obviously don’t want to sleep with the doors open, especially when dh is working away.

Window company came back to say the side windows are too narrow to have as opening frames and if they work around it by reducing the width of the doors, the doors will be too narrow. Plans had already been approved, so there was no way to change it without going back for an amendment, as to have wider doors/frames will mean a longer lintel is needed.

We’re already way behind where we should be, thanks to a massive and unnecessary delay to planning approval despite no objections or issues, so now we’re looking into costs for air-conditioning in the bedroom instead. It will be a lot more expensive and not how I wanted the windows/doors to look or work. I wanted opening side windows with a small window ledge, but now we are having full height narrow fixed-glazed panels instead.

I feel like I need to double check the window company is making sure the side panels are equal widths now as well.

@sickofbuilders @Jesusmaryjosephandtheweedon Those erm ‘structural discoveries’ sound really worrying. Dh’s grandmother’s house was really damp and when they investigated they discovered it had been built over a natural spring/stream!

I have been watching ‘The Great House Giveaway’ on catch up and it is scary the state of some buildings when they started knocking into them. I was watching one last night where the ‘renovators’ miscalculated their steel and the house started to fall down when they installed it. I should probably stop watching it really, as it only making me worry more and what will be will be at this point.

Ours was built in 1930 and has had literally nothing done to it since. My parents were only the second people to live here and it’s all still exactly as it was when they bought it in the early 70’s, barring internal decor, replacement kitchen and bathroom and central heating. Who knows the build quality underneath all that though.

Oh its horror stories all round. Hopefully we will all be very happy with the end products!

Gah!! I'm feeling very lucky we've had relatively few surprises so far - some extra groundworks costs of about €9k but we figured there was bound to be something... Our patio door arrangement came in at way over the estimate (the architect cocked up slightly there) so we're going to have one sliding door and a fixed pane instead of two doors, but that's fine. Nil else major so far, but we're still only at the foundations stage.
Also very lucky we've been able to move in with the PILs - despite the odd irritation (which I'm sure goes both ways!) they've actually been a dream so far, and it's been much less difficult than I anticipated. I'm someone who really values my own space so I was slightly dreading it, but it hasn't been bad at all. Finding a rental where we are would have been almost impossible and would have cost more than our (newly inflated) mortgage - it just wouldn't have been feasible for us at all. Hope something works out for you soon, @Driverpicksthemusic

@lovecafeaulait, we're in Ireland so pricing might be a little different, but we were quoted about €18k for supply and installation of a kitchen and utility room, including hob and dishwasher, and ceramic worktops in the kitchen. It's the METOD kitchen, a dark blue. The designer was really good and spent ages going through every option with us, and he had plenty of suggestions when we weren't sure what we wanted.

That was an in-person appointment, by the way - we're lucky enough to live ten mins from IKEA - so I'm not sure if the online one would be exactly the same?