Loft conversion starting today <laughs nervously>

[pavlovthecat]

well, to be precise, the scaffolding is going up as we speak. I am nervous, excited, but mainly nervous. It is going to be 8-10 weeks of chaos, DH has not yet cleared the loft, the place is a mess and it has not even started and I have no energy to do anything.

I am panicking, panicking. what if we made a mistake, what if it goes wrong, what if we picked the wrong builder? Why did we do this? We could have managed in a small 2 bed flat with 2 children, course we could, this was not necessary, can we pull out now? breathe, breathe, breathe.
I wish I had gone out. Its not to late, but then I got so much here to do. I just want them have finished.

Tell me it will be ok...?

Commiserations. I always underestimate the amount of chaos any building work creates. We had our spare room decorated the other week & you'd think that would cause minor, if any, upheaval. But no. The whole house was a tip for a fortnight.

So god knows how I'd react to a loft conversion. I'm sure it will be ok, & fab when done, & you'll wonder why you didn't do it before. Meanwhile, it will be hell

Had ours done Christmas time.Took dbil and mate 3 weeks to complete from start to finish.Was absolute nightmare at the time but when yours is finished it will look blardy lovely,I am sure

scampadoodle - builder assures me it will be painless apart from handing over a huge wad of cash why do I not believe him? As part of it, we are having DDs bedroom wall moved and DH and I are still arguing about whether DD should come in our room now, and turn her room into storage or an a few weeks when it needs doing. Builder says it will take a day to do the wall and stairs....HA, its going to take a week I reckon...

in two months. No lets say in 3 months, it will all be over, apart from carpeting new room and hallway, decorating new room and hallway, moving furniture...

in 10 weeks, I will be 26 weeks, thats not so bad..

wrinklytum - 3 weeks!!! Bloody hell should have got them to do ours!

I don;t like this whole agreeing and deciding together business. I have tried really hard to do it this time, as DH thinks I am too bossy, and this place was 'technically' mine when we bought it so I wanted him to feel it is our choice, what we do and how we do it, together.

But I am bossy. I really want to get him/someone in to do the sorting of the loft, etc and to do what i tell them, and how i tell them. It would have all been done weeks ago, ready for the works to start.

It will be fine

And I don't like the fact they are working through thr roof for the first few weeks. It means i wont be able to see what they are doing...

Ilovemydog - thank you this is biggest project we have done since buying and buying made me have kittens. I am an immediate type of person, I don't like waiting. More time for things to go wrong!

Honestly, as building work goes it is relatively pain-free. It would be a very good idea to clear the loft asap .

DH has roped a friends teenage boy in to help for a tenner. We have mostly sorted it into

Tipping pile - most of it
Keeping pile - small amount but still too much to spread around the rest of the house
boot fair pile - which is the same as the tipping pile, but with a bit more time wasted on it first!

The actual proper work does not start til monday, this week is steels being measured, scaffolding up, electrician coming around to see if he can save us £1500 by re-using an unused consumer unit, that kind of thing. Oh and some of the materials are going to be put in our back yard. Dh will have to clear that too...

Oh I wish I had more energy to do some it myself, all I am managing to do is sort through paperwork to chuck out and make room, and DDs toys.

Relax, I promise you it is not that bad. Telephone the builder and find out exactly when you need to decide on things such as radiators and have bathroom fittings on site because those are the sort of things that creep up on you and you end up making snap decisions or not having enough time because items have to be ordered.

Wow Pavlov -- most people's idea of nesting is a few blankets and painting the nursery

lalalonglegs - fittings? radiators? Already ?!!! Luckily no bathroom, just going to be a bedroom. Phew for that eh?

Selling, now that would have cost more, but well, it would have involved hiring some big burly men to do it all for me....unfortunately no-one wanted to buy our place and we had to make a decision to give this place away or do the loft. I would have much preferred stressing about what colour to paint the nursery, but now the nursery is moving into a bigger room, I will have to stress about that aswell!

DH and our friends son are doing the loft now, after much badgering. But first he had to empty the car of all the camping stuff, I did notknow we could even fit that much stuff in our car! So, I am having to sort it out, DH is shoving stuff the bedroom, there is not a single room in this house that is not a complete and utter tip...we might be sleeping in the loft tonight at this rate!

Are you getting Velux windows? I finally put the blinds up in the staircase Velux blinds (OK, my handyman Peter did ) and looks fab!

yes we are having 2 large ones on the room itself, one above the staircase/stairwell, and possibly one along the staircase itself if we feel we need a bit more light.

I am looking forward to them too as I really hate sleeping with curtains, or normal blinds as you get gaps. I hate light when I sleep, it gives me a headache. I need pitch black, and the velux are snug from what I have seen? Please say that is true?!!!

Get black out Velux blinds. Brilliant. DS went to bed about 7pm, and in his world, it was dark

Best of all, you can clean them!

ah, that sounds perfect!

Well clearly I am not used to scaffolding being up.

I walked right into our front room (which is on the first floor, its a victorian conversion flat), in my birthday suit, as you do. curtains wide open. as they are. and thought 'oh shite the scaffolding is up, thats really not a good idea any more' went to the bedroom had a chuckle with dh, then less than 60 seconds later, (with pants on now but nowt else) and am standing by the front room door, still talking to DH, arms in the air pulling a tee over my head, to hear DD say 'oh look mummy the builders are here, the builders are here' I did not pay a blind bit of attention as they were not due, until I heard clanking and voices, turn around to see men on my scaffolding! I absolutely died with embarrassment. I heard the truck then, but could not be sure I had not heard it earlier . I am pretty sure they had seen nothing as I ducked, but I cannot be sure. What if they had seen before when I was absolutely bollock naked? As I had walked right into the front room. If I had of walked back in while putting my tee on, they would have most certainly seen me, if they were being nosy they would have seen me.

I made a point of going out, fully clothed later to see what there reaction was, and was not met by stifled chuckles. Is that a good sign?

Damn it, they were not due at bloody 8am! labourers are never early are they? AND they were meant to be doing the back not the front, they did that yesterday!

I might have to post this in chat!!