The builders are in.....share the ups and downs here.....

[nappyzonecantrunfortoffee]

Been as though a few of us have the builders in i thought we could share our fun and try and get through the mire together (even though pavlos stories scared me half to shit).

SO were getting an extension built and they started Wednesday - they seem canny and we have a digger in our garden, guinea pigs at the back of the garedn i have to risk life and limb for to get too to feed and mud - loads of mud - my wellies are caked in the stuff from my guinea pig feeding missions!

Our foundations are all dug out now and most excitingly a mixy truck load of cement was barrowed round the back in to them. Wheres everyone else at?

oh bloody hell - i can see why you are angry - how long will it be till finish- is it a short programme? No excuse for lack of consideration though and they should leave the site safe especially with little ones running about.

Skinsl that sounds terrible. I think you have to be pretty blunt with builders - they seem to have no grasp of what is acceptable.

hopefully the messiest bit is over, but gonna take another 4/5 weeks.
I just walked out today and said I suggest you sort that before my husband gets home. They knew I was mad. Told them I wanted new carpets and everything cleaned. But I think they used my hoover to clean it up, and now it's not working!! Might just be I need a new bag. They haven't cleaned it properly, in the bedroom they just turned the pillows over! they were filthy. Had to wash and dry bedlinen, cos the spares are under DS's bed!

sorry just needed to vent
we are going away at the weekend and mum is coming to look after DS... hope she can cope with the mess.
Also have my own cleaner coming on Thurs, she did a great job last week, so hopefully she can work some magic and house will be ok for the weekend.

oh i could have done with a cleaner today - they started on downstairs room which involved removing original patio door to move to new opening, they have now put a lovely polythene window in to keep dust at bay but my dining room was a good half cm deep in dust - lots of mopping and dusting needed to be done before we had our tea,

Plumber and sparky comming tomorow to hopefully finish bathroom and final fix upstairs.

think there is light at the end of the tunnel.
We looked at the loft last night and with the chimney breast gone, the main support beam moved higher and the bathroom made smaller, it is a lot more spacious.

Cleaner coming this afternoon, and DH and I are off for a well deserved sunshine weekend, and mum is looking after DS. I just have to show her all the danger spots and hope that the dust isn't too much for her!
Anyone any tips for the bathroom? Plumber is coming today, we are hoping to go for wetroom/type shower, but not that convinces as if you're not an expert fitter it could go wrong, so I've heard.

Oh I am at your sunshine weekend, we could do with one of those! All plodding along here. They start plastering next week which seems like a huge step. Better start exercising my roller arm for the great paintathon

Weekend away sounds fantastic, hope it gives you a break from the building madness.

Reasonable progress here, everything done on the roof apart from the tiles, so the shell is watertight for the first time.

We met the electrician yesterday, had to educate the builder who assumed that we wanted one light fitting and two sockets per room, whereas I wanted something a bit more complicated . But we got there in the end.

Nappyzone - have you picked paint colours yet? I bought the Kevin McCloud paint book in the hope of getting some inspiration but I'm still clueless...

Yey for your progress skinsl and cake big yey for yout watertight shell!!!

OOooo i like - are you rollering? you see we have discovered the splash free joys of paint pads and on smooth plastered walls they are ace - dd bedroom was all painted apart from glossing then the elec final started final fix of sockets having fitted light fittings and has left nice big ruddy gaps round the plug sockets grrrrrrr (they are not live yet anyway but still imk annoyed) - will point out on Monday and make sure they are filled round so i can re paint dd pinkness round them. We picked a carpet for d and that gets fitted on Tue so her room will be complete and she can move back in and her wardrobes etc can move out my room and the hell of bedtime can be relieved as the two tykes are seperated!

Bathroom still not finished - plumber has a dfo reluctance to finishe hanging cupboards and the shower screen though seems to like being here so thats not a problem he is just sllloooooooooooooooooow. Tiles are on and colour will go on over weekend and i have a colour choice to make on flooring - going for vinyl but cant decide on plain or tile look. Thats all from here really.

I have updated my pics, plain or tile effect on bathroom floor in vinyl??? Cake as for colours walls will be a colour plain i have mixed from dulux colour machine thingy - is v similar to colour of tiles. In dd bedroom stuck to white with a hint of pink which we mixed our selves from a horific bright pink we still had in the loft.

Bathroom looks nice Nappyzone. Can I suggest a flooring? Tileloc from B&Q is about 15 pounds a metre. I like the travertine effect and I don't like anything pretending to be wood or stone. They do a lighter one too and some tile effect ones, there's aqua loc too. Having said this, vinyl does make sense. If you do go for vinyl, maybe plain/stone rather than tile? Msybe in a very light grey?

Hiya toots we actually have that b n q tilloc in our en suite - unfortunatly it has started to lift in the joins where excess water has laid on it which is a shame as it looked nice at first. DH and i jst had a "discussion" in flooring shop - yes i liked all plain too and dh wanted this one which was like tile efect but with white grout lines - we agreed on a very square tile effect with dark grout lines so if you squint it doesnt look like tiles lol. It wll get fit on Tue but i still wont be able to have a bath as the drains are not in externally yet

Good to know that about the tileloc. Glad you've chosen something. I hate not knowing what to do.

toots it probably could work well in a normal household but in ours ds likes to open the shower door wehn mummy is showering and normally i dont relaise till i turn round and see him sttod there sodden wet! Yes i hate it too - just hope they do a good job fitting it.

hello everyone, how is it going?

I have had a crap day today. Got a call from the builder when I was on my way to a meeting asking if it was ok for them to remove the old en-suite window and brick it up. I told him that there was loads of stuff in the ensuite, could they wait until I got back in an hour and a half. So guess what ... got home to find idiot brickie in ensuite taking window out. He'd helpfully removed a few things from the windowsill, but left the laundry basket, towels, toothbrushes, toiletries on the vanity unit etc, all of which were covered in debris. I went mad and hurriedly removed everything. Two minutes later there was a crash as he smashed the window and showered the room with glass. He claimed that he was going to remove evrything before taking the glass out but I do not believe him for a second. Makes me really worried for when they start work inside in the rest of the house.

cake- that is so annoying!! I swear they do not understand what the word mess means! Or how much it takes to tidy it up!

Not bad here, been a bit quiet, but plumber been in an sorted all his stuff and electrician been today to sort plug points and lights out. And brickie is building the outside wall at the back.

oh no! urgh for mess - i hate dust - im fed up of dust - i want my house back.

My bathroom is about finished - it looks good but i still cant use it because the waste still isnt attached to the drains which riles me. Was supposed to get flooring fit today and carpet in one bedroom but there was a cock up there - my new shower also has crud pressure so we need a pump adding grrrrrrr. I think our builder is on a go slow now till his next job if he has one.

FFS! Today just gets worse. DH got home, had a chat with the builder and realised that they have started knocking thru upstairs in the wrong place

I have never seen DH look so angry. They have only knocked out the bricks, not the blockwork, but they are about a metre out. Apparently they thought the plans looked wrong so they put the door where they thought it should go, rather than where the architect had carefully and professional planned and drawn it.

oh no, that's dreadful. Has your DH calmed down yet.
How can they go against the plans??????

omg flippin mental! good job blocks didnt come down as well.

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Hi folks.

Cake! I can't believe it. Your builder does sound like a moron - from the borrowing money for labourer at the beginning onwards
Our extension is plodding along at the moment, they are there every day working but it just seems to be going SOooooooooooooooo slowly. Lots of doing fiddly bits that don't produce visible results iykwim (door frames, noggins - whatever the heck those are) etc. I think plasterer is in today (I'm at work!) so that will be a step forward. I may need to buy paint soon

How are you going Nappy?

picking paint is exciting - plodding along here too - nothing visyually exciting to happen this week i dont think till the chaos and mess of the kitchen wall being knocked down.

Plastering is v exciting but so dusty.

I realised last night that the building work will not be finished by DS2's 1st birthday on March 15th. I am gutted

Feck how much are you guys beign quoted for downlights? i was quoted £25 each for bathroom so for 7 was £175 and tongiht im told as had to be this that and tuther actually £35 each so another £70 - im tight i admit but im starting to feel as though my eyes are gettign removed for kicks. Also i was sure we discussed with sparky outside socket but apparently not and thats a tuther £50 grrrrrrrrrrrr. There goes more of my pot