Support thread for those crazy enough to be extending their homes this year!

[ilikeyoursleeves]

Hiya, after hijacking another thread about massive extensions (not massive erections LOL) there seems to be a few of us who are about to embark on building projects this year. So if you are one of them come join in so we can share all the excitement, nervousness and bewilderment at everything that needs done!

We are currently awaiting quotes from builders for a two storey side extension plus a single storey at the rear. We had our first quote in today which is £64k. Not sure if this is good or bad, it will be interesting to compare the quotes when they are all in. We are also awaiting planning permission but should get it fine as our house already has planning for the extension that came with the sale of the house (but we had to resubmit as we have changed it a bit). Awaiting a building warrant too.

I'm very excited but frankly crapping it re the costs as we are going to have to remortgage plus DS2 will start nursery so we will have 2 lots of chilcare costs too.

ARGH!!!

So I for one need my hand held throughout all this process I just keep thinking of the end product and hoping it will all be fine.

What's everyone else doing and when?

Oh blimey rebl i dont know what to say. That doesn't sound good. I'm sure it's just teething problems. Keep trying to get hold of the boss is all I can think to say

Rebl, deep breaths and count to ten. How frustrating but I can totally understand your pain as we are in a similar situation re skips. Ours is totally full plus we have a garden full of rubble and there's nothing that can be done now til it's replaced. At least all the demolition is pretty much done now so once we get the new skip on monday (hopefully) the labourer can fill it up.

Sounds pretty off though that your main man isn't answering any calls, do you have his mobile number? And make sure they refund you for any scaffolding stuff you buy. I think its easy for us to get quite anxious as, if you are anything like me, we expect things to be organised and smooth running. My builders are generally great but there have been a few times they haven't come and not told me, or arrived late. But there always seems to be a good reason when I have asked them so I think it's good to communicate when you feel worried. And my blokes are frustrated with the skip company too so maybe that's happening with your guys too.

try not to worry, I'm sure next week will be better (for both off us hopefully!)

It's your mate who is running it all isn't it, can you get hold of him?

The builder just came round the machines arrive a week on monday... and someone is coming thurs to sort a base for a shed so we can put the stuff from the garage in there with as little time in between having it in random places around the house as poss...

Yes its our mate but he's on holiday. He would NEVER have stood for whats gone on this week. We've emailed him but we don't want to call him whilst he's on holiday.

DH bless him sorted the skip and when the skip man arrived he totally screwed up the collection. The result is my drive is now in an even more terrible state. It was bad, now its going to have to be totally redone. And he's gone over my rose, the 1st plant I ever bought. That plant I bought with DH when we moved into our 1st house (all be it a dump of a place) and its been with us for 12 years, moved through all the rentals and owned houses and its been run over by a skip lorry. I'm upset tonight over the whole lot and the rose seems to represent it all.

We've called the boss man on his mobile but got no response. Left messages and texted him.

I'm about to go and babysit for a friend. Taking a dvd with me and wish I could take wine but obviously can't. DH is going to wait for our DC's to get to sleep and then go and start shifting this mountain of rubble so that our DC's can get to the garden safely this weekend.

Any news rebl? How are you feeling, it all sounds miserable. I am sure your friend will get everything into order as soon as he finds out what's going on though.

Our update is that we have cleared the garage into the garden and the dining room, what a mess!

Feeling a lot better this morning. I've dug up my rose and tried to prune it and hoping that it will survive. We've not had any communication back from our PM (mate) or the boss man. DH cleared all the rubble and broken up patio last night into the new skip whilst I was babysitting. He also made some improvised steps so that we can get out of the back door into the garden and then he made a bridge of sorts over the 2 courses of blocks into the patio hole and then made more steps out of the 1m patio hole onto the lawn. He's an absolute star .

We went and looked at fridge / freezers today and have chosen one which is another tick off a very long list of things to do.

ISNT garage into dining room, hmmmmm, doesn't sound like the most tidy thing to be doing!

Glad you're feeling better today rebl. I'm sure it will all be fine, I think that it woud be a miracle for any of us to get through these sorts of projects without at least one of these real low points. Your DH sounds brilliant

rebl - hope your rose survives. I agree, your DH sounds like he's doing well to make the best of things :) I keep telling myself this is all temporary and in a few weeks months, all will be wonderful!

DH and I have "discussions" about the silliest little things. Today was about rubbish bins. I've always said I want a large cupboard/drawer space devoted to rubbish including recycling bins. He's of the opinion that we'll "sort that out at some point". I'm sure we will but I just want to know that we won't have rubbish cluttering up the place or overflowing!

ISNT - hope you're garden and dining room are manageable know after the garage clear out!

rebl hope you are still feeling OK and that this coming week is better for you. Your DH sounds fab, mine is next to useless when it comes to the extension, he only just realised what rooms we will be getting once it's made.

I have a feeling that our skip won't be replaced tomorrow. The labourer can't do anything else until it is though so it had better be!

Grrrrrrrr. As I feared, bugger all is happening here today. The skip was taken away this morning but apparently noone is coming over til wednesday to do any work! Our garden is full of rubble that needs put in a new skip so I am a bit annoyed and frustrated to day the least. We can't get the foundations started until all this crap us out the garden! Argh, this but seems to be taking forever, I just want them to start actually building something!

Sorry for typos, writing from phone

Hi all, I'm at work but about to pop outside and phone some storage companies... going to pack away some of the crap treasured kitchen items and furniture from the living room (where we'll need to put the fridge-freezer, microwave, toaster etc so we can cook while the kitchen is out of action (on the schedule this is only 2 weeks but ...)

I am pretty sure I am going with the company who did a well-planned, project-managementy quote. They're clearly well within their comfort zone on this type of project. I'm just slightly pissed off with one line in the quote, regarding my kitchen ceiling - on a confirmatory visit last week he said oh, you want a new ceiling? and then added about £800. The kitchen / rear hall area currently have two totally different ceiling finishes, both 70s, both horrid. How he ever thought I'd want to keep them is beyond me. I'm going to laugh at that one and try to embarrass him into removing it. Overall it's coming in at £26k for the build and fitting, but I'm buying the french doors, kitchen units, appliances, worktop, flooring and cloakroom suite. So another 5-6k I think.

This project plan includes 'site clearance' as the first line, at the same time as paying a deposit of 2.5% There are a lot of bricks and paving slabs in my back yard from when I pulled up the patio/hard landscaping - at worst that's £650 for a skip and disposal service! We also have a line for concreting the 'yard' on the side return so hopefully we will not be left with too much of a messy site at the end.

I started marking out the garden yesterday... going to have decking across the width of the garden from the french doors, then a big circle of lawn and corner borders: one with the existing pond (has been fenced off since DS started crawling!) one with herbs (closest to the house), one with flowers (wildflower mix at the moment but will make it more structured next year maybe) and one veggies (furthest from house).

OK, off outside to phone storage places and builder now. I have juts got to get on with making decisions!!!)

Good luck this week rebl. Sorry it's been going wrong, hope your PM calls today.

ooh I tell a lie. It was about £1900 extra, for a load of things including supply+fit UFH. The ceilings thing was £350, and on the phone he seemed to mumble about cutting that in half "as it's one of those things that we didn't notice on the first time". I'm happy with that.

I just need to call the door suppliers and that's the only really critical date then he can commit to a start date. We are rocking and rolling here in Watford Rural...

I've not posted for a while, I've been computerless. We moved in with my Dad for 3 weeks & then went on holiday for 2...madness. Trying to pack for a 2 week camping holiday when the house was full of builders, plasterer's & plumbers. I arrived back home in the small hours of Monday to a fantastic new house, it's all finished. I've now started the task of unpacking all my wordly goods.

Lexilicious love the way we describe our treasurered possessions as crap!! Anyway, hope you got storage sorted.

brightwell WOW!!!! Thats brilliant news to be finished. Well done to come out the other side smiling .

My DH lost it yesterday and it takes a lot to make him loose it. The final drain was eventually fully uncovered and low and behold MASSIVE hole in it. But it totally explains why the old out house was sinking there. But this should have happened 2 weeks ago, not yesterday. He's had to sort skips again. He rang the building company's boss who surprise surprise didn't answer the phone so he ranted on his mobile answerphone! Then he called the bricky and told him what was going on (he's friends with our mate, PM as well). Bricky was going to try get hold of our PM and is going to split his team and send his 2 least skilled over today and try and clear the rest of our site so that he can get in and get the walls up. He says that we're now 2 weeks behind looking at the site and the schedule.

PM texted in the middle of the night (time difference I guess) and told us to hang in there and he'll be on site at the end of the week and promises he'll sort it all out. I trust him when he says that. I have full faith in him but I can't imagine how he's going to catch up the time.

Oh and we've discovered the boss who is meant to be incharge whilst PM is away has gone on an impromptu holiday to the south coast. Case of the whilst the cat's away the mice will play.

Oh rebl what a nightmare for you. I really feel for you because it's stressful enough just deciding on doing an extension, let alone the actual work. Hope you can make it to the end of the week.

Brightwell please keep posting to give everyone else hope that it all works out in the end!

Welcome to SES and vintage

Vintage our builders come from south west London although we don't live in London. They start next week so I can't really recommend them until they've done the work but so far we're impressed with them. They're called Plus1. They should come up on a google search. They're pretty busy which is a good sign

sleeves hope there's more progress today.

We're all set for the builders to start on Monday... well except I fear we haven't cleared enough away and we're away this weekend

ISNT we seem to have everything everywhere too which is making life interesting - I guess it's only going to get more interesting for the next few months.

Elibean hope you're having a good holiday. PWA all sorted now, except paying the surveyors . It worked out mostly fine but we need to have some extra harris fencing on the adjoining land which just means more cost grrr

hi to Annh, Lexilicious and Vonny hope I haven't missed anyone but if so hi to you too

I'm loosing the plot now, with the BLOODY SKIPS! Do they deliberatly send the thick ones to me or something? Seriously, its a single track lane as wide as the lorry. No, you can't put the empty skip down in the road and then drive the lorry passed it. You can't even walk passed it. OMG, He's been here for 1.5hrs and he's still not managed to exchange the skips!!! I've told him that everyone else has done the exchange at the top of the road but he says that he can't do that . He's now calling the office to tell them he can't exchange .

On the plus side the PM has called from his holiday and he's promised us he'll sort it all out and will have a meeting with us on Thursday to re-evaluate the schedule.

PMSL!!!! Clearly the office have told him to do it at the top of the road like everyone else has done. He's not impressed, I just think its funny he could have been gone well before lunch if he had done as I said when he arrived.

rebl - sorry to hear you've had problems with it all. Just our minor bits and pieces going a bit wobbly add grey hairs to me quicker than our nearly 3 year old.

Our building work seemed to happen quite quickly - we made the best of some good weather but I've been surprised at just how much there is left to do after the structure is built. Door frames, guttering, wiring, plumbing, etc etc ... and despite the fact that we've only knocked through one door upstairs, we're permanently covered in dust.

The builder we started with has technically been declared bankcrupt, as a sole trader, but we've carried on the job with the ltd company bit of their org, which was being run by the guy who is our main man on site anyway. In practice it's made little difference but it was a stomach churning email to receive. We've also had problems with buidling control - builders say they took the plans over 4 weeks ago, and we have had on site visits from the council team, but the council say they can' find a record of our application. I'm just leaving it to the builders to sort.

As I'm mostly struggling with suppliers - I really don't know how anyone manages their own build. The only things I have to source are; a shower, glass blocks for the shower enclosure, a shower tray, a sink, a tap, a bathroom cabinet, tiles, and flooring for the bathroom bit.

Not a single item has been a straightforward transaction. Just once I would like to choose somthing, pay for it and then have it delivered.

hoping to be done by early September still. Have invited 6 three year olds for a birthday party so need somewhere to put them.

dull pics

sorry, am Mooki with a name change.

AuntieBulgaria How scarey on the builder front, glad it all worked out. As you say, sourcing stuff is hardwork. I could never PM it.

We're on our last day of our PM on holiday and I'm sitting in my lounge chuckling to myself. The boss of the company whose meant to have been PM'ing the last 2 weeks turned up at 8. He's decided he's going to pull all the men off another job, bring them all here today and he's going to magically do 2 weeks work in 1 day. I'm PMSL. They're apparently going to do all drain work, move the retaining wall, get a hedge down and a fence up and get the floor down. There is no way I can see how even 10 people can manage all that mainly because the floor can't be started until the drains are done. Oh, and if we're 'lucky' he'll get the bricky here and all his team and get walls started. What he doesn't know is that we've already spoken to the bricky and that won't be happening. It quite amusing watching him trying desperatly to get materials ordered and here today. He's sounding quite irate on the phone! I think he's realised he's going to be in a heap of trouble tomorrow when the PM turns up to nothing having been done.

Mooki I love your photos, it must be great to see the end product compared to pre extension. Hope it all goes ok and you get finished in time for the party!

Rebl, that's funny about your builder working to the max just now, does he not think you will be talking to your pm anyway?!

Well I am getting quite pissed off here. Noone has been out this week at all! I called the builder on monday and he said someone would be out on wed to look at the foundations being done, but we still have a mountain of rubble in the garden which will need cleared first. But we don't have a feckin skip! My mate who used and recommended these builders said I need to chill as this bit takes ages, but I just want some communication and some bloody builders here!!!

Sleeves I'm not surprised you're getting pissed off. Skips are a nightmare ime. Communication is definatly the key. Its been these last 2 weeks where I've had zero communication that I've been stressed and things haven't happened. And of course this stage takes ages if there isn't anyone there .

The boss didn't manage to get anyone extra here today and didn't manage to get any materials other than some new drains. So they've laid 1 drain. He's now worked out that we could never have had the floor down today by starting today because there is so much drain work that the building inspector needs to come out before putting the floor down. Oh to be a fly on the wall when the PM meets him tomorrow!

Well noone turned up today

The builder said on Monday that the labourer would be out today with the bloke doing the foundations, he texted me about 3pm today to say that the labourer had been held up so won't be out til tomorrow. He said that he will definately be here by 8am and he will have a skip too. I will believe it when I see it! I said to the builder too that it would be good if he could at least let me know if noone plans on turning up and why!

That's 5 days now that we have had noone here. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Signed a contract an hour ago. Yikes.

Start date probably 23rd. Double Yikes!

Week 1: Clear site, excavate, concrete trenches, build soakaway, underground drainage inc manhole, sub structure brickwork, groundwork inc concrete floor.

I'll be back to tell you on the 27th whether that's all been achieved .