Two Storey House Extension

[alock]

E36GUY said:

Agreed. Love the kitchen design but too many down lights

The lighting is changing. You might not like this, but there are going to be even more lights!

The lighting diagram above was a theoretical attempt before we knew whether the beam could be completely hidden within the ceiling and before we had decided on Velux windows. In the end, the beam had to be 12" high and therefore will project a few inches into the room. We are also having two huge Velux windows to let as much light in as possible because the room in north facing.

What this means is that we are losing the 3 feature pendants over the island because the ceiling above the island has 3 different levels.

The 2 parts of the roof (original house and existing extension) have joists in different positions and recessing lights in locations that are suitable for both was very tricky. The only way we could make it work was have 6 across the room. The joists are almost made-to-measure and 6 will be perfectly spaced. We also need to position 2 of the lines of lights around the Velux windows.



We are wiring them in multiple circuits with a dimmer on each circuit so we can control how much light each zone gets.

[alock]

E36GUY said:

I get that you have to take joists into account but waaay too many lights. What you have there is shop lighting. Half of them are merely lighting areas of floor and are not required. You should place them around the working areas only for a good affect.

But then, it's your house so if that's what you want who am I to argue!

I'm far from an expert on this and have struggled to find guides that actually tell you how many lights to install. One guide I've found is here:
http://www.switch2leds.co.uk/knowledge-base/beam-a...

Basically they distil it to this formula:
Number of fixtures = (Lux level * room area) / lumens per LED Lamp

They advise a Lux level of 250 for kitchens. Our kitchen is 34m². If I install 400 lumen bulbs then I get:

250 x 34 / 400 = 21.25

24 doesn't seem excessive. What am I missing?

[alock]

Ranger 6 said:

Bit of a late suggestion I know - did you think about moving out?

We did an extension, a loft conversion, new roof, new kitchen, new bathrooms, rewired, replumbed and replastered (basically a new house) and the builder finished in 3 1/2 months. He did say it would've taken at least twice as long and god knows how much more in costs if we'd tried to live there while he was working.

It cost an extra £5k but in the grand scheme of things that was cheap and the convenience of being able to walk away from the building site was massive - it wasn't a glamorous rental but a 2 bed bungalow was all we needed for the four of us.

We did think about moving out. Our builder didn't think it would add much to the time (a few days) and it didn't effect his quote. I like spending 20 minutes every evening checking everything that has happened that day.

[alock]

Day 24

Just wrote a big post for today and PH logged me out as I posted so I lost it all. Don't fancy typing it all again now.

Anyway, here's a panorama I tried on my camera which stitched 3 photos together.

[alock]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

The two beams support two different parts of the house. A 10" high I-beam supports the old extension and is nearest to the camera in the panorama above. A 12" high I-beam supports the old rear wall of the house.

Why have they done two beams? Haven't got a clue. I assume someone has shares in a steel fabrication company When the pillars were both in the kitchen, the engineer reckoned two 10" beams would be OK. When one pillar moved to the utility room in our designs (about ½m longer), the beam needed upgrading.

If I had to guess why we have two beams instead of one, it might be because of the two-storey extension that has not been built yet. This will have a beam across the top of the garage that supports the bedroom upstairs. This other beam will be directly in line with one of these two kitchen beams that has pre-drilled holes ready to be bolted to the next beam. What we will therefore have is a 12m beam made up of two 6m beams bolted together and another 6m beam that runs parallel with have of the 12m beam.

[alock]

Bathroom

We've made a few decisions about the family bathroom. Unfortunately the company doesn't have a good 3D CAD package that produces fancy renderings. You'll therefore need to imagine bits from the following photos. The layout is still the same as shown in my post on 12th July.

We are having:

• 1700x800 bath
• 1200x900 curved quadrant shower
• Sink
• WC
• A good amount of storage

Colour scheme is white gloss with a grain effect black contrast. We do not want the entire room tiled but instead want to use tiles in required locations as a contrast colour to the painted walls. This picture probably highlights what we want. Very neutral floor tile and wall colour with a contrasting tile within the shower enclosure and other key areas:



The next two pictures show what we are aiming for. The basin and WC will be encased in cabinets like these:



But the actual framing of the cabinets will be more like this (i.e. without the thick borders) and with the mirrored cabinets above:



Wall tiles will be within the show cubicle, between the basin/WC cabinets and the mirrored wall cabinets and also above the bath.

[alock]

Day 46

Plastering finished. Electrics and painting being finished today. Kitchen arriving tomorrow.



The best thing about this picture is how dark the utility room looks. It is what you might consider normal brightness and yet due to the limited capabilities of the camera in my phone, it looks dark because of how much natural light is in the kitchen

Edited by alock on Saturday 24th August 09:02

[alock]

Day 55

Most of kitchen now installed. Worktops have been measured and are being installed next week. Colour of doors on island are wrong but they will be swapped over when the worktop is installed.





Tiles and bathroom ordered and should be arriving in a few days. In about 3 weeks phase one should be complete. Then the big phase 2 can start

[alock]

Things have been progressing very slowly recently.





Still waiting for plinths (with lights), skirting boards and TV socket face plate to be installed.

And the good news, is that the worktop they originally cut for the island was too small so they had to redo it. We managed to keep the incorrect one (for no cost) and with the off-cuts from the up-stands we have enough to do the utility room with. We assumed we would only have cheap laminate in the utility but it will now be quartz matching the kitchen.

Edited by alock on Monday 9th September 21:33

[alock]

monthefish said:

p.s. Any chance you could PM me the rough costs (even to the nearest £5k) of just the building work as I'm considering something very similar (don't need to know kitchen/bathroom/finishing costs - can doo all of that myself)

Thanks in advance!

Email sent

[alock]

Bathroom

New family bathroom (previously the smallest bedroom) is taking shape.

New plumbing under floor


Soil pipe and wall to hide shower plumbing plastered


Shower cubicle tiled, floor tiling in but need grouting.


Plumbing second fit over next couple of days. Must remember to order frosted glass panel for window!

[alock]

Bathroom

Family bathroom almost finished. Needs to be connected up in the airing cupboard and we need to replace the sealed glass in the window with a frosted version.





We also have a date for the start of phase 2 which will start in 3 weeks time.

[alock]

rednotdead said:

Dicky Knee said:

Why not put a frosted film on the existing glass? And save the cost and aggro of getting a new DG unit.

+1. We used this http://www.brume.co.uk/product/33/silver-etch/plai... and can recommend it. Dead easy to install too.

We looked at film and someone even suggested sand-blasting!

There are 3 panes in the window with rough sizes 1006x1024, 495x633 & 495x206. That's £54 of film at that site. Our builder can source 3 brand new sealed units for £150. We decided that for the sake of an extra £100 on a several thousand pound bathroom it was worth doing it properly.

[alock]

CharlesdeGaulle said:

It's all looking good. You must be very pleased.

Pleased is one word for it.... Stressed is another. Biggest disruption is still to come unfortunately when they put in the new pressurised hot water system. Most of the stress will go once that's over, hopefully in about a week.

[alock]

mildmannered said:

At first glance, I didn't like the small cut tile at the bottom edge around the shower tray, but after closer scrutiny, it looks like the splash back behind the basin ties in. Very nice! [/minor OCD]

The pictures don't show the tiling over the bath. The top of the bath defines the center line for the grout joints. Luckily the worktop and top of bath were exactly one tile difference. The downside was the cut tile at the bottom of the shower cubicle.

[alock]

Foundations

Time for an update. In mid December they started knocking down the garage.





The weather has been appalling this winter so it's been slow progress. They decided to leave the original flat roof in place as long as possible to provide shelter while they worked underneath. Our boiler and fuse box are in the area being demolished so they were wrapped in heavy plastic. So far no problems. It's been quite a good plan because our builders have been on site when other builders haven't bothered. A few nights with 80mph winds were a worry though.

The house is a mess because we've emptied the garage into the shed which is now packed full. The utility stuff is in a pile in the corner of the kitchen and the loft has been emptied into the lounge.

By the first week in January it looked like this. Foundations dug and waiting for the building inspector.



The one thing I never planned for was that when they removed the original porch front door, we lost our letter box. After three days of soggy post I knocked up a wall mounted post box out of the scrap wood.
We've also been more aware of drainage issue on the drive (since it slopes downwards towards the garage) so have modified the drainage to include a full width gutter across the front of the garage and front door.

[alock]

It's been a while since I've updated so thought I would bring everything up-to-date...

Ground Floor (March 2014)

As I said in the previous post, work continued underneath the old flat roof.






And my temporary post box made with the old utility roof ceiling.

[alock]

First Floor (April 2014)

Ground floor walls complete and the beams going in to support the first floor. Beam bolted to the beam we had installed in the kitchen which supports the old back wall of the house.



Our new bedroom taking shape. We are currently squeezed into the smallest bedroom with our children taking the other two larger rooms. This was because we only planned to be in there for a year after we moved in in June 2012!

[alock]

Roof (June 2014)

Nearly there...



During one heavy thunderstorm we had a leak through the temporary plastic roofing. Our builder came out at midnight on a Friday evening to make it water tight. Rather him than me climbing around on our roof in a thunderstorm!

[alock]

First Fit (July 2014)

Something tells me I might need to know where these pipes are when I'm fitting a cloakroom basin.



One of the things I've missed the most is an outside tap. Washing a car without one is such a hassle I've barely bothered in the last 12 months.



Our new front door opening is now ready and the doorstep has been laid. New driveway is the eventual plan but that won't be for several years.