Two Storey House Extension
Discussion
It's been a while since I've updated so thought I would bring everything up-to-date...
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Front Door (January 2015)
It's been a while since any real progress was made. We ran out of money and while trying to get some more we had to delay the builders. This meant they started on other projects so our 4 week delay turned into 3 months before they could return.
Off the shelf oak front door in a custom made oak frame. I've given it several coats of Osmo clear UV protection oil. you might also notice the hall has been plastered and decorated. The finished hall floor is still some way off though.
Electrician has had many personal problems and won't be back until February for the second fit.
kryten22uk said:
How wide is the side access to your garden next to the new garage? We're just starting an extension which leaves us with only 800mm width I think as a side passage. Be interested to see what this looks like real life if compared with your photo.
Our planning application specified the width as 960mm. I haven't actually measured it but I have plenty of room to get my 740mm mountain bike handle bars through the gap.furtive said:
You still haven't got a letterbox!
We're getting sentimentally attached to the current one. It'll be a sad day when it finally goes 
Anyway....
We have a unique problem for our utility room that I'm hoping someone can give some help with. When our kitchen worktop was fitted, the island piece was the wrong size so they had to re-do it. When they delivered the new piece, my wife managed to get them to leave behind the incorrect piece. This means we have an off cut of a nice quartz worktop we want to use for our utility. The problem is it's not quite large enough for the cabinets we want. We can solve this problem by having the sink to the side of the worktop instead of mounted in or under the worktop.
The bext way to describe this is with the pictures here:
http://olx.pl/oferta/zlew-duzy-bateria-regulowana-...
The only one we can find is this one at Ikea:
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S790238...
Does anyone know of anywhere else that sells this style of sink?
I'm no expert on sinks, but that's the sort of thing we install in commercial / industrial kitchen upgrades and it looks like a top mounted one in the first picture so it might be worth getting in touch with some local commercial kitchen fitters. By the way, we spec them as wash hand basins.
Or you could try these..
http://www.simplystainlessltd.co.uk/Washroom/Wash_...
http://www.specialtystainless.com/design/sinks/sty...
Or you could try these..
http://www.simplystainlessltd.co.uk/Washroom/Wash_...
http://www.specialtystainless.com/design/sinks/sty...
Thread Resurrection
House is still progressing as I personally tackle the original rooms in the house that were not part of the extension. The project for the last few months has been the living room and I've only just realized we have almost no pictures from before the work started.
The room had an enormous chimney which dominated the space. Only the right hand side of it supported the chimney through the house, so I had this plan to trim the left hand side down a little. First step was to check it wasn't supporting anything.
Once that was done, I could start the demolition properly. This started with the decorative bricks on the front. After removing a few, I found one had this on the back.
Our chimney appeared to be covered in an old headstone. Will this be a repeat of the nazi bunker or the un-opened safe threads?
House is still progressing as I personally tackle the original rooms in the house that were not part of the extension. The project for the last few months has been the living room and I've only just realized we have almost no pictures from before the work started.
The room had an enormous chimney which dominated the space. Only the right hand side of it supported the chimney through the house, so I had this plan to trim the left hand side down a little. First step was to check it wasn't supporting anything.
Once that was done, I could start the demolition properly. This started with the decorative bricks on the front. After removing a few, I found one had this on the back.
Our chimney appeared to be covered in an old headstone. Will this be a repeat of the nazi bunker or the un-opened safe threads?
A few hours later and I had 4 stones with writing on the back.
The mention of a military death with an exact date makes research massively easier. I found this page, http://aircrewremembered.com/palmer---charles.html... which even included a picture of Charles.
This page also provided a named relative who helped with the details on the above page. I sent an email to the website asking them to forward what I had found to Charles’s great niece to see if they could shed any light on how the headstone ended up in our living room.
The mention of a military death with an exact date makes research massively easier. I found this page, http://aircrewremembered.com/palmer---charles.html... which even included a picture of Charles.
This page also provided a named relative who helped with the details on the above page. I sent an email to the website asking them to forward what I had found to Charles’s great niece to see if they could shed any light on how the headstone ended up in our living room.
A few emails back and forth and a lot of background family information and we received this picture that was taken at Winchester cemetery:
This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
Back to the building work.... More destruction is good.
I actually wanted my knackered old £30 SDS drill to die so I could treat myself to a new one. It refused and soldiered on to fight another day. Removing a chimney is a horribly dirty job.
What surprised me was how far away from the flue soot had reached. There were traces of it almost one meter away through the block work.
After the grunt work of removing most of the material was done, I got a builder in to restructure the flue and add some lintels.
The result of all this work is the chimney is now 1200mm wide instead of over 2000mm wide.
I actually wanted my knackered old £30 SDS drill to die so I could treat myself to a new one. It refused and soldiered on to fight another day. Removing a chimney is a horribly dirty job.
What surprised me was how far away from the flue soot had reached. There were traces of it almost one meter away through the block work.
After the grunt work of removing most of the material was done, I got a builder in to restructure the flue and add some lintels.
The result of all this work is the chimney is now 1200mm wide instead of over 2000mm wide.
alock said:
A few emails back and forth and a lot of background family information and we received this picture that was taken at Winchester cemetery:
This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
what a lovely (and timely) story! (house looks ace by the way)This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
BERGS2 said:
alock said:
A few emails back and forth and a lot of background family information and we received this picture that was taken at Winchester cemetery:
This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
what a lovely (and timely) story! (house looks ace by the way)This is a very old picture of the headstone (1949 ish) which looks identical to what we have. Interestingly, both this picture and our headstone have his age as 26 which was wrong. He died aged 31 and hence our best guess is the headstone was replaced with a corrected version. The headstone in the above picture was recycled into the decorative stone used in our fireplace.
We are still trying to find the exact location in Winchester cemetery to get an up-to-date photo. This would give more evidence to support that we have what is in the picture above.
I met up with Emma, the great niece, who still lives in the area and let her take the stones away. She's in the process of writing a book about Charlie and the story of our fireplace will probably be included.
Anyone know anything about whole-house water softeners?
We had the plumbing installed for a water softener with a dedicated drinking water tap in the kitchen to bypass it, however actually fitting the softener was one of the items we decided to cut when we reached the limit of our budget. After saving up a few more pennies we would like to add one.
What are the salt free ones like:
https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/whole-of-house-...
I'm inherently fairly lazy when it comes to regular maintenance tasks, so something that does a 80% job with zero maintenance would be preferable to something that does a 95% job with monthly maintenance.
We had the plumbing installed for a water softener with a dedicated drinking water tap in the kitchen to bypass it, however actually fitting the softener was one of the items we decided to cut when we reached the limit of our budget. After saving up a few more pennies we would like to add one.
What are the salt free ones like:
https://www.uk-water-filters.co.uk/whole-of-house-...
I'm inherently fairly lazy when it comes to regular maintenance tasks, so something that does a 80% job with zero maintenance would be preferable to something that does a 95% job with monthly maintenance.
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