Chamonix studio renovation - build thread
Discussion
Everything you've heard about French paint is absolutely true. My god, the stuff is awful. Expensive and awful. I paid €50 for 10L of the best French crap I could find yesterday. I need more paint but I refuse to buy French. It turns out I'm not alone and there's quite a market for UK paint delivery to France. I've gone with KIS-UK who are shipping me 15L of Leyland for €60. They quote 3 working days. Fingers crossed.
It's true, Gruffy. I've lost count of the times I've thought, "I wish I'd used British paint!"
I didn't know, though, that you can buy it for delivery, so a note for the future.
I paid €90 for a mixed 10l.pot to paint the little WC in our old house. The finish was terrible. Fortunately we sold the place so I don't have to look at it any longer.
I didn't know, though, that you can buy it for delivery, so a note for the future.
I paid €90 for a mixed 10l.pot to paint the little WC in our old house. The finish was terrible. Fortunately we sold the place so I don't have to look at it any longer.
Interesting thing about 'small' projects is that whilst they may be 50% of the floor area of a 'normal' flat, they do not take (anything like) 50% of the time. There's till a kitchen to fit, still a bathroom suite to fit etc etc, and so the time saving is probably only in the order of 5-10%
I guess you have now discovered this Gruffy!
I guess you have now discovered this Gruffy!
In a blaze of completely unfounded arrogance I assumed I'd be immune from the slipping schedules of every building project I've ever seen/read/heard of. The schedule I plucked out of thin air carefully devised before the job began had me wrapping up this weekend. The need to completely rewire the apartment has added quite a bit of unexpected time, but I still think in all honesty I'm two weeks away from completion. I didn't realise the kitchen would take quite so much faffing. The bathroom is also, I suspect, going to take longer than first assumed.
Day 28
Today was a frustrating day. It's Toussaint day in France, which means all the shops are closed and no supplies for me. I finished the kitchen tiling and did a few small jobs, but the single battery I have for the power tools has now died - my accomplice will be bringing the others and the charger back on Monday - and I realised a whole bunch of kit I need to finish off a few other small jobs.
I spent the rest of the working day sanding off a coat of French swill from the walls. Unfortunately my design work is really busy at the moment too so I've spent much more of the day than I'd like fiddling around with animations, voiceovers and soundtracks. I'll be grateful for the steady income stream when the invoice gets paid in a couple of months, but I could really do with more time on the build at the moment.
Tomorrow I'll do a final run to Geneva for the last IKEA items and the bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Hopefully on the way I'll be able to pick up aerated concrete blocks and some more refractory cement so that I can start building the fireplace.
Absolutely no movement on the bathroom goods I ordered from Germany. I'm chasing and chasing but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. I'll give them a couple more days and then pull the order and look elsewhere - it's getting silly. It's 'tersely worded email to the management' time. Does anybody know the German for "f
king useless flap tt"?
Day 28
Today was a frustrating day. It's Toussaint day in France, which means all the shops are closed and no supplies for me. I finished the kitchen tiling and did a few small jobs, but the single battery I have for the power tools has now died - my accomplice will be bringing the others and the charger back on Monday - and I realised a whole bunch of kit I need to finish off a few other small jobs.
I spent the rest of the working day sanding off a coat of French swill from the walls. Unfortunately my design work is really busy at the moment too so I've spent much more of the day than I'd like fiddling around with animations, voiceovers and soundtracks. I'll be grateful for the steady income stream when the invoice gets paid in a couple of months, but I could really do with more time on the build at the moment.
Tomorrow I'll do a final run to Geneva for the last IKEA items and the bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Hopefully on the way I'll be able to pick up aerated concrete blocks and some more refractory cement so that I can start building the fireplace.
Absolutely no movement on the bathroom goods I ordered from Germany. I'm chasing and chasing but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. I'll give them a couple more days and then pull the order and look elsewhere - it's getting silly. It's 'tersely worded email to the management' time. Does anybody know the German for "f
king useless flap tt"? Edited by Gruffy on Friday 1st November 18:51
Gruffy said:
In a blaze of completely unfounded arrogance I assumed I'd be immune from the slipping schedules of every building project I've ever seen/read/heard of. The schedule I plucked out of thin air carefully devised before the job began had me wrapping up this weekend. The need to completely rewire the apartment has added quite a bit of unexpected time, but I still think in all honesty I'm two weeks away from completion. I didn't realise the kitchen would take quite so much faffing. The bathroom is also, I suspect, going to take longer than first assumed.
Day 28
Today was a frustrating day. It's Toussaint day in France, which means all the shops are closed and no supplies for me. I finished the kitchen tiling and did a few small jobs, but the single battery I have for the power tools has now died - my accomplice will be bringing the others and the charger back on Monday - and I realised a whole bunch of kit I need to finish off a few other small jobs.
I spent the rest of the working day sanding off a coat of French swill from the walls. Unfortunately my design work is really busy at the moment too so I've spent much more of the day than I'd like fiddling around with animations, voiceovers and soundtracks. I'll be grateful for the steady income stream when the invoice gets paid in a couple of months, but I could really do with more time on the build at the moment.
Tomorrow I'll do a final run to Geneva for the last IKEA items and the bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Hopefully on the way I'll be able to pick up aerated concrete blocks and some more refractory cement so that I can start building the fireplace.
Absolutely no movement on the bathroom goods I ordered from Germany. I'm chasing and chasing but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. I'll give them a couple more days and then pull the order and look elsewhere - it's getting silly. It's 'tersely worded email to the management' time. Does anybody know the German for "fking useless flap tt"?
Google Translate telling me it's "Verdammt nutzlos fotze klappe muschi" Day 28
Today was a frustrating day. It's Toussaint day in France, which means all the shops are closed and no supplies for me. I finished the kitchen tiling and did a few small jobs, but the single battery I have for the power tools has now died - my accomplice will be bringing the others and the charger back on Monday - and I realised a whole bunch of kit I need to finish off a few other small jobs.
I spent the rest of the working day sanding off a coat of French swill from the walls. Unfortunately my design work is really busy at the moment too so I've spent much more of the day than I'd like fiddling around with animations, voiceovers and soundtracks. I'll be grateful for the steady income stream when the invoice gets paid in a couple of months, but I could really do with more time on the build at the moment.
Tomorrow I'll do a final run to Geneva for the last IKEA items and the bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Hopefully on the way I'll be able to pick up aerated concrete blocks and some more refractory cement so that I can start building the fireplace.
Absolutely no movement on the bathroom goods I ordered from Germany. I'm chasing and chasing but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. I'll give them a couple more days and then pull the order and look elsewhere - it's getting silly. It's 'tersely worded email to the management' time. Does anybody know the German for "f
king useless flap tt"? Edited by Gruffy on Friday 1st November 18:51
Love this thread so far, excellent work and I'm slightly (hugely) jealous!
Duly noted. Ta.
I've managed to trace that shipment to a local delivery company in Annecy (about an hour and a half's drive). I've shot them an email (it's the weekend) but companies like this never seem to check emails, so it'll be a phone call first thing on Monday. I may recruit a French speaker for this. If they aren't already re-delivering on Monday I'll be driving down there to pick it up as it's starting to really hold the job up now.
In other news: SWMBO isn't faring too well in my absence so I'm now committed to heading back to Blighty on Wednesday 13th. This leaves 7 working days to complete the renovation, at least to a standard that is habitable for the winter season. It's quite frustrating as it means I've had to scale back some of my plans. The first casualty is the built-in shelving in the bedroom. I need to create a low-level boxout to hide the plumbing that's coming through the bathroom wall. I had planned to extend this right to the ceiling and build in more shelving. The trick with living well in small spaces is to have huge amounts of storage, so it's a shame to lose this. The biggest arse about this is that I was planning to fix the upstairs lighting to this. Now that it's gone I'll need to cut another channel into the concrete wall instead. I hate channeling concrete.
The bathroom must be finished. As must the fireplace. The rest is small jobs, but lots of them. I'll be getting Maurice back tomorrow and I'm also asking Michel Roux Jr to help from Tuesday onwards. I'm almost £1,000 under budget at the moment so I can afford to throw some money at this extra labour.
Yesterday was the toughest day of the whole project. I did my (almost) final run to IKEA to pick up the wardrobes, mattress, missing kitchen stuff and lots of household items (crockery, glasses, cookware etc). I didn't twig that it was a bank holiday weekend. Four really heavy trolley loads and a 45 minute queue at the checkouts. I had to make three trips and queue each time. The place was heaving and I had to wait 20 minutes to speak to somebody about out of stock clothes rails for the wardrobe, then another 25 minutes in the warehouse finding out that while I'd been there they'd run out of shelves for the wardrobes. I'm not sure what sort of idiot is running stock control so poorly that they can run out of something as common as wardrobe shelves on a Saturday afternoon!? It looks like I'll need to come back for some things in December.
Everything weighed a bloody tonne too, so I definitely got a workout loading the minibus up. The last thing to go in was the mattress, only it was too big to fit into the now-packed bus. I took it back and asked for delivery, getting most of the way through the process until they realised it was a French address. It turns out IKEA Geneva doesn't delivery to France. It's a bit messed up, because the nearest French IKEA to me is Lyon, which is another hour further away than Geneva. So, mattress refunded and I'll try and get something locally with an empty minibus.
After that ordeal I just made it to another big hardware store for bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Frustratingly the shower screen is a two-week delay (I'm coming back in ten days) so I've ordered it and will have to pick it up when I'm back just before Christmas.
I'll take some end-of-phase photos for the thread but unfortunately the final photos will have to wait until Christmas/NY and I've been able to get the last bits of work done.
I've managed to trace that shipment to a local delivery company in Annecy (about an hour and a half's drive). I've shot them an email (it's the weekend) but companies like this never seem to check emails, so it'll be a phone call first thing on Monday. I may recruit a French speaker for this. If they aren't already re-delivering on Monday I'll be driving down there to pick it up as it's starting to really hold the job up now.
In other news: SWMBO isn't faring too well in my absence so I'm now committed to heading back to Blighty on Wednesday 13th. This leaves 7 working days to complete the renovation, at least to a standard that is habitable for the winter season. It's quite frustrating as it means I've had to scale back some of my plans. The first casualty is the built-in shelving in the bedroom. I need to create a low-level boxout to hide the plumbing that's coming through the bathroom wall. I had planned to extend this right to the ceiling and build in more shelving. The trick with living well in small spaces is to have huge amounts of storage, so it's a shame to lose this. The biggest arse about this is that I was planning to fix the upstairs lighting to this. Now that it's gone I'll need to cut another channel into the concrete wall instead. I hate channeling concrete.
The bathroom must be finished. As must the fireplace. The rest is small jobs, but lots of them. I'll be getting Maurice back tomorrow and I'm also asking Michel Roux Jr to help from Tuesday onwards. I'm almost £1,000 under budget at the moment so I can afford to throw some money at this extra labour.
Yesterday was the toughest day of the whole project. I did my (almost) final run to IKEA to pick up the wardrobes, mattress, missing kitchen stuff and lots of household items (crockery, glasses, cookware etc). I didn't twig that it was a bank holiday weekend. Four really heavy trolley loads and a 45 minute queue at the checkouts. I had to make three trips and queue each time. The place was heaving and I had to wait 20 minutes to speak to somebody about out of stock clothes rails for the wardrobe, then another 25 minutes in the warehouse finding out that while I'd been there they'd run out of shelves for the wardrobes. I'm not sure what sort of idiot is running stock control so poorly that they can run out of something as common as wardrobe shelves on a Saturday afternoon!? It looks like I'll need to come back for some things in December.
Everything weighed a bloody tonne too, so I definitely got a workout loading the minibus up. The last thing to go in was the mattress, only it was too big to fit into the now-packed bus. I took it back and asked for delivery, getting most of the way through the process until they realised it was a French address. It turns out IKEA Geneva doesn't delivery to France. It's a bit messed up, because the nearest French IKEA to me is Lyon, which is another hour further away than Geneva. So, mattress refunded and I'll try and get something locally with an empty minibus.
After that ordeal I just made it to another big hardware store for bathroom tiling, cabinet and shower screen. Frustratingly the shower screen is a two-week delay (I'm coming back in ten days) so I've ordered it and will have to pick it up when I'm back just before Christmas.
I'll take some end-of-phase photos for the thread but unfortunately the final photos will have to wait until Christmas/NY and I've been able to get the last bits of work done.
Gruffy said:
The bed is from Cocktail Scandinave. It's a standard 180x200cm. The French don't seem to go for big beds though, with most offerings going up to 160cm. Hopefully it won't prove too difficult to find a good 180cm mattress.
Get 2 x90 cm mattresses- easier to handle/transport, you can mix and match so you and your other half can hav something that is comfortable (i'm guessing you are different weights) and this is a standard size you can get anywhere. more choice, more comfort.Absolutely love this thread by the way, you've done a fantastic job so far- really well thought out. please keep us updated!
Gruffy said:
That's one of my pet peeves. I'll go to great lengths to get the right mattress because I really value a good night's sleep. It will definitely be a full size 180x200.
Trust me, 2 x 90cm mattresses are better for sleeping, especially if you have 2 x 90cm wide "lattes" under.Having spent a week on a normal divan, I was happy to be back in our 2 x 90 last night.
Simply use 1 mattress cover & 1 sheet. It works very well!
Day 29
Zee Germans have finally pulled their finger out, but too late to be of any use. They've passed the address onto the delivery company but they won't be able to deliver until tomorrow. We absolutely must have it tomorrow morning or we'll be losing time so to avoid any more cockups I'm going to drive down there now and collect it myself. It's a 230km trip I could have done without. It'll actually be longer than that because I also need to go back to Leroy Merlin in Annemasse (another 1 hour detour) to exchange a socket after some bad advice from their staff. I have an electric shutter being installed and I bought a set of parts for the socket to match everything else. The chap in the store was adamant that he'd given me the right stuff despite my triple checking. I should have listened to my gut because the bloody thing is wrong.
Not many photos from today, so far. We drilled through to the outside (carefully missing the glass) to run some conduit for the electric shutter. This was done inside the storage hatch of the staircase so that I didn't have to channel any more bloody walls.
And I invented a new game called Whack-a-Mo™
Zee Germans have finally pulled their finger out, but too late to be of any use. They've passed the address onto the delivery company but they won't be able to deliver until tomorrow. We absolutely must have it tomorrow morning or we'll be losing time so to avoid any more cockups I'm going to drive down there now and collect it myself. It's a 230km trip I could have done without. It'll actually be longer than that because I also need to go back to Leroy Merlin in Annemasse (another 1 hour detour) to exchange a socket after some bad advice from their staff. I have an electric shutter being installed and I bought a set of parts for the socket to match everything else. The chap in the store was adamant that he'd given me the right stuff despite my triple checking. I should have listened to my gut because the bloody thing is wrong.
Not many photos from today, so far. We drilled through to the outside (carefully missing the glass) to run some conduit for the electric shutter. This was done inside the storage hatch of the staircase so that I didn't have to channel any more bloody walls.
And I invented a new game called Whack-a-Mo™
I appreciate the advice but I'm absolutely sure of our preference for one full-size mattress. We both hate having two single mattresses in place of a full double. That uncomfortable seam down the middle. And then while rutting the gap gets bigger and bigger until SWMBO disappears like Boba Fett in the Pit of Sarlacc and I'm left hammering away at thin air.
The weight difference between us is pretty huge (she weighs less than half what I do) but we have a cracking mattress back in London that you could jump up and down on and the other person sleeping wouldn't even notice it.
The weight difference between us is pretty huge (she weighs less than half what I do) but we have a cracking mattress back in London that you could jump up and down on and the other person sleeping wouldn't even notice it.
Well, that's 290km in the bag that really didn't need to be driven, especially in torrential rain and during a working day. On the positive side, I now have the bathroom kit in my possession, along with the missing socket for the electric shutter. I even managed to get back to Sallanches in time to pay for the bathroom counter top before they shut. In accordance with the French speed limits my speedo never read above 110.
The Moose said:
If you've got an ikea bed, you'll need an ikea mattress iirc. I'm think they're not normal sizes
Sounds like it's not relevant here anyway, but FWIW I think IKEA in the UK sell beds/mattresses in standard European metric sizes. Which aren't the same as imperial UK sizes. 200cm long vs. 6'3.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff