House renovation and garage build

[Craikeybaby]

We had a look at the finances after my flat sale going through last week (finally) and it turns out that we have £2k to go towards our bathroom - result!

We currently have a suite, sat in the spare bedroom, so we just need to get taps, a shower, shower screen, tiles and all those fittings that seem small but will no doubt end up being expensive.

[mr0709]

We are in the process of a bathroom renovation at the moment. Although they are not high end we used Bathrooms.com and Better Bathrooms. They are not fitted yet but were recommended by my builder and seem very good quality. Cost around £160 for a basin and bath mixer and could have cost less if I ddin't want a specific design.

[Craikeybaby]

Thanks, we'll check them out. I've got a feeling at least part of my bank holiday weekend is going to be spent looking at taps and tiles etc. Yay.

[mr0709]

Craikeybaby said:

Thanks, we'll check them out. I've got a feeling at least part of my bank holiday weekend is going to be spent looking at taps and tiles etc. Yay.

We did the tiles thing last night, so hard to choose and hope we have made the right choic... Who ever knew tiles were so expensive?

[Craikeybaby]

We saw some we like last year, so know roughly what we want, which is handy as there is just so much choice! We're thinking dark grey tiles on the floor, with lighter ones up the walls (maybe with a darker bank around the middle).

[Craikeybaby]

Started looking at bathrooms, we went to one of the local Matki dealers, but all they had was one display, and I'm not even sure if the shower in the cubicle was a Matki one, the salesmen steered us towards the KS Bathrooms range, which to be honest, I'd never heard of, the quality seemed good. Has anybody got any experience of them?

Other than that it was just a case of more gardening while the weather was nice over the weekend.

[Craikeybaby]

Heard back from the bathroom fitter today - he's booked up until September! I guess that's the downside of using someone with a really good reputation!

[Craikeybaby]

Following on from the bathroom posts, we got a call from the guy we are using to fit our bathroom - he has moved our job forward to the first week of August - result! Also the tiles we wanted are still available, so we will pick some samples up later in the week, a bit of a result after still not being able to find a vent cover for the office after not buying the nice wooden one we saw last year.

Talking of the office - we now have curtains:

Curtains by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

They aren't anything special, but at least now we can't see the houses on the other side of the road from in bed!

I've made a start on prepping one of the doors for painting, I just need to top the filler up in a few places, resand and buy some paint before the painting can start:

Filling holes in the door by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

We were going to test fit one of the unpainted doors today, but ran into a bit of a stumbling block, what height to put the handles?

Between the door panels - This looks best on the door, but may be a bit high? (This is a prime example of why I am better behind the camera)

Trying to decide door handle position - top by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

Or where the previous handles were, which fits with the holes in the doors/frames and it a more normal height.

Trying to decide door handle position - bottom by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

What is the PH opinion?

There has also been quite a bit of progress on the garden, the Jen had the day off on Friday and the MIL came round to help/teach her how to sort the flower beds, so what was pretty over grown is now tidy, the veg plots are doing well, courgette and pumpkin seedlings went into the ground today and the onions and potatoes look like they are doing well. The grass is also looking a better, especially now that the edging has been done. Lastly as we have seen a few rats/mice in the garden a few traps have gone down.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Middle of the door from me.

But I think it's a bit of a shame that you haven't gone for nicer, possibly old, handles. I realise that money is always a factor, but that's a lovely door and would be enhanced by more traditional door furniture.

[Craikeybaby]

Middle of the door, as in the second of the images?

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Craikeybaby said:

Middle of the door, as in the second of the images?

No, the first. Across the middle bar (that, as you point out, isn't in the middle). Apols for causing confusion.

[Craikeybaby]

No worries, I was a bit surprised as everyone else had said the first picture. I probably should have thought about where the handles were going before we painted the doorframes...

[RC1]

search 1930's door and youll see most period knobs placed in the middle of the middle rail ie first picture.... we have similar doors albeit painted and they look great with original ebony wood finger plates and knobs...worth hunting them down

[Craikeybaby]

We are going to be painting the doors. SWMBO decided she wanted handles rather than knobs, so that's what we've gone for.

The question I've got now is - Is it better to make the holes for the fittings before or after painting?

[RC1]

If you are rebating the edge for the sash lock do it before painting

[Craikeybaby]

After visiting some friends with similar doors at the weekend, Jen has decided that we should have knobs rather than handles, which I also think will look better.

Due to the trip to our friends in York we didn't get anything done on the house this weekend.

[Craikeybaby]

I think we're going to need to sort out some insulation/draftproofing - just had our first gas bill, £87 for April - I know it was cold, but that's taking the piss!

[Tumbler]

Craikeybaby said:

I think we're going to need to sort out some insulation/draftproofing - just had our first gas bill, £87 for April - I know it was cold, but that's taking the piss!

Have you got a thermostat?

[Craikeybaby]

Yes, although it wasn't set up to change temperature depending on time of day until halfway through the month, so I guess that wouldn't have helped.

[Craikeybaby]

Since my last update rebuilding the garage has been bumped up my girlfriend's priority list (it was always at the top of my priority list), due to a break in, we don't think they took anything as luckily our neighbours were up at 4am and scared them off!

The alternative to rebuilding the garage, and probably the route we will take is to get the front room done, then turn the dining room into a temporary shed, which would need to happen while we rebuild the garage anyway. So to progress that we have had a quote for a wood burning stove to be fitted, although we really need to get on with emptying the room and stripping the wallpaper before that can happen. We also need to think about insulating the floor (after seeing PaulRockliffe's thread) but these are jobs for August, when we have a bit more free time.

Also on the agenda are the doors, looking at the doors and door frames closely it seems that the knobs/handles used to be fitted higher and the rebates have been filled in, so we have to see what we can do with them. Although it would be a shame not to reuse the original doors, I think it may be easier to just replace them. I did also think about replacing the door frames before we got the plastering done, but that was vetoed, so we will have to work with what we have.

The most pressing task is ordering the final few bits for the bathroom, which is being fitted on the first week of August, so far we are thinking:

Shower: Grohe Euphoria
Basin tap: Grohe Eurostyle Cosmopolitan
Bath tap: Grohe Eurostyle Cosmopolitan
Showerscreen: Generic glass one, does anybody know of any good deals?
Mirror: We want a heated one that is quite thin, we've seen a few, so will probably buy from whoever we get the rest of the stuff from.
Heated towel rail: Generic chrome one, is there any difference in brands etc?
Tiles: We have decided on the following combination, but still need to decide on if they will be staggered horizontally or on top of each other.

Tiles for the bathroom by Lewis Craik, on Flickr

We chose the Grohe taps etc because the feel well engineered compared to other brassware we've seen and felt like we could splash out a bit as we saved a lot of money on the suite, and it seems like there are lots of deals to be had online.