My 6 week house referb thread

[sidekickdmr]

I know there are plenty of these threads floating around already but this is the first house we have owner and pretty excited to be making it my own, and wanted to bore all of you with the details too ha ha.

So we purchased the below house, it's nothing special, 1970's 3 bed end terrace. However it's in a great and desirable location and offers decent sized rooms etc.





And this was the state of the inside







And the state of the house once the tenants had left and we got the keys

The smell of Piss and mould was rather overwhelming

[sidekickdmr]

The day of getting the keys (Friday the 14th June) we made a start on the garden to make room for the skip



Then started ripping out all the doors kitchen bathrooms smelly carpets etc

By about the Wednesday we were down to bare shell, the sparkie came and did their first fit half the ceelings had to be ripped down due to water damage and the plasterers have been on site replacing them, and this is kind of where we stand at present











We have 4 plasteres and a labourer on site today so expecting there to be some vast improvements by tonight, more pics to come soon!

[sidekickdmr]

sleep envy said:

Have you considered approaching the Council wrt the land to the side of your house?

Already in the process and they have said that providing we get successful planning they will sell it to us.

We are not interested in extending, we are looking to add a 2/3 car drive and extend the garden.

A bit like this (don't be too jealous of my mad photo editing skills)

How it looks now (front bit has a postbox and big tree so would only be buying in like with front of the house back)



Plans

[sidekickdmr]

sleep envy said:

Good work.

From experience, as I own a corner plot like yours, I've 'gated' as much as possible othewise you'll end up with people walking across your garden and dogs fouling the lawn seeing as it has been public space.

Good advise

The garden will all be 6 foot fence and the edge of the driveway facing the postbox will be picket fence or 4 foot fence from end of drive to brickwork of house

[sidekickdmr]

Ganglandboss said:

Interesting cable route!

Yeh the last guy loved a bit of DIY, really terrible DIY.

The spark spent half his time rectifying it all

And the toilet was not only left like that, it was like it for a month before they moved out!

[sidekickdmr]

Ordered the kitchen last night, a wren kitchen, gloss white, all built in bosche appliances and a black granite worktop. Gonna be getting blood red glass splash backs too! (Pretty excited about the kitchen to be honest.

Should look like this



And these are our designs





Also purchased all of the bathroom suites and 55 sq meters of grey porcelain tiles for kitchen, hall, WC and bathroom (dark slate for floor light grey for all the walls)

[sidekickdmr]

Still on schedule!

The bathrooms and tiles were delivered today along with a load I AV goodies (hdmi faceplates and cat 6 cables)

Plasterers have been working hard, my labourer sent me these today





I'm on site tomorrow doing some DIY bits and bobs (my main tool will be a pen and paper)

[sidekickdmr]

Thanks guys!

Kitchen came in at 11k after some serious haggling.

That's quartz worktops, bosche appliances, 18mm cabinets, plastic coated gloss white doors (not foil like most gloss) etc

[sidekickdmr]

garycat said:

We use Wren and were very happy with them, but appliances, handles, sinks etc were much cheaper elsewhere.

E.g. These handles were about £6 each from Wren and we needed 20.
http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Ironmongery/Handle...

I do agree and I did a hell of a lot of research into different options

We originally decided it was cheaper to get cabinets from ikea and sourse our own appliances/worktop

This would have cost us approx £9500 all in

Then we thought for the ease and peace of mind of getting it all done by one company, all designed, supplied, delivered and installed for £1500 more its a worthwhile investment.

[sidekickdmr]

I have been informed that the plastering should be finished today, completely.

So just plumbing, kitchen, 2nd fit electrics, flooring and decorating to go!

[sidekickdmr]

crackthatoff said:

A piece of advice, don't use one of the large flooring retailers they are a right rip off.
check out the smaller shops and you will definitely get a better deal

I got 40 packs of these

http://m.wickes.co.uk/mt/www.wickes.co.uk/porcelai...

Half price down to about £13 a pack

Bit of a billy bargain as far as I can tell( did a lot of shopping around)

[sidekickdmr]

Plumber and chippy have done their thing, doors hung, skirting on, new boiler pipes and rads throughout.

Coming together now!







And this used to be just a wall, now a new doorway to downstairs wc and utility

[sidekickdmr]

Next is finishing off electrics then the plasterers can come back and finish off including re-skimming all the channelling the plumber and spark have done.

Then its painting (first 2 coats so only the "undercoat")

[sidekickdmr]

moles said:

Pipes need to be wrapped/in conduit in the chases before skimming as will corrode the copper eventually and the plaster will crack.

Yes all of the pipes that are being skimmed are all wrapped in special felt material for this reason, so hopefully will be fine

[sidekickdmr]

Before:


After:


First coat of paint on the plaster

[sidekickdmr]

And then there was light!



And playing around with some potential feature wall colours



Kitchen arrives and starts to be installed on Monday too

[sidekickdmr]

5potTurbo said:

+2



6 week timeline, about 4 weeks in. How's the work schedule?

Got a move in date,

11th August

(Carpets go in on the 10th and they are the very last thing.

We are slightly ahead of schedule so there isn't people on site every day.

Only flooring, kitchen and bathrooms to do now (and a bit of painting)

[sidekickdmr]

Thanks guys, getting pretty excited now, see all the finishing touches come together.

All of the 2 miscoats are down now, now time for the final 2 coats. We are not really a fan of "magnolia" so we are going with the top left one (dulux mineral haze 4) on all the walls throughout house (with a brilliant white ceiling of course

[sidekickdmr]

Goodbye horrible 70' banister, hello nice new one



And the whole house has had it's miscoats so is looking nice and bright and neutral

[sidekickdmr]

Kitchens arrived



And something I don't think I've shown you before, under the stairs used to be open and a bit of a waste of space, so we had it boarded and turned into a walk in cupboard and best of all a mini home for our doggie Zoe under the stairs