RoboCod's home improvement thread.
- Thread starter RoboCod
- Start date
It's amazing what a lick of paint and new carpet can do...
From this...
To this...
To this...
To now this....
Got lots of new plants and seeds coming through there so I'm looking forward to how it looks this time next year. Still little progress on much else in the house. We're spending all our money on the outside first it seems!
From this...
To this...
To this...
To now this....
Got lots of new plants and seeds coming through there so I'm looking forward to how it looks this time next year. Still little progress on much else in the house. We're spending all our money on the outside first it seems!
The woman who we bought the house off was in the local paper... here.
What a disgusting person! Since being here for over a year now we have received dozens of letters addressed to her clearly from pay day loan companies. Then we got a lot from debt collectors and eventually we had council hired bailiffs knocking to repossess items due to lack of council tax payments!! It was all quite worrying, especially for my other half, when I wasn't home and those kind of things were happening. It got to the point that simply putting "return to sender" on letters didn't suffice to us and I started googling the return address, phoning the debt collector and giving them her new address, she obviously hadn't informed them of moving, and probably never intended to.
We knew that woman wasn't quite right.
What a disgusting person! Since being here for over a year now we have received dozens of letters addressed to her clearly from pay day loan companies. Then we got a lot from debt collectors and eventually we had council hired bailiffs knocking to repossess items due to lack of council tax payments!! It was all quite worrying, especially for my other half, when I wasn't home and those kind of things were happening. It got to the point that simply putting "return to sender" on letters didn't suffice to us and I started googling the return address, phoning the debt collector and giving them her new address, she obviously hadn't informed them of moving, and probably never intended to.
We knew that woman wasn't quite right.
A filter you say? I don't know about this. I think I better do a little more research before I begin!
Thank you. I've cut the big tree down now and that has really brightened up the back. The paint is Ronseal and it's either medium or dark oak. I can go check if you need to know? I specifically didn't want the red/orange colour. If the fence was all the same type right round the garden I probably wouldn't mind drawing so much attention to it. Alas, it's an oddment of fence panels, so I'm happy to paint it something that will blend into the background behind the plants as they grow. It took me a long time to paint with brush 2 coats!
I managed to scrounge three second hand doors locally. They cost me £100 and they're 3 weeks old. What's more, they came bare/no varnish or oil on them and they came with handles and hinges fitted. Bargain! Unfortunately I need 4 doors for upstairs. To buy just one of these from Howdens will cost me £100, then fittings on top.
I've since hung the bathroom door, and being my first attempt at such a job it's not TOO bad. I need a little trim to fill the gap at the top as they're all a little short. Annoyingly, the previous owner cut them at one end only, meaning they're a little offset looking with the panels of wood top and bottom. I can live with that for the price though.
As GinG recommended in another thread, I've treated the bathroom door to Osmo wood protector, which will soon be followed with the Osmo door oil to finish. It's really nice stuff, great to work with too.
This is the bathroom, the other doors upstairs will be fitted once the carpet is in.
They're damn site better than the hollow cardboard 70's doors that came in the house - they are so noisy and ghastly looking!
I've since hung the bathroom door, and being my first attempt at such a job it's not TOO bad. I need a little trim to fill the gap at the top as they're all a little short. Annoyingly, the previous owner cut them at one end only, meaning they're a little offset looking with the panels of wood top and bottom. I can live with that for the price though.
As GinG recommended in another thread, I've treated the bathroom door to Osmo wood protector, which will soon be followed with the Osmo door oil to finish. It's really nice stuff, great to work with too.
This is the bathroom, the other doors upstairs will be fitted once the carpet is in.
They're damn site better than the hollow cardboard 70's doors that came in the house - they are so noisy and ghastly looking!
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Glad you like the oil 
Have you found using the paintbrush ok? I used a lint free cloth and the finish is perfect!
Doors look fantastic even after the first coat, just gets better with more coats. I finished our table at 3 coats which gives a nice even finish. Lightly sanding in between.
Have you found using the paintbrush ok? I used a lint free cloth and the finish is perfect!
Doors look fantastic even after the first coat, just gets better with more coats. I finished our table at 3 coats which gives a nice even finish. Lightly sanding in between.
The paint brush was fine, the door soaked it up like a sponge though, I was actually just slopping it on! I suspect I'll need to be careful with the next coats. I'm also going to have to do the wash bin now to match aren't I
Done quite a bit of work lately.
Main bedroom before....
Pulled up the awful laminate floor and painted the walls.
Whipped the crap skirting off and put my new mitre saw to the task of cutting up 170mm torus (looks great). I also installed the new radiator and I pulled all the nails out of chipboard as the floor boards were ridiculously squeaky. I relaid these and screwed them down with decent floor screws - no more squeaks. All these tasks were first time efforts for me so I'm quite happy with the result. I've learnt some lessons (the hard way) too
Put an LED light fitment in along with dimmer.
And now the carpet is in. We just need a new wardrobe, bed and drawers and the room is done
Main bedroom before....
Pulled up the awful laminate floor and painted the walls.
Whipped the crap skirting off and put my new mitre saw to the task of cutting up 170mm torus (looks great). I also installed the new radiator and I pulled all the nails out of chipboard as the floor boards were ridiculously squeaky. I relaid these and screwed them down with decent floor screws - no more squeaks. All these tasks were first time efforts for me so I'm quite happy with the result. I've learnt some lessons (the hard way) too
Put an LED light fitment in along with dimmer.
And now the carpet is in. We just need a new wardrobe, bed and drawers and the room is done
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I've also sorted the box room out.
Before, with its hideous built-in wardrobe.
Nasty wallpaper and more crap skirting.
I completely stripped the walls and the artex and had the plasterer reskim these walls. They were particularly bad where the wardrobe had been so it needed doing and that makes painting much nicer too of course.
Dimmable LEDs again.
Continuing with the 170mm Torus
Painted the walls an off white and had the same carpet as the main bedroom. This carpet will go through the guest bedroom and stairs too. I also put in new radiator.
All that is needed to do in here now is fit new door (same as the one earlier in the thread) and furnish it with suitable wardrobe and futon bed. It's going to be a bit of a man pad with tv, ps4, sound system etc.
Before, with its hideous built-in wardrobe.
Nasty wallpaper and more crap skirting.
I completely stripped the walls and the artex and had the plasterer reskim these walls. They were particularly bad where the wardrobe had been so it needed doing and that makes painting much nicer too of course.
Dimmable LEDs again.
Continuing with the 170mm Torus
Painted the walls an off white and had the same carpet as the main bedroom. This carpet will go through the guest bedroom and stairs too. I also put in new radiator.
All that is needed to do in here now is fit new door (same as the one earlier in the thread) and furnish it with suitable wardrobe and futon bed. It's going to be a bit of a man pad with tv, ps4, sound system etc.
It has held up fine these two years! Still white and no signs of coming off or flaking anywhere except on the tiled windowsill where we have placed things like plates with plant pots on and the abrasion has brought it off in places.
Best thing to do is thoroughly clean them to remove grease, use sugar soap etc. Then when it's on don't be too enthusiastic with scrubbing them. A gentle wipe will do when cleaning. Highly recommended for a quick cheap fix.
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I'm impressed with how much of this you've done yourself! Great work, it's looking lovely!
The only work the gardener did was level the land and lay the lawn. He then built the small wall for me. Including the grass it was £1k! All the easy stuff, like painting the fence and planting I did. I don't think I'd recommend the gardener to anyone though, I'm not going to use him again as he was quite unprofessional.
As for the drive guy, he just so happens to be based in Grantham and I highly recommend him. He wasn't the cheapest quote, but he wasn't wildly expensive either. He was a no BS kind of guy who has been doing the job for a long time, he also came recommended by my uncle who is director of a turfing and landscaping company. Paving, driveways, curbing etc, go for Neil McBride.
Thanks Will. Just to be clear, things like plastering and carpeting I've left to the professionals. Everything else like electrics, plumbing and decorating have all been me. To any tradesman it's all probably very straight forward stuff but it has been a steep learning curve for me and it hasn't always gone smoothly. For example, I pulled the floorboards up in my bedroom and managed to hit a heating pipe = water all down into the ceiling
I'm so sad I made a vid of just how bad the floorboards were though - old chipboard nailed straight into the joists = lots of noise. Thankfully it's as quiet a mouse now I've screwed it all down.
I actually haven't gotten round doing more than the first coat on that first door. I've been in such a mad rush to get the bedrooms prepped prior to carpeting that I just haven't had time. I've been working as well as DIY when back home. I'm shattered these past few weeks
And now I'm due out the country with work again for a few weeks - frustrating as I just want to get on!