So we bought a house.....

Saturday again after a weekend off last week (as I had a day out with my kids and the Wife had a day at the football with her dad) all the windows went in along with the suspended floor, also managed to get most of the expanding foam in the gap around the lower door frame, and a good portion of it is still stuck to my fingers, god I hate that stuff! All the doors have been hung just need to get some replacement hinge pins as two have gone AWOL.

Sunday night after work I decided to get some of the floor down and the basic wiring done before putting up the drywall, managed to find a job the Wife could do with out complaining too much!

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Due to the height of the patio door on the back of the house we were restricted as to what height the floor could be so only able to install 3x2 joists on there side, plenty of old bricks lying around to make beds for them though :) (the bricks came from the walls in the kitchen that came down last year!)

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Finally found The Wife a job she is good at other than cleaning and making the tea, cutting the insulation to go in the floor.

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Using waterproof chipboard for the floor as it will stop any moisture come coming up through the old concrete slab. (should be any but better to be safe than sorry!)
 
Three weeks ago we dry lined the walls and now just need to cut the window ledge to fit around the top.

Attacked the pond the weekend before last, whilst i had the assistance of my two kids :) managed to catch 27 fish and place them in a temporary home ( 3ft deep paddling pool) drained the pond completely and scrubbed all the algi growth from the pond liner (its a shell pond so solid plastic). I have also rebuilt the waterfall as it had fallen apart and looked naff, just need to cement it all together (need to buy some more sand) and install a new pump.

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Anyone recommend a decent pump/filter/UV combo pump? Pond is 3000ltrs so would need to be man enough to deal with that much water.

I intend to get some plants for it at some point just not sure what!

The father-in-law also came over and built some steps up to the end doors on the conservatory.

The wife started stripping the wallpaper from the living room 4 layers of the stuff! Going to get both rooms skimmed at the same time, better for the plasterer that way.

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Today saw the steps get some slabs to top them off, a large delivery of plasterboard and plaster, and the horrendous brick cladding from the chimney breast in the living room be removed, making the room feel huge! (a couple of other small things were done as well) A day well spent getting things done!

Chimney breast before
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And after.
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Its amazing how 5 inches extra space has made so much difference to the room, in size and how much brighter it is in there.
 
Right so I have been a busy bunny up until Xmas, between working a crazy amount of overtime and getting the house sorted I haven't had much time to put some pictures up so here you go!

Panoramic of the living room from the patio doors

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and from the front entrance

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and the conservatory double doors.

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Still some bits to finish off, like the windowsill and doors need varnishing in the living room as well as a new light fitting (I've got it just not had time to put it up yet!), and the windowsill in the conservatory needs a good sand and paint as well as some new guttering (bits missing) and a coat or two of render, but it will get there soon enough.

We also bought new sofas and unit for the living room so the old sofa is now in the conservatory under the grey throws. Just waiting for Mrs Bigboy to make up her mind as to what is going on the walls.

The fire place will get a wood burner at some point but time and money ran away with me and xmas was coming so just boarded it over and stuck a baloon in there for the time being.

Oh and she has already started planning our next project...... the bedroom! I need a holiday first!!
 
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Time for a little update!

Just before I got my holiday we decided to rip the master bedroom apart and start again having it plastered before we go away so as to let it dry whilst were not there.

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the old airing cupboard was in the corner of the room so that went.

leaving us with some rather annoying pipework...
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It turns out one of the pipes was a gas pipe.... oops cut straight through it with a pipe cutter before realizing, the wife went a little mental, but a friend who's a gas engineer quickly came round and sorted it.

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Not much left of that, but some more copper to add to the growing bag to take to the scrap man one day when I get around to it!

The Plaster came and went and has done a very nice job fixing up some nasty walls.

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Time for a little holiday in Marrakesh and 5 days of not breathing in the gust and dirt created whilst doing this room.


Were back and have been hard at it.

Front
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Back
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Corner
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I had to give the wife a corner to get all her things out in as I have a whole office! (Got to Love a Man Cave)

We have also replace the nasty rotten wooden front door with a lovely shiny uPVC high security door. looking so much better now

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That it for now until we get some more funds, but its looking like it will be me office being turned into a nursery in time for our first child. I'm trying to convince the wife that doing the hall stairs and landing at the same time is a good idea.... time will tell
 
Wow I can not believe its been 3 years nearly since I updated this thread...

So dropbox has had a fit and cannot link directly to images any more so here's a link to all the pics so far
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/txytltevgxrfvh6/AABYaBWOIrtSiEguwajNRvSwa?dl=0

As we have been rather busy having My third child the house went on the back burner for a while and decided to attack the garden
It started out looking like this,



With the help of my wife and father in law we spent most of the spring and summer turning it in to a builders quarry


and generated three large piles of rubble and waste concrete (all the slabs were re used)

MY BEST FRIEND, three loads 9tons a pop he took away for me and I had to cart it all round in a wheel barrow!


After 10 Tons of top soil was dropped in back in august 2016 it now looks like this


Still need to get the conservatory rendered and now this low wall too

Grass was fed and airiated at the end of last year and is looking much stronger now.

This years project is the bathroom and spare bedroom/man cave! Planning is underway :D
 
I've been attacking the bathroom recently not much to say, installed a longer bath, big single vanity basin and back to wall toilet unit. Oh and levels the floor, turns out there was a 300mm dip in the floor, that was fun telling the pregnant wife she couldn't use the toilet over night :D

So the bathroom looked like this a little over a month ago....

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See that pipe coming down the wall? It was a gas pipe and I managed to crack it whilst removing the panel from the back wall :( all removed now as It wasnt needed.
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New ceiling up after re-wiring the shower (nice fat 10mm cable)
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and wired for the new mirror.
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Chase done for the showers cold feed

My first soldering job since I left collage 22 years ago, not too shabby if I do say so myself..

The original stopcock on the incoming water, completely ceased some one had installed a second tap over by the toilet thankfully.

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My Ebay bargain shower, Mira Sport Max with Airboost 10.8kw Retails at £260 got it for £180 boxed like new :D

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Thats it for today Got a couple of other bits to finish off then its all finished.
 
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Wow, 2018 and a few years in between. Not much has happened to the house other than some redecoration. But this last month or so I have updated the drive way and front garden.
 
Over the last couple of weekends I started the front garden project... some numpty decided this property was to be built with 18 inches of granite based concrete everywhere!

Original wall with separate gate and winding path to the house (path had already been removed in this pic)


The Path of thickness!

Hilti goes smash!

Path got deleted

Wall part one Gone

Blocks salvaged from the wall, each cleaned of the old mortar so they can be reused. The low wall in the bottom of this pic will be rebuilt using the blocks left over from the external wall to give it a cleaner look and mean my son has less to render!

New wall taking shape (BBQ and beers stopped play this day)

New wall complete (just ned the wife to decide on new capstones

The next target, driveway top be smashed up and rebuilt then toped with block paving



Target of the task was to rebuild the wall as it had been hit several times (going by the cracks and state of the piler next to the driveway). Remove the path as it took up so much room. Widen the drive a little and add a path along side the drive, and potentially give us another parking space behind the wall if required.

Area marked for block paving


Gravel area will be edged with block pavers to match the driveway
 
Had three ton of Blue Ice gravel delivered today, just enough to finish the front garden/driveway make over(well apart from the rendering and coping stones).






Got the porch roof to tackle now, as the old terracotta tiles are crumbling and literally blowing off into the car :( always another job that needs doing!
 
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