****EVH's house building thread****

[Deleted member 651465]

I like the window made out of newspaper... did you run out of cash for glass in that one?

Make-shift blinds, until the curtains go up.

looking back at the last page, it's a real shame you didn't go for a range, the first time I do any kitchen renovation I'm definitely getting a range! Had one in a rented property and they're so nice to cook with compared to even normal gas nevermind induction Otherwise really nice kitchen, good size

I can't stand cleaning range cookers. We have one where we are now and it gets on my wick when we cook something simple like bacon and you spend 20 minutes cleaning the grease from the nookes and crannies.

@AmTechFox.. we do have a spare room

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I'm trying not to post in the thread unless I have pictures, so apologies to those who are subscribed now.

EVH! Looks amazing! More Pics though dude

I want to come over for a cuppa

Your welcome to come over. Getting here may be a problem?

I get the impression that he means integrated into the units, with matching door fronts covering them

EVH - Fantastic job getting this far, what a journey, i am a big fan of that fridge too. Good job changing the rack supply to commando too.

My only thoughts/critisism's are re the appliances and fittings in that i do agree that higher end integrated appliances may have looked smarter, as would a porcelain kitchen sink rather than a stainless.

As i say though, very good job indeed fella.

Thanks for the comments! I'm not a fan of the porcelain sinks really. Where they can look nice, we just wanted something simple as it's our first house and we're on a strict budget. Perhaps an upgrade in the future.

Not to mention I'm only 26 and have a newborn, so funds are tight

Hmm wont you have an issue opening those doors on the corner cupboard there. Unless that is a 900 L Shaped corner unit the handles will knock into eachother and you wont be able to open the doors fully...

Looks very nice however!

The left hand door has the cornice attached, and the right door just opens freely. I've opened both and there doesn't appear to be a clashing problem.

I think he means integrated into the units mate, as to hide them


Still EVH, Why no proper 17th edition consumer unit?

Not sure, I'm not an electrician so whatever is in the house was his decision (apart from the commando under the stairs).

From Googling, is that just an RCD with a bit of jazz?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I'll post a picture of the finished board, for your interest then.

Also, perhaps you can double check my method for the commando socket.. the original sockets under the stairs were on their own ring main. I took off all the sockets and was left with 2 twin & earth feeds, "send and return" I assume.

When wiring the commando I've just put both lives together, both earths and both neutrals in to the appropriate connections. Now, in theory this works because the boiler is on the same ring and that's running dandy.

Ok?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

@ZG002

Here's a shot of the consumer unit, now that it's complete.

1 - Door bell
2 - Cooker
3 - Ring circuit ground floor
4 - Ring circuit first floor
5 - Smoke alarm
6 - Blank
7 - Blank
8 - Ring circuit kitchen
9 - Sockets under the stairs
10 - Lights first floor
11 - Landing & Lights ground floor

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I have this refridge http://www.samsung.com/us/appliances/refrigerators/RS261MDBP/XAA-reviews is it similar to yours? I love it. great looking house..

Similar, but not the same. The model we have is the "Samsung RSH5UBMH"

Just a bit of an update guys..

Carpets were done last Friday and the doors have been glossed. We've also moved in now

Still loads of little jobs to do at the moment, one of them being getting a working internet connection! Unfortunately, I can't post pictures until this is sorted (no cameras in work) so it might be another week or so.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Some updates. The pictures are a little behind where we are now but it's all I could smuggle in to work for the moment.

Went with a striped design up the stairs and across the landing. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a striped carpet.

The living room. It's a light grey, to complement the dark grey sofa. We're having high gloss white furniture and a splash of fuchsia.

Our daughter's bedroom. Pink with a silver sparkle.

Spare bedroom. Purple with a silver sparkle.

The office. Went for a short pile dark brown carpet for hard wearing.

It's actually got small lines of lighter brown running through but the camera couldn't pick it up. High traffic underlay on the stairs and in the office. Everywhere else has Cloud 9 cumulus, except the living room which has 8mm underfloor heating underlay.

The master bedroom actually has a darker carpet than the living room, but for some reason the flash makes it look much lighter. Here's the bed assembly. It's a kingsize storage bed from Tesco direct. Curtains and bedding from Dunelm.

The matress came rolled up in a giant sausage-shaped vacuum-sealed bag. Was awesome when we cut the bag and watched it expand to shape. Still slightly out of shape here. Matress is pocket sprung with a memory foam layer

 

[Deleted member 651465]

What do you think I did with the wife?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Bit of a minor update.

Flat pack furniture assembled, and odd jobs done!

Baby's furniture done. Have to say it's probably the nicest flatpack I've encountered. All the screws were labelled in packets with the right letter and each piece was numbered. Room is the same size as the master bedroom and feels it!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Moar!

Light for the master bedroom from Next. You need an open design for the lampshade when you're rocking 11W energy saving bulbs!

I decided to replace the swivel bracket in the master bedroom as the TV was sitting too far from the wall for my liking. Totally my own fault for buying cheap, but thankfully it was a quick fix. This bracket was the only slim swivel I could find, but it's rated to 40".

A lot of the towels and furnishings we have for the house are gifts from our wedding that we haven't opened yet. Laundry basket and towels from John Lewis, the mirror was cut to shape in work, as it goes from the basin to the ceiling.

Both the ensuite and the downstairs toilet have similar mirrors that were made. Excuse the filler behind the sink in the ensuite, this picture was taken before I finished rubbing it down. The house of mirrors is there to freak guests out.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Theme in the kitchen is red. Here's a proper shot of the fridge and the various appliances and furnishings. The double sofa at the far end of the kitchen faces a TV, which will be used as a snug. The sofa isn't as light at it seems in the picture.

Also replaced, was the "universal" bracket in the living room.

Turns out a 60" Pioneer isn't suitable, which meant ripping the bracket off and putting my official Pioneer bracket up. Not sure what's going to happen if the TV ever dies! The TV is mounted dead centre of the room, and actually runs eye level when sitting down. Nice.

When I get the AV amp the speaker bar on the TV will be removed. The sofas are from "the sales" at DFS.

I don't pick these colour schemes, but we seem to have Fuchsia, white and grey in the living room

The last shot shows the underfloor heating keypad, set to "day" mode at 20 degrees.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Able to take some shots further back, so that we can see how the rooms look in full?

I'm limited by the point and shoot camera's rubbish lense. When I get the internet in the house, I'll record some 1080p walkthrough videos

Also, thanks to the kind mod who edited the thread title!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

How long until everything completed and you are living in it properly then? Month or so?

We're already living in it now!

The front wall is going up in a week or so, or at least the footing will be done and then we can move the dog in.

Well done for spending the extra cash on underfloor heating... it really is so much better than conventional radiators (I'm envious!). Any pictures of the boiler/plumbing? .

Edit: Never mind I saw the boiler by going back some pages... Baxi DuoTec/Platinum? (same boiler, different warranty). Were you not tempted to go for a conventional boiler with an unvented cylinder for better hot water performance?

It's a Baxi DuoTec. The hot water performance seems fine here, certainly warm enough for us and the pressure out the taps is immense. To be honest my brother is the plumber, so we just bought what he recommended.

In the second picture, whats the socket in the middle?

TV aerial for analogue distribution of Sky / Freeview.

Can I move in?

Yes. Bring your camera.

Can you tell me where you got the carpet from?

Budget Carpet & Flooring, Swansea. I believe they have other stores throughout the UK.

Wicked...Im really diggin that very neat flat screen install in the living room. Buried wiring all the way...so neat!

Thanks. It pays to plan.

I have those sofas and think there are very poor build quality,hence why there were so cheap.

Lovely house btw

Really? We've found them good quality so far. The ones we have are from the Quartz range.

wow that is amazing

congratulations on your new home - the whole office here has been actively watching your thread and we are all impressed and inspired.

Thanks. I haven't had much to update without the internet. Due to be activated today so I hope to be updating more regularly.

Those black floor tiles are identical to the ones in our bathroom

I really need to take some pics, but now that we are properly moved in, there is 'lived in' clutter everywhere, doh!

Same problem here! DOH!

We have that fridge, except with the milk hatch thing

The Ice maker?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Bit of an update.

Finished the CAT 6 cabling, got the internet activated, wired up the aerial distribution system to get us up and running, and had the Sky dish and DAB aerial installed. Got a long way to go until it's finished. A long, long way!

I've put the sides and door back on the rack temporarily, just to neaten things up.

There is still a lot to do but this is the barebones setup that gets us by. I've taken the Sky+ HD box out until the coax is terminated.

Kit installed here:

• HP ProCurve 1810G-24 gigabit switch
• 2Wire 2700 HG-V ADSL modem
• Apple AirPort Extreme
• Drobo Pro NAS

The 1U gap above the modem and wireless is for a brush faceplate, and the 1U gap above the Drobo is for a Mac Mini media centre.

Just waiting on a shelf.

All the WF100 coax will be terminated at this F-connector patch panel. At the moment I've directly terminated the coax to the distribution amp to test.

The gap above the patch panel is for another brush faceplate.

The distribution amp has a digital bypass for use with the magic eyes, which is a nice fallback until the in-ceiling sensors are up and running.

Here you can see our state of the art phone system! Ha!

The blue cabling is the speaker cabling which will eventually go to a speaker post patch panel. Needs a bit of a clean up now though.

Sky dish installed. The guy threw an Octo LNB on the dish, but we're only using 2 of the inputs

We're in a pretty poor transmitter area because we live in a dip, so we cannot get the main transmitter for Swansea (Kilvey Hill). As such, we went for a pretty top-spec high gain aerial on a different transmitter (Carmel). Luckily we didn't need a mast head amplifier like I've seen some others in the street.

The vertical dipole aerial is a DAB aerial. The signal picked up from this is outstanding. I connected my Pure DAB radio as a test of the signal and got 99/100% signal from every station!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I like the server cabinet, really professional with all that empty space

I've got Sonos boxes, AV receiver, PS3, Sky box and other things to fill it up

 

[Deleted member 651465]

LOL that tiny Sky dish was you not interested in a larger one that is motorized or just for the better signal?

I like the way the tv is in the lounge looks stunning could you give me the height of the wall bracket I have the same tv and was going to put it on the wall but was unsure the best height

I'd love to, but I don't remember the height now.

The way I worked it out was as follows..

1. Measure floor to ceiling
2. Mark horizontal centre line on the wall
3. Measure height of TV (37.5 inches with speaker bar iirc)
4. Lay bracket on the back of the TV
5. Measure the top of bracket, to the top of the TV
6. Measure bottom of the bracket, to the bottom of the TV

At this point you will have the position of the bracket, relative to the back of the TV. I measured it in such a way, that when I hung the TV the centre of the TV (18.75 inches) it was dead on the centre line of the room, which is fine as when sitting that is where eye level is.

This meant mounting the top of the bracket higher than the centre line though, as you'll find the bracket sits higher up the TV, if you have the official pioneer bracket.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Remember this thread? I know, I know.. I've been busy

Apologies for not updating the thread. Money is tight, I've had so many jobs to do in the house and raising the little one really drains!

I'll try to keep the thread as up to date as I can but the house only really changes little bits at a time, and I'd rather do the bigger updates, than posting to say "lol fitted this". I understand people like to see loads of pictures, so I raced home from work last night and went mad with the camera...

We finally have a front wall. Same blue bricks from the house, so that it all matches.

When digging the footings for the wall the driver of the machine was under strict instructions that if he hit the BT duct I'd initiate him in Mortal Kombat. I found it best to remind him every morning, as if I had a short term memory

Talk about mess though!

The wall to the left of the house (if looking at it from the front) is shorter, as we plan on having a drive put in up the side of the house. Things get a little bit complicated as we have to bridge the gap of the stream / storm drain (shown in red), install concrete lintels similar to those used on motorway bridge construction, then pave over the top, so for now we're just putting 1 pillar up. The other pillar will sit where I've marked yellow.

Bye bye fence. Hello concrete.

The gap doesn't look wide enough for a car, but the architect and the builder have both assured me it will be fine once the wall is up and the ground is backfilled.

That waste pipe is the main drain from the downpipes. The council have given us permission to drain the rainwater from the roof in to the stream. If you have eagle vision you can spot another half way up the picture.

This is where the stream comes from, if anyone cares. The first picture is where the side fencing/wall ends.

Had to do the splits across the gap to take this

Around back we're having a big retaining wall with steps up to the garden. Behind the wall I'll put a drain, so all water running down the garden hits the drain and runs away from the house. The gap between the wall and the house is 3M.

The rain splashes the mud and turns the lovely render a horrible brown colour. Hence the mud along the side and back

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Just realised where the 2Wire came from .

How come you've got the AirPort Extreme within the rack? Wouldn't the rack act as a faraday cage?

Nice home.

Seems to work fine. Getting strong signal everywhere on both G and N bands.

DROBO!

...and you've even got a special ariel. There is no stopping you!

But to make myself feel better, I have 50Mb Broadband so nur nur!!!!!!

If I could get virgin, I would. I'm not jealous. Honest.

Excellent thread, love the house

You putting the Sky+HD box in the rack as well?

Yes, temporarily. We'll probably go with Freesat and pay for Lovefilm.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

This is the current state of the rack. PS3 goes on the shelf where the tools are.

Now, I mentioned some problems regarding the broadband in the last post.

Essentially, we've been suffering from REIN problems that have affected the stability of the connection. I've been trying to pinpoint and combat the source since the ADSL went live with moderate success.

Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise (REIN)

Repetitive Electrical Impulse Noise (REIN) can be the cause of frequent loss of the adsl signal from the exchange, and it can also cause a line to perform below its expected performance.

What is REIN?

REIN is when interference from an external power source interferes with the adsl (or other telecommunications) signal. Usually the two should co-incide happily and cause no problems, however on occasions an electrical item can introduce additional noise in the same band of frequencies utilised by DSL. This noise then drowns out the strength of the adsl signal, either causing degradation of achievable speed or even total loss of synchronisation with the exchange.

Whilst all electrical equipment will generate some sort of noise, it should comply with the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directives and avoid generating electromagnetic disturbance utilised by radio and telecommunications equipment, but some equipment may either be old, foreign or faulty, any of which can be the source of some adsl problems.

Read more: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/rein.htm

To fight this, I've fitted a BT80BRF3 in series between the master socket and the incoming phone line. A consequence of this, is that I had to house the RF3 filter in the lower line box, so now I only have possibility of 1 line, unless I drastically alter the configuration of the boxes under the stairs.

Here you can see where I've blanked the bottom linebox off. To further try to stabilise the line I've also fitted an ADSL nation XF2005 master socket.

To be honest we only get a disconnection every 2 days or so (and I think it's our immediate neighbour) but before this was fitted I could hear radio noise on the line in the evenings and had disconnections every night.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Nice install, deffo something I would do in my house.

How are you getting the bluetooth signal from the PS3 controllers to the PS3 itself without HUGE amounts of lag?

Besides wouldn't having to swap the PS3 game disks over be an utter pain? (Happens about five times a day here as games are swapped between GT5, MW2, COD:BO etc...)

Bluetooth signal has been fine. There's 1 wall between the rack and the living room, and the same for the kitchen. At the moment the PS3 is directly connected to the TV until I sort out the HDMI matrix*

I tend to play 1 game until I'm bored with it. I'd have to get up and change the disc anyway, so I don't mind too much. It's another reason the rack is central to the house (less walking).

*You don't want the rack full of cables when adding stuff in.

I wish I found this thread earlier, amazing stuff!

I'm in the middle of renovating a house at the moment so this has been very interesting. I just have a couple of questions.

(1) What made you go with a Combi boiler and not a sealed system boiler? Has it all been working ok?

(2) Did you buy all of your appliances (including the oven, etc) from BestBuy?

(3) Where did you get your bathroom and kitchen tap from?

(4) Is the flooring in the kitchen and utility room slate? If so, are you pleased with it?

(5) Finally, would you do it all again?

(1) Brother is a plumber. He told me to get this, so I did. Has worked great.

(2) No. We only got the washing machine, tumble and fridge from Best Buy. All the kitchen appliances were bought from various places, and the microwave and hob were direct from Howdens.

(3) Bathroom tap from Swansea Plumb Point and kitchen tap from Howdens.

(4) No. They are ceramic tiles from B&Q, cost £9.99 a sq/mtr but we're really happy with them. We priced textured slate and it was £1800 more.

(5) Yes, and I'd do most of what I did again barr one or two things

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Here's another reason I haven't done a walkthrough video. Clutter.

These are all the boxes of tech that I've had to store in the office as the spare room is full of clothes and the other "stuff" my wife lovingly hoardes.

Last count was 4 ADSL modems, 2 sat navs, 2 digital cameras, a printer, a Fractal Design R3 case (unopened), big box of assorted cables that "might come in handy", a mouse, external Blu-Ray drive, SF4 TE fight stick, Harmony universal remote, gym bag, reels of cabling, my spare drill, Nintendo DSi, HDMI over cat6 balun, DVDRW spindle, a waste bin, camera bag and various other things you can't see behind it.

At some point I do plan on having a workstation in here for my photography, so I've recovered some spare kitchen worktop, given it a coat of worktop oil and bought some legs from Ikea (£2.05 per leg! Bargain!)

The wife thought I was slacking by not having a light shade. I knew she'd crack before I did.

My excuse is, every time I go in the room I have other things to do

Still have another 4 guitars in storage.