Old Gatehouse - Build Log
- Thread starter Martynt74
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2009
- Posts
- 19,893
- Location
- Wales
It's not like I was secretly hoping your chosen solicitor ended up being useless so you came crawling back or anythingAh good. Glad to hear it's a fairly easily fix.
Feel like i should just put you on a monthly retainer
Well now i'm in i figured i'd keep this thread updated with updates to the work we do. Sadly it won't be anywhere near as impressive as some of the others on here at the moment!
Today the carpets are being fitted. Will make a huge difference to the feel in the bedrooms. Can also start getting furniture out of the shed for the kids bedrooms and start sorting that out into a workshop.
Today the carpets are being fitted. Will make a huge difference to the feel in the bedrooms. Can also start getting furniture out of the shed for the kids bedrooms and start sorting that out into a workshop.
Will update with the pics i've posted elsewhere at some point 
Have also just hit the button on our kitchen worktops. Very nervous about that as ideally could do with the money elsewhere but i never saw any i liked anywhere near as much!
There are 5 Velux windows in the house and i'm now also looking at remote controlled solar powered blinds
Have also just hit the button on our kitchen worktops. Very nervous about that as ideally could do with the money elsewhere but i never saw any i liked anywhere near as much!
There are 5 Velux windows in the house and i'm now also looking at remote controlled solar powered blinds
Last edited:
Sad face. Solar powered blinds are £170 per blind 
Plus there's a fancy controller module (extra £150) that i want. Have ordered one to see how they are. Solar powered would be a hell of a lot better than having to use a pole though is it £400 better?
Plus there's a fancy controller module (extra £150) that i want. Have ordered one to see how they are. Solar powered would be a hell of a lot better than having to use a pole though is it £400 better?
Work out if you actually need/want blinds on them all first we have 5 velum windows but only one blind!Sad face. Solar powered blinds are £170 per blind
Plus there's a fancy controller module (extra £150) that i want. Have ordered one to see how they are. Solar powered would be a hell of a lot better than having to use a pole though is it £400 better?
Have ordered one for the en-suite as that's fairly urgent. Looking forward to having a play. Have luckily just found out that my car needs a £150 repair as opposed to a £1700 repair as the garage initially thought so that's a nice surprise. Gives me more to play with.
Annoyingly it seems that being a knob and wanting special worktops means a 4 week lead time because they order the materials from Italy, so we'll be worktopless for about a month.
Kitchen gets started on Monday
Here are some more pics
Finally picked up some garden furniture
This is about as much as i can open the door without banging the fridge. Need to buy a folding door i think. Likely have to go white as i doubt we'll find a match for the existing doors. Magnet about mid way up is strategically placed to hide a big scratch i've already made in the door!
Appliances starting to be delivered
Current kitchen
Lounge area. Might need to re-think our sofas/furniture and change things as it doesn't work great. We'll be getting rid of the fire as it's stupid.
Mmmmm ashfelt flooring in the bedroom. Just what you want in the morning!
Annoyingly it seems that being a knob and wanting special worktops means a 4 week lead time because they order the materials from Italy, so we'll be worktopless for about a month.
Kitchen gets started on Monday
Here are some more pics
Finally picked up some garden furniture
This is about as much as i can open the door without banging the fridge. Need to buy a folding door i think. Likely have to go white as i doubt we'll find a match for the existing doors. Magnet about mid way up is strategically placed to hide a big scratch i've already made in the door!
Appliances starting to be delivered
Current kitchen
Lounge area. Might need to re-think our sofas/furniture and change things as it doesn't work great. We'll be getting rid of the fire as it's stupid.
Mmmmm ashfelt flooring in the bedroom. Just what you want in the morning!
Had the wife make a bit of a list of jobs and then assign a priority to it. Pretty much everything was a 1 according to her. No help whatsoever!
Also new kitchen has arrived and the old one has been removed. Christ, whilst i knew granite would be heavy, i never realised just how much!
(Apologies for the sore necks some of this might cause, Imgur is being stupid and has rotated my images and won't let me adjust!)
Also have re-purposed an old bedside table into my router/home server cabinet!
Also new kitchen has arrived and the old one has been removed. Christ, whilst i knew granite would be heavy, i never realised just how much!
(Apologies for the sore necks some of this might cause, Imgur is being stupid and has rotated my images and won't let me adjust!)
Also have re-purposed an old bedside table into my router/home server cabinet!
Last edited:
Also, i had to plane a couple of doors after the carpets were fitted. It's laughable how uneven the floors are. I wish i'd had more time/less family so i could've took all the floorboards up and leveled and laid ply.
Downstairs is the same, you feel drunk when walking from one end of the room to the other. One door has a 25mm gap when it's closed, yet it still catches the floor when opening it. It's ridiculous!
Downstairs is the same, you feel drunk when walking from one end of the room to the other. One door has a 25mm gap when it's closed, yet it still catches the floor when opening it. It's ridiculous!
Also to add to the ridulousness of this house. The previous owners have battened and plasterboarded some walls rather than plaster the brick work. Issue being that there's no rhyme nor reason as to where this has been done so even though some walls sound solid i don't always know what i'm drilling into until i've drilled the hole. Putting a TV up the other day i had a combination of brick, wood and plasterboard to contend with all for the same mount!
I do own a stud detector but it's a cheap one from Claas Ohlson. Does anyone know if the better Bosch ones would be useful here?
I do own a stud detector but it's a cheap one from Claas Ohlson. Does anyone know if the better Bosch ones would be useful here?
Also for some hilarity for you all. When we pulled the kitchen out i asked my wifes uncle to replumb things in as the water feed comes in at the kitchen.
About an hour later someone mentioned that there was no hot water. I played around with the boiler and everything looked as expected. Took about an hour to work out that he's connected the hot and cold feeds together!
About an hour later someone mentioned that there was no hot water. I played around with the boiler and everything looked as expected. Took about an hour to work out that he's connected the hot and cold feeds together!
Is he a plumber? Lol Sounds odd having plasterboard... Means you could potentially have a bigger room? (easier to hide cables etc I guess...
Haha he is not a plumber. In his defense one of my friends had disconnected everything without marking up which was which. Luckily it all works again now!
Yeah, in the future i might look at opening up the rooms as it seems there's a lot of regular plaster and it should be lime plaster really. There's just no reason as to why t's there in some places but not others.
One bedroom wall will be plasterboarded, but then you go into the bedroom next to it and drill into the same external wall and you hit brick! I might have to invest in some of those drill bits what work in a variety of materials!
Also shout out to the guy in Screwfix who when i asked him to just get me a 10mm masonry bit, he asked what drill i had. I assumed he wanted to check the shank size but nope, he just thought you had to use a Dewalt bit in a dewalt drill!
Yeah, in the future i might look at opening up the rooms as it seems there's a lot of regular plaster and it should be lime plaster really. There's just no reason as to why t's there in some places but not others.
One bedroom wall will be plasterboarded, but then you go into the bedroom next to it and drill into the same external wall and you hit brick! I might have to invest in some of those drill bits what work in a variety of materials!
Also shout out to the guy in Screwfix who when i asked him to just get me a 10mm masonry bit, he asked what drill i had. I assumed he wanted to check the shank size but nope, he just thought you had to use a Dewalt bit in a dewalt drill!
Went to get my tools out of my dads garage on Saturday and the key broke in the lock. Not helpful at all! Any ideas before i ring a locksmith?
Kitchen is coming along nicely. However the corner larder cupboard door won't close because the oven handles stick out too much. The fitter is going to look at whether he can rip the door down (it's solid ash) or whether we need to look at removing some units and fitting a filler panel. I'm VERY relieved i didn't try and tackle this myself.
No idea why the previous owners put in this many spotlights!
Also removed the fire and have moved the TV centrally. Made much harder work than i should've to mode the sockets!
Kitchen is coming along nicely. However the corner larder cupboard door won't close because the oven handles stick out too much. The fitter is going to look at whether he can rip the door down (it's solid ash) or whether we need to look at removing some units and fitting a filler panel. I'm VERY relieved i didn't try and tackle this myself.
No idea why the previous owners put in this many spotlights!
Also removed the fire and have moved the TV centrally. Made much harder work than i should've to mode the sockets!