Owning your own home

Ask your solicitor who they will accept to certify them.

okay will do, cheers.

Paying someone to sand your floors is just lazy! We did ours in a day, your arms hurt the next day but apart from that it's fine.

Osmo Polyx oil is more expensive than varnish but makes your floorboards look much nicer:
http://www.osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm?chapter=82&page=247

Worth the extra.

I am lazy, have two rooms to do, boards to be replaced and gaps to be filled. Paying someone to do it suits me just fine.

My last house in Manchester was a work in progress. My mate, at that time, did all the floors herself (with help here and there from me). A WHOLE HOUSE.
IT WAS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE.

Get someone else in.

I've only sanded floors once but lumps of snotty sawdust came out of my nose for days afterwards.

had a bloke in to re-tile the kitchen / bathroom. get in on friday night, everything looks in order so i pay the man. i then go for a piss and hey - fucking presto! the toilet wont flush. phone him up and tell him to please come and put the fucker back the way he found it. OK, he says, but i'll be charging you for the parts and labor.

part of me wants to tell this chancing cunt to fucking do one, and part of me realises that his quote is still considerably less than a fucking plumber call-out. I'd attempt to do it myself but i'd really rather not.

not having a working toilet is... stressful.

"You broke it, you fix it" is the response you're looking for.

indeed. at which point he will go 'make me, lol' etc...

i just want my fucking toilet back :(

Have you checked it's not as simple as one little bit not being attached properly or him forgetting to switch the water back on? Check that and fix it then don't answer the door to him whilst you have a shit.

lel. i poked about at the inlet regulator with a screwdriver to no avail but left it there. i treat home improvements the same way i treat bicycle maintenance. there's a reason people do these things for a living.

Their fondness of bikes or toilets.

Osmo Polyx oil is more expensive than varnish but makes your floorboards look much nicer:
osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm?ch­apter=82&page=247

Worth the extra.

I can second this. The Osmo 3040 White looks great on pine floorboards.

@c0gsucker If you're getting certified copies done at the Post Office, take copies and originals with you and they certify the copies, rather than making the copies for you.

Thanks guys. Have set the wheels in motion need to get all the paperwork printed off and sent in now.

Jet-washed my decking on the weekend, waltzed through 2mm of crud and fungus like it was tears in the rain, like a new garden

awesome. Cheers.

An extra bedroom & bathroom is going to give us a few extra years in our current place so we're currently all about loft extensions.

Has anyone had one done / does anyone have any experience of them?

What can we take on ourselves to save a few pennies?

Planning application rejected by LB Lewisham.
On the grounds that our proposal would have "a negative visual impact on the rear elevation of the property".

We were proposing to turn a flat roof into some outdoor space and erect privacy screens, so as not to overlook our neighbours.

"a negative visual impact on the rear elevation"
We live next door to a scrap yard which comprises of 6 rusting shipping containers piled in threes.

Negative. Visual. Impact.

Fuckers.

Did it a few years ago, pretty straightforward, everything was craned to the top of the scaffold so there was little disruption til the builder broke thru the ceiling. Dunno about saving money unless you did the labouring. It's great fun anyhow, I pushed my bed under the sloping roof beneath the Velux windows so it it rains it's like camping, the pitter patter wakes you up so you go "Wassat? Oh, rain, mmmmm, duvet"

Who is he?

Martin Browne of Gisby Harrison.

Appeal. Send the planning officer photos of your view over the scrap yard and ask them to outline their concerns for the plans, and if there is anything you can do to allay those concerns. Make it seem like you're working with them.

The easiest thing they can do with any planning application is to reject it, so try to make it easy for them to accept it.

They have basically said
We will reject it for visual impact if you have privacy screens.
We will reject it for overlooking if you don't.

They were pretty clear in saying they don't want roof terrace type developments anywhere in Lewisham, and permitting us would be precedent.

Put a rusting shipping container on the flat roof.