Owning your own home

apropos of bathroom / kitchen readers wives trend...

/cbkb

Loft conversions.

I haz need of an architect to talk dormers, skylights, Juliet balconies, staircases and the like.

Anyone with any recommendations / free advice?

We also want to put a mini-conservatory down the side of the house to act as a "temporary" utility room (and turbo cave - not that she knows that bit yet...)

[Edit] Apparently, the bit down the side is called the side return. So I want a glass roof / door on the side return.

I used this website for inspiration for our side return

http://www.londonkitchenextensions.co.uk/

Nice - thanks.

Possibly a little over-ambitious for what we have in mind - I'm thinking of keeping all remaining external walls in place and just slapping a roof and door in place, and making it weatherproof.

I'll give them a call in any case - We can't be the first people that want to make use of a bit of space on the cheap.

Going to leave them as is I think- they've been sanded and oiled so the surface finish is nice.

Is it birch ply? That makes for lovely joinery.

Yep

Do you have two identical houses, or have you redone them?

They didn't look too bad to begin with, but I like the 'afters'. Kitchen b especially looks banging, lovely shelves.

I didn't realise I was so on-trend with my bathroom tile choice, but white metro and black slate effect is clearly the way.

gosh thanks! yeah they're before and after pix. To be honest, i had almost nothing to do with it, this is all Mrs Hell's doing. She's the brains of the operation. and the looks. in fact i bring very little to the party. this is why i have hidden her passport.

Smart!

Do like the floor tiles on the bath! (although i would have continued the direction of the floor tiling, rather than switching them 90 degrees)

Worktop Express are really good. One of the 5 star reviews on trustpilot is from me. Their bespoke cutting service saves a bundle of time, and product quality is absolutely top notch.

just be aware of "party wall" when making plans for side return, you'll have to get permission from neighbour if its on the boundary / too close - 2 metres I think? Anyone doing the plans should know

fuck. i hadn't noticed that until now.

i'm going to have to rip them up and do it again now aren't i?

anyone know a tiler that understands basic cunting geometry?

The neighbours should be cool - we have been superhumanly tolerant of the building work that they have been doing for the past 18 months (loft conversion, rear extension) that has damaged out roof, knocked down a wall, and fucked the drains.

It would even save them the cost of rendering the wall that would be an internal wall to the side return extension.

Just turn the bath around.

If you don;t mind me asking, how much did a side return set you back? The house we are buying has one, but it is very tatty and is one of the things we know we need to work on - would love to have an idea of the costs involved.

The "Don't Move Improve" shortlist exhibition is on at the Building Centre at the moment, worth a look to get ideas of what you do and don't want, names of architects and contractors, build costs etc. One "extension" was rather eye-wateringly close to £2mill. But most are rather cheaper.

Similar stuff online from AJ Small Projects (<£250k), not sure if all of it is visible to non-subscribers http://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/search?tagID=15854 - that link is all entries to last year's awards, there is probably a way to search for that + house extensions or something...

It would even save them the cost of rendering the wall that would be an internal wall to the side return extension.

You want to use their wall as your wall? No dice baby, you haz to build your own.

The "Don't Move Improve" shortlist exhibition is on at the Building Centre at the moment, worth a look to get ideas of what you do and don't want, names of architects and contractors, build costs etc. One "extension" was rather eye-wateringly close to £2mill. But most are rather cheaper.

One of my projects was shortlisted for that award last year. CSB etc etc.

The £2m project was rather nice, mind. I worked with the same contractors on the above mentioned project, although the budget was rather more modest, about £1.9m so.

Getting there, worksurfaces now fixed down and oiled - as expected, a lot darker:

Why have you got a waterproof 13A socket inside?

Yes.

But why?

The old sink used to extend from one side of the window to the other, so a normal socket was verboten, and also that socket is there purely to have an extension lead plugged into it and the other end thrown out of the window to provide power to the garage, so the window has to remain ajar - even if it's raining etc.

Reader's wife bathroom:

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