Owning your own home

Moved in on Saturday. It's way bigger than either of us remembered, but also way tattier - fuck me we have a lot of work to do now.

A question - I'm a designer by trade so little things not being right bugs the hell out of me. How do people deal with this when they buy a house? Am I fucked? I'm spotting wonky sockets at 50 paces at the moment.

A question - I'm a designer by trade so little things not being right bugs the hell out of me. How do people deal with this when they buy a house? Am I fucked? I'm spotting wonky sockets at 50 paces at the moment.

I felt like this when I moved in my place, a month later and I'm blind to all that stuff now.

Time to design round sockets because a builder will never get square sockets straight.

Do your doors have a equal gap all the way round?

How about the kitchen cupboard doors, are they all level?

It's an OCD nightmare until your brain adjusts to the new normal.

We've got dust inside the radiator, between the fins. How does the missus get it out?

I've tried the usual hit with a hammer approach but she swears blind she cannot get the dust out.

Turn house upside down and shake.

A long strip of wet cloth, a cut up old towel works well. Put it down the back of the radiator, hold it at top and bottom and wiggle it. Rinse and repeat.

Last time I did this I found a sock down the back of one radiator that had been there since before we bought the flat (coming up 8 years now).

Alternatively, wait until you overhaul the central heating (at some point I want to put in thermostatic radiator valves) and then do them all properly then.

hah was thinking the same thing this weekend after we plastered our walls: are all british builders utterly fucked when doing this phase? not a single bloody socket is straight.

i hate to tell you - they probably weren't british

We've got dust inside the radiator, between the fins. How does the missus get it out?

http://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-brooklyn-wooden-radiator-brush/p705245

Just have a hoover handy, especially if the heating's on or you get a nice plume of dust deposited across the entire room.

I'm a designer by trade so little things not being right bugs the hell out of me. How do people deal with this when they buy a house? Am I fucked? I'm spotting wonky sockets at 50 paces at the moment.

Ask an electrician for a quote to put them all straight. You'll find you can live with them just fine.

trying to get the loft converted and need party wall agreement with both neighbours (we are mid terrace). both sides are great neighbours (we've only been there for a month and already get along real well) however it's really sad to say that both sides are tenants and not owner occupiers. this means dreaded party wall stuff where i have to get the legal owners to give consent otherwise i won't be allowed to do the conversion legally.

real shame as both neighbours have agreed for me to carry out the works but in the great scheme of things that doesn't really matter as they don't have the over riding say. now if both landlords want an independent surveyor to come round and do a survey this could realistically cost me over 1k each side. one side is owned by the council so they will without doubt be difficult about this.

a guy across the road got his party wall agreed within minutes with his respective neighbours. just seems it's going to drag on and on for me now :-(

don't suppose anyone has experience of the complexities surrounding party wall stuff? especially when it involves council properties?

i'm not holding my breath....

Drop me a line...

Do you need council permission to rebuild a front garden wall?

It's a bit premature asking as we don't even have walls or a floor downstairs yet, but I can see a new wall abutting the pavement could be a nice finishing touch one day.

How much hassle would this be?

If you are rebuilding or repairing an existing or previously-existing wall, I believe you can just go for it. I think that new walls - or fences for that matter - facing a public road are limited to 1m in height. I did look into this a few years ago but I've since had a kid and now my brain is mush.

As Timmy said only if it's over a metre, see:
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/fenceswallsgates/

I looked into all this when we were planning our elaborate fencing project in the back garden. We decided that we wanted some of our fences just over two metres, but as we were putting in for planning permission anyway the architect just stuck them in his drawings.

I was amused to learn that the width of brick walls has to grow as you go further north (see the map on that page). Makes sense but just something I'd never thought about!

Your project needs more pictures by the way, not just the bathroom :)

So the wall disappeared and the steel lintels/French doors happened inside a week? That sounds quick?

Not really, if my builder took longer than a week to prop / demolish wall / install lintel I'd wonder what he's been up to.

Before and after pics:

2 Attachments

Behind the board on the right there is now a set of French doors with a lay light above.

The stairs are still to go, and our builder is suggesting spiral stairs to replace them, which sounds nice and romantic and good for floor space, but maybe a pain for moving things up and down and a potential issue if the time came to sell.

The messy bit through the opening on the left will one day be a kitchen.

Don't do the spiral stairs whatever you do.

Why not? Aesthetics or practicality?

All of the above. I can't imagine it'd help your resale value either as they're not for everyone.

they're not for anyone.

Everyone dislikes spiral stairs. Unless they're a beautiful Modern thing.

^ not keen on the modern ones.

Only nice spiral stairs ever.