Home DIY

I understand your words more than theirs
😑

If that's about the network stuff, I didn't go through with it in the end. I thought, I might have to tell the mgmt company and I thought, fuck that.

Anyway. Gigabit tp link is getting bought.
I did get socket plates with integrated USB ports on them though. GAME CHANGING.

I did get socket plates with integrated USB ports on them though. GAME CHANGING.

Just in time USB-C to become ubiquitous and make those standard USB ports useless.

(Well, that's what would happen if I did anything like this.)

Balls.

I've got some chips here, would you like to piss on those as well?

Ooh I'm getting some of them for the kitchen. Magic.

What, chips?

Apart from trawling through 200 pages of this, are there any good reference points for 'shit you need to do when you buy your first house'. (And specifically the order in which these things are done).

Things we want to do laid out below:

Priority:

Living Room:
Remove faux brick effect thing from one wall in the living room (appears to be coarse plaster with weird half bricks stuck onto it).
Plaster that up so it's nice and smooth, plaster the rest of the walls and ceilings if required.
Install shelving into two alcoves around a fire place (actually built into the wall ideally rather than with supports brackets).
Paint.
Rip up 40 year old carpet and install wooden flooring (a note: we like hard under foot. This is ground floor - how can we get that 'school hall' feel? Something solid underneath? Thicker wood? Engineered vs solid etc? What about upstairs if we decide to have wood throughout?)

Less Urgent:

Living Room:
Install a wood burner in the fireplace (which is currently occupied with maybe some kind of gas fire). I understand this will mean gutting the fireplace and installing 'liner' up the chimney (and then getting some kind of certification from someone with some kind of permit for such things so the council don't cry). Query: If we did this at a later date how much of a ball-ache are we talking? I.e. how much paint, plaster and pristine flooring will we ruin getting it installed? Worth sucking it up to do it all at once?

Install new lighting and electric points (or, like the flooring, are these substantial jobs that will wreck a lot of the nice paint/plaster etc that can't be easily covered up at a later date and thus need stumping up for early on?)

Kitchen:
Remove everything from the kitchen (which is currently very long and has lots of work surface) and replace with a shorter more efficient work surface/hob area and room for a dining area.
Continued from above, new cabinets, oven, sink, extractor etc. (Perhaps this means extending gas supply for the oven from its current position to new one and extending plumbing for sink relocation and various electric points).
Install wooden flooring (the kitchen joins the living room mentioned above - maybe it's worth laying the flooring at the same time? But then we can't really do that until the units are installed? Or can we and we just accept we waste some of it when the cabinets/oven etc go in?)

^Why I should have carried on renting.

Envelope (including foundation) comes first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_h9GG-4FKw

Do the electrics BEFORE you do the new plaster.

In fact, do all the dirty stuff before you even look at colour swatches for paint.

Not a case of it all fitting nicely behind the skirting board then?

No, not really if you want it certified.

Just out of interest, where did you buy? PM me if you don't want to go public.

Kemp town side of the racecourse (not Woodingdean in the end).

North of the Hospital? Wilson Avenue area?

My advice, as someone who has lived in a permanent building site (to a greater or lesser degree) for 5 years now is to get everything messy done at once, preferably before you move in.

i.e. get the faux-bricks off, fire ripped out, kitchen ripped out, new wiring throughout, carpets in a skip, floor renovated/re-laid, re-plastering done, THEN move your shit in, when the only thing left to do is painting, and maybe the kitchen install.

as @withered_preacher has said, attend to the shell and infrastructure first, so get the roof done and any ground level damp proofing done. Assess doors and windows and work out a plan for replacement. Assess loft space for things that can bite, like a part rotten cold water tank, and lack of insulation, rodent chewed wiring. From @rodabod s experience, assess if any rotten ceilings/floors and address these in tandem with any plumbing/re-wiring/re-plastering required - this bit will be messy so try and get it all done at once and stay somewhere else for 6 weeks. Generally better to work from upstairs to downstairs as thats how dust and rubbish settles, and sorts out bedrooms and bathrooms, so gives a space to rest/retreat. Woodtrim, paint before laying carpets last, otherwise you could ruin them.

Where are you going to get the lime and horse hair?

Easy, squeeze a load of limes and shave some horses.

How do I find out if the double glazing in this house is any good? It's alu-framed with an internal spacing of about 2cm.

Get the missus to stand outside banging a cymbal.

Do the windows and doors have a thermal break?

How do you tell without taking them apart?

The charming concreted section at the end of my garden has a few holes in it - sort of like shallow potholes with the pebbly, sandy core showing. I am wanting to cover the whole lot with some gravel or slate pieces or similar. Do I attempt to repair the holes? (fill with concrete) or simply lob the gravel over the top of the lot? It's going to need to last.

I'd recommend getting a copy of The Reader's Digest Complete DIY Manual. I have my parents' old copy. It's generally better than any content I've found online which tends to be either not the best advice, or people arguing about what is the best approach. The only disadvantage being that my version is not up-to-date, but as I live in a Victorian house, it hasn't made a difference so far.

I had no option but to move into my place with not a single room habitable. It stank of piss, had two leaks in the roof, no mains wiring, and no central heating whatsoever. Not pleasant to have to live there in the early days, but I took leave from work and with my Dad, got the bedroom finished along with wiring the whole house in two weeks. I have slowly been working on the other rooms since. You need to be methodical like Rive says. Once the floorboards are down, they are down, etc; you don't want to do any work which ends up spoiling your previous efforts.