Home DIY

One clever thing my builder suggested instead of knocking down the load bearing wall between kitchen and living is to extend at the back .. we are still weighing the pros and cons tbh wether to do it or not. Might just spruce up the kitchen and move in some years. Depends on how the property value increases.

Thanks - although I think it's more along the lines of this, with no adjustment:

It's held in by deep-filler to the wall, so not easy to readjust. Was hoping there would be some sort of adjustable socket face that I could use instead? If not, I assume I'll just have to remove one of the patresses and re-fix?

Fair enough. Any idea how much he should be paying to have it replaced? In Leeds.

I'm in Leeds. Post a picture of the sink.

I'm not going to fit it but can give suggestions.

I'm not going to be back at home until late on Tuesday but will do then! Cheers.

Made another table. Pretty happy.

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Hive / Nest question...

I currently have 2 combi boilers in my house (one for the top floors, another for the bottom ones). They both run independently which is quite handy, will a Nest / Hive solution work for me.

Looking through the website i can see they can control different 'Zones' but could it be setup to run two boilers independently ?

If you want to keep the boilers independent of each other you'll need two controllers.

Turns out you can't just walk into ikea and buy all the kitchen units you've spent ages choosing, especially not with the stock door sizes and stuff that comes with them.
Wondered in on a Monday morning expecting to be the only person there, wrong, every childed up couple and their parents aunts dog sitter were in there. Wtf!
Took a helpful ikea person over an hour to get my huge list of numbers into an order and then get someone to pick it for me.
Then several more hours for the order to actually get picked, and then it was wrong, then got home nd found several panels damaged within the undamaged boxes. Also found I had elenvty billion of a door I should have one of and none of the rest
Any excise for more ikea cakes thoigh.....

Also why the fuck don't they do a 500mm door, or a blind corner unit!

Apparently the Ikea cabinets don't have a service void either which can be a bit of a shitter if you're DIY'ing. Hopefully all your services are in place, ours ain't!

Looks better already like that.

Ours is storming along, walls up, roof on, steels in.

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Yeah that's the usual main criticism of them.

IKEA on a Tuesday night is the best time to go.

Fixed.

Okay thanks...not really going to work for me then.

For me that's not the issue, it's that they use a rail system to hang everything from. My wall is made of shite mixed with diluted shite so splashed out on some epic big shield anchors only to find that the only height at which every unit will sit right puts the anchors exactly in the mortar line......
So far sunk 17 anchors, only 8 have taken without immediate fail.
Normal units to be fair would be worse, as not possible to bridge the really shit bits without extensive batons and magic.

IKEA on a Tuesday night is the best time to go.
Fixed.

Thursdays this year

The Mrs went last Saturday to the Milton Keynes Ikea, expected the worst so arrived just before opening at 10am, parked with ease, was second in the queue for refunds and then flew around buying tut and meatballs. Back on the return leg within an hour.

The flooring in our flat is shite laminate that badly needs replacing.
We spoke to our downstairs neighbour yesterday who has original floorboards in her flat. We assumed that she would object to us having the same but she said she can hear us anyway so actually wouldn't mind. The original floorboards in her flat have come up beautifully.

Has anyone had any experience of hiring a company to sand and finish neglected floorboards, and are the costs a lot cheaper? It's the entire flooring throughout the flat.

Lies, there is no such thing as 10am on Saturday

We did our house (3 4x5/6ish rooms and a landing) sanded, filled, stained and sealed including removal of an old hearth and replacement with matching boards for about 1.6k a year or so ago.

They're holding up pretty well. Some of the smaller gaps that were filled with mix (not slivers) are coming away but can be fixed.

The guys we had in were quick but it still took a week or two including drying time and shifting furniture around. Thankfully we'd just moved in so everything was already boxed and we just put it in the tiled kitchen while the work was completed but there was a lot of sleeping on a camping mat.

@Pistanator did his himself I believe which I have much respect for.

All being said I'd still consider getting NOS hardwood instead of refurbing pine/soft wood in the future. There are a couple of creaky boards and obviously scratching through the stained wood reveals light wood underneath. And if upstairs in a flat I'd definitely consider filling under the boards with soundproofing.

That's very helpful, thanks. Will be looking into laying some soundproofing down. I'm also thinking we might need a different material in the kitchen as it wood isn't waterproof.

Chuck laminate/engineered wood i ln the kitchen.

I'd be tempted to lift the boards, put down some insulation/soundproofing.

Usually by the time you add up hire costs, sandpaper and other kit + the time it takes to do, getting people in to do it isn't much more expensive

Tiles?

Oh for sure. I'm not as cackhanded as @Chalfie but it's a close race. I'll leave it to the pros.

Morrocan?