Owning your own home

No. They want to lend us less. So want us to magic up another chunk of principle before doing so.

Oh everything about buying property in this country is fucking stupid.

Ah right that makes more sense but is obviously pretty stupid.

@Tenderloin - hello mate! How's Japan? Not great, my buyer pulled out end of last week. They couldn't borrow what they thought they could, even from a broker....Need to get mine under offer again ASAP otherwise I'll be getting some interesting phone calls further up the chain....fark!

Huh?

Ah no, sorry to hear that! Hopefully if you got an offer in quick on your place first time around you should be ok second. Fingers crossed.

Japan is really cool. I'm not one of those guys who just loves everything Japanese etc and wasn't sure how I'd get on with it but I've absolutely loved it. Coming back with some great garden ideas and off to Bennesse house today to spend a couple of days looking around the islands.

woo, house move day on Thursday, packers arrive tomorrow at 9am, am remarkably calm as my packing so far as involved putting everything in my man cave into boxes and all I have to worry about on the day is moving my bikes 2 miles down the road - have some mates coming round tonight to look after a few for a couple of days to make it a bit easier...

anyone know or recommend residential architects in maidenhead, as the new house is a fairly un-inspirational 1970s house that we want to remodel/extend and while we have a couple of architects we like the look of, all the ones we've recommended look either too big or too boring for the work we want to do...

Still speculative as I'm still a while away from actually doing anything...

I'm in a 3 bedroom house on the border of Greenwich/Charlton.
It's ~1000 sq ft now. I could convert the loft and/or do a side return on the kitchen / join it with the lounge.
So far so simple.

Problem is that it's on a really busy road (A102, Blackwall Tunnel approach) and a bit noisy and dirty. Which means I don't think it's ideal family home potential.
So, I'm thinking of converting into 2 flats, which if I was doing I'd do as part of any loft / extension work.

I don't think planning permission would be an issue as there are other examples of converted flats, loft and kitchen extensions around.

So options are
Current house, 1000sqft
Extended house, ~1400 sqft (maybe not worth it given the not family house location)
Two ~700sqft flats.

Googling comes back with opinions ranging from "yay free money" to "fuck that, it's a time and money sink, not worth the hassle, especially if you don't have a brother/mother/best mate in the trade"

It's one of these

Laid out like this

tldr. idiots guide to what to think if turning a house into flats on the shittiest road in a posh area?

Don't forget that you'll also lose some of the 1400sqft for shared space required for the upstairs flat. Also consider that you'll be going from having 2 neighbours, to having 3...

Try and find out rental prices in your road (speak to local letting agents or PM me and I might be able to give you some info...)

seems like a lot of effort.

1. Get quotes for both.
   
2. Look up prices of big house / small flat on Zoopla.
   
3. Do sums.
   
4. Profit.
   

Leave it as is. Install fuck load of pollution monitors. Sue Boris.
Profit.

He knows...
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-03-05/each-of-the-uks-worst-pollution-blackspots-are-in-london/

London’s twenty most polluted roads
'A102' – Blackwall Tunnel
'A12' –Blackwall Tunnel Approach

I think it's well over whatever the supposed limits are. But we can probably rewrite those limits soon #brexit

ive just heard from my neighbours today. they raised the ridge of their roof without planning permission (norty). someone grassed them up and the council went mad and told them to make a retrospective planning application to increase the height of the roof.

thankfully I have heard today to my great surprise that they have been granted the permission. its hard to see how the council could deny me permission to go up to their ridge height if I get the architect to spec it and draw it all out properly and apply for permission. that will cost a few hundred quid to do rather than the 4k to lower the ceilings below! so im rather happy.

I hope you have a garage full of logs to immediately replace any you use.

I hope you have a garage full of logs to immediately replace any you use.

They're in the hall.

someone grassed them up and the council went mad

Nah mate, when they're mad they make you put it back how it was before...

Abandonded the parquet project?

whos your log guy?

ha!

@Dammit Jenga?

Those logs are very close to the side of the stove/flue, are they not at risk of scorching and smoking?

I wouldn't be comfortable with that arrangement and proximity to the flue I have to say