Owning your own home

Yeah that would be the drawback but imagine the grams

Its not really croydon, West Wickham more like .. BUY IT, amazing access to lanes.

Lots of steel work going on there. The good thing is that these extensions are becoming so common that they’re more like loft conversions. Lots of companies who have a large portfolio of previous jobs to check and pretty comparable pricing. The above doesn’t look that high spec to me, I would have thought more like £60k.

We have a loft conversion, we'd like to add en suite.
Any idea of expected costs?

dam that CR0 place is lovely.

If only it was 1.5x the size.

I know its all a matter of personal taste and use case but I'm not a fan of these massive open living spaces. I like the idea of having a smallish living room that can be COSY in the winter months and then have a larger cooking/eating back room that opens into the garden for those hot summer days (both of them).

All subjective of course, but if I bought the place you liked to there I would be doing the opposite of what you want to do...

yes, agreed. That's why we extended the kitchen and left the two reception rooms separate.

Plus, when you have teenage kids, rooms with doors that can close are a bonus.

thinking of replacing the 2 ratty looking hard wood tops in our kitchen with stone / marble ones. anyone done this? is it going to bankrupt us?

I don’t want to knock it all through completely, but at present the second reception room is dead living space and is basically a glorified hallway into the kitchen (although very alive storage space for bikes, among other things). Knocking through into either the living room, or preferably into the kitchen, where we spend most of our time anyway, would be what we’d want to do.

The loft conversion with ensuite I've just had cost about £50k (before decorating, etc) to give a ballpark figure for that.

Have a look at Minerva - some sort of composite buts isn’t plasticky. Nowhere near as expensive as marble and much nicer than wood.

Side extension with knock through into 2nd reception (now "snug").

It's worked out well, although it means no direct natural light into what was the 2nd reception. The entrance is where the window was. But that just makes it more "snug".

We are in the process of revealing an existing knock through; victorian mid-terrace, living room into dining room. The existing steel, untouched for decades and with the void below hidden behind plasterboard, has been found to be basically unsupported at one end, building control aren't happy with building the other end of the steel into the party wall, we're having to get a steel frame put in (four sides of steel!), lifting floorboards either side of the divide, digging down for foundations across the whole run. Large expense, large disruption, little benefit. Should have left it all alone and spent the cash on something shiny like a new bathroom or kitchen.

Seems ott - might be worth getting a 2nd opinion from a structural engineer, if not already done.

I had to have a half goal post support put in for my through lounge. It's not that complicated and they just pour concrete into the floor void for the vertical support to sit on.

Structural engineer agreed with building control. I just want to pay to make it all go away instead of jumping gaps in the floor and giving more money to more surveyors now.

Anyone used Itzala for Velux blinds? They appear to sell official blinds at about a third off. Just wondering if there is a catch.

link sent to management.

Yeah I thought it might be up your street - but far out?

It's a fantastic house in a terrible area, sadly.

Unless you're a gammon faced cab driver who can't stand the blacks but quite like their women folk, if you know what I mean, nudge nudge.

Type 'amazon warehouse deals' into Google

Type in skylight blind into the search box

Rummage about and see what Amazon have on offer.

I got 2 velux mk08 blinds from there for 6 quid each because the box was mangled up. Anywhere else would have been 40 quid for the cheapest aftermarket version.

Yes, we fitted two of their blackout blinds to standard velux windows. Very easy. Still looking great ~3 years on.

Vendors asked us to meet halfway.

Smells like im getting it for my price in the next few days

What's the price difference between your offer and the listing?

After all the bullshit you've gone through; i'd tell them to accept it or fuck themselves.