How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

Yeah it's great. Have already had plenty of scuffs and they wipe right off. Paint brands and finishes were the painter's suggestions (obvs we chose colours), as his favourite to work with.

It's for all of our knocked-through downstairs, so kitchen/diner/sitting room. If I remember right, lining the sitting room ceiling added a pretty big chunk to the labour cost

Progress

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Also can't help but wonder if my micro concrete / lux vinyl idea might have been quite cool.

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Looks good!

Impressed you're doing it properly - it was hard enough doing mine with the stuff that clicks together!

While the builder shares my swarthy complexion, it is not me in the pic.

I assume the tape is to stop the glue coming through - interestingly he said that they glue a very small section of the peices together to create a form(?) for the patern. The rest is just glued down as normal with a solid floor.

... or else it could be to do with lining things up or being able to draw on them.

Electrical quotes. I’ve had a full EICR done (£360, but looked at everything, not a £100 “landlord” one that looks at some samples. Lots needs fixing, and lots of additional stuff to do (moving sockets down to standard heights, adding many more sockets, etc.)

I received a quote with one number for parts (£1317) and one number for labour (£3150). Both ex VAT. It’s a lot, which I expected, but it isn’t weird of me to want to have a break down is it?

I might see one thing in there that I don’t care much about that costs £600 and decide not to do it, etc. I’d also like to know how long they’re planning on taking. I don’t think they are ripping me off, I just think they’re pretty pricey/provide a good service.

I don’t think that’s too bad then - high quality finish on the decorating makes a lot of difference

I think that would be fine to ask for and fairly reasonable - not being willing to do so would probably make me question why

Well. This is where it gets funny. They recommended him to us - I've seen the work he did for them, and it looked good (albeit I did not closely inspect). Not sure why it's gone so badly wrong in our case.

Our electrician showed us examples of his finished work with all the chasing filled with bonding (not necessarily the finished walls) but when it came to finish day, he fobbed us off with ‘that wasn’t in your quote’.

Check that with the sparky as we had to DIY it and it was not fun.

4K all in for a small 4 bed.

Thank you

Hmm. Thank you!

Filling in chasing is not an onerous task, I found it quite relaxing!?
Bonding is easy to mix and use, just build it up with a couple of coats if deep followed by easyfill then tourpret fine surface filler.
It is time consuming but a lot of that is drying time so done in between other jobs.
I wouldn’t expect an electrician to do this, ours used drywall adhesive on the ceiling chases as it goes off quick and rock hard. Was the tool for the job as the chase was not deep as concrete so hard and needed to secure the cable up as the nails in the cable clips were not holding.

I hate filling and sanding and building up layers to get a good finish and then it is still always visible!
As you probably are going to be redecorating any wall/room that has been chased, just get it plaster skimmed- probably the cheapest trade out there.

If you struggle with it still being visible (grinning) you need to use Zinsser Gardz as a first coat before the emulsion. As long as you've sanded it well and feathered edges (possibly with a sponge) the repair will disappear.

You gave me this advice before and with the additional help of a few YouTube’s it’s been super useful.

Any recommendations for a company to supply and install a set of french doors (1.3m X 2.3m) in se6?

Our old single glazed wooden set are crumbling away.

I hate filling and sanding and building up layers to get a good finish and then it is still always visible!

Poor technique :-)
Though going over with watered down emulsion is the best way to show areas that need attention

Or just pay someone a few quid to skim it rather than spend a weekend sanding

I'm not finding plasterers that cheap. In fact it seems hard to get them at all in West London.

I'm also not that convinced by the quality of most of the skims I've seen done in the last 10 years and plaster should really be left a considerable amount of time to dry before you paint it, maybe less with a skim but it's still months until the crystal structure has formed.

With all that taken into account I don't see the advantage of skimming when the solution to the problem is good filling technique and proper priming before painting (Zinsser Gardz).

Think I just paid a team of three 1500 a day each 😭

That's on the upper end of the price range in my experience!!

You just paid £13.5k for plastering!?

Oh wait too many threes