How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

The opening next to the bath is 600mm wide, so should be plenty wide to enter through.

@dbr Would have loved to have a shower window, but gotta work around the irremovable chimney breast so using one alcove for the MVHR gubbins, and the other for concealed bog cistern and built in storage cupboard above.

Reckon having bath under window will be cute…

But for real tho, why is bog in front of door such a faux pas?

Reckon having bath under window will be cute…

Might be a bit drafty? Windows are typically colder so in the winter when you are sitting in your nice hot bath you could have a curtain of cold air from the lower insulation.

Window is getting replaced with new triple-glazing, and there will be wet underfloor heating, so unlikely to be actually draughty. The external-facing wall next to bath is getting insulated with wood fibre also.

Where's the main drain?

Transportation of waste from the toilet with minimum horizontal run is critical to a long term happy life.

But for real tho, why is bog in front of door such a faux pas?

Because when the bathroom isn't in use and door is open the bog is always visible from the landing /hall /etc.

Often a sink and wc can switch position, so of the two a sink is nicer to look at.

Nah I’m into it now. Total power play move making eye contact while shitting. With the holiday season in full swing and the whole family round the opportunity to assert dominance is boundless.

It's for this reason that the bog is where it is; the turds travel straight out the external wall behind and down into the main drain.

This is so fit. Any shots of completed bathroom?

I'd double-check the regs on electric/water to ensure your MVHR plant isn't breaching by being near the bath/basin.

I'd also check the filter change/service clearance on the MVHR, or would it be above the edge of the bath?

Our MVHR designer/installer reckons current plan will be compliant. Unit assembly will sit above bath level and up to ceiling, so no issue with clearance.

Sanding of old pine floor boards commences this weekend. After many YouTube videos (why do floor contractors still love Balearic) I’ve gathered go diagonally to flatten the floor and don’t start the machine when the belt is on the floor.

That’s all right? Anything you think I really need to know before I press the big power button?

I just did this a couple of weeks ago.

Warn your neighbours.
Buy a good ventilation mask and earplugs
Buy more belts and sanding pads than you think you need. If it's HSS Hire you can always return them. I used mostly 60 grit.
The edge sander is your saviour, particularly with badly cupped boards, but will kill your back
Don't forget you unscrewed the belt clamp then went to lunch and turned it back on with the screws protruding out the drum...
Use Bona Mega to varnish the floor
It's actually quite fun and satisfying.

What they said plus I'd really, really recommend buying a load of plastic sheeting and making air locks at every door way in your place.

The dust is fine and goes everywhere. Even with the air locks it'll get through, but it's a lot more manageable.

Also change bags early / don't over fill and be careful removing. If they split / burst it's such a fucker.

And plan the oiling/varnishing well. It may genuinely take 24hrs to dry between coats. When we did our kitchen we took a microwave and plates/tools out to make meals in the sitting room for 3 days.

re this, a coat of Bona Mega took about 2 hours to dry in our house. It's more an oil than a varnish but it's given a great finish. As I say, I did it 2 weeks ago so I don't know how durable it is, but so far so good. Would full recommend that. Only downside was that it's a little yellow in colour.

• Don't let the bags fill up too much before emptying.
  
• change sandpaper regularly otherwise it gets clogged up.
  
• start with course grit and don't skip too fast through to the smaller grits I think we did 40, 80, 120. The Osmo guy said we should have done one further layer of 150 but we didn't. If I did it again I would do that extra layeras it helps with the absorbtion of the oil or something.
  -take short regular breaks otherwise it can really fuck your hands (the constant vibration).
  -try and hoover after each big run cause the dust gets absolutely EVERYWHERE
  

Keep the bags of sanding dust for any filling needed

Use a decent sander if you can that's height adjustable with good dust collection.

We used a Bona one and there was barely any dust even without a dust extractor.

Edging sanders are the devil's work.

When I did my entire house, I found that doing the edges and corners using a tungsten-bladed scraper was more effective and much less disruptive than with an edge sander.

I think I resorted to a random orbital sander when I did mine. The edging sander was too fierce.

We just paid someone to do our upstairs in our new place and they did an excellent job, and it was brilliant not doing it myself.

And there’s the correct answer!

It's been a while since I laid out my tale of architect woe; it's all been pretty stressful and to be honest I didn't even read the responses because I'd put my head in the sand. Things picked up a bit after we made it clear we were happy. He is a little more helpful. But we still never got a budget from him, and had to piece it all together ourselves. Since then we've been trying to get started but there's been a drain issue between us and our neighbour and we've had to get a camera survey to find out exactly where it goes - waiting on news now.

In the meantime we decided to get the floorboards in our bedroom restored because it's the only room that won't be in chaos and we wanted somewhere nice to hole up while work happened. Unfortunately 2/3 of the boards seem ruined by woodworm and the joists have some too. Floorboard guy is going to spray treatment everywhere, double up the joists where there's damage, then relay reclaimed boards.

The whole process is driving us slowly barmy at the moment.

Don’t spray the joists/beams - the holes are from the wood boring beetle larvae leaving. The larvae need moist wood, so long as it now dry then there is no point in exposing yourselves to some pretty nasty chemicals. And if it’s not dry then you need to sort out why.

I get the impression that the previous owners kept the windows shut all the time and didn't have the heating on much; there were signs of damp in a lot of places, but we've never seen it re-emerge while we've been here. So that may be it.

Feel your pain. When I first bought my house, all windows were sealed shut by a layer of black mould, most walls were sopping wet underneath thick wallpaper, and the chipboard kitchen cabinets were saturated with grease from the deep fat fryer full of rancid oil that was lurking in a cupboard. When I viewed the house, the occupants had clothes drying all over the place, with all windows closed and the heating off in the middle of winter.

It needed full plaster-off, back to brick in most rooms; had to hire industrial heaters and fans to try to dry the walls out. Cost frikkin fortune in leccy bills to do this back then, not helped by the gas & leccy meters being key & card...