How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

The central bar confuses me. I think maybe there were some Victorian era stately homes with skylights in the attics or something. I was allowed to put huge skylights in, as long as they had the longitudinal bar. My neighbours (same conservation area) got away without. Tbf though mine were much nicer windows.

Painting makes them look miles better!

Yeah, will do for now. Still kinda freaking out about the colour tho, just have to keep telling myself it’s a million times better than the pebbledashed horror it was before…

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Colour looks fine, I’m going light stone like you kinda want, just to best you at something, but also with more modern windows like you have and are getting I think green makes more sense.

Definitely a big improvement.

I say that as the owner of a pebbledash house where removal doesn't seem to be an option.

Defo pebbledash owner envy here…

I can’t really get ours removed, but am considering some sort of render after we get cavity wall insulation to ensure we are as water tight as possible.

Thanks!

What’s stopping you and @andos getting rid of the cursed porridge?

Cost is the biggest factor and also that we’re thinking of getting cladding/ render after getting cavity wall insulation to ensure we don’t have any ingress issues.

It’s a 1930s building bungalow so the bricks are extremely bland so it’s not like it’s hiding a gem like yours.

No one else has on our street - and it's the kind of street where people would have if they could have.

There are identical houses all round the city and I've never seen one that's had it removed, which makes me think the bricks underneath must be quite shit.

Also it's not a grand Victorian/Edwardian house waiting to be freed, it's just a standard 1946-built semi.

Finally - I actually don't mind it. With a green enough front garden (which we don't currently have), I actually think they're fine.

We went down the plykea route - can confirm it's very expensive, it cost more than everything else in the kitchen combined.

We decided it was worth the cost in the end as it's in a kitchen/diner/lounge meaning we're seeing it all the time so we'd may as well make it look nice (which it does).

There are people on our road who've had external insulation and then re-pebbledashed over the top of it.

There's only one house that's had it rendered and then not painted it white or off-white.

There's a house round the corner that was re-rendered. According to the boarding that went up it was coloured render and was sprayed on.

Looks OK at the moment.

Fancy sharing some pictures to make me envious? I think we're going to end up going down the DIY Kitchens route

Just found out that the wood cladding we were going to use no longer passes fire regs and won't get signed off by building control. Architect says it just happened, but who knows. Cladding company can fire-proof a different tongue-and-groove cladding but that doesn't work for our concealed gutter plan which has gaps between boards. So now architect is thinking we'll use tongue-and-groove but have a concealed gap between roof and front wall to allow water to drop into gutter. Getting very bored of the ups and downs of this project now.

Everything that you can imagine and beyond can go wrong while doing this. Trust me I know from architect experience.
It's part of the deal really. Keep your chin up!

Trying to. It's just one step forward, one step back, a third of a step forward, then a 360 spin, then picking a random direction and doing four steps. Very bored of it.

Yeah, but in the end you'll have a great home!

We went to see another extension built in the village by one of the builders who's quoted for ours. The footprint of the original house was exactly the same and their (nearly) finished project is very similar to ours - slightly different layout, 1m further out and a bit less rearranging of existing walls. But theirs cost £50k less than our quote from the same builder.

It's definitely promising both in terms of what can be done - it looks brilliant - and the budget, if we can shave some more off our plans.

not sure if of interest to anyone but offering my services as a architectural technician. Only issue I'm near Manchester! I'm happy to model and offer technical advice but obviously can't visit site or survey.
All modelling would be done in Autodesk Revit which as the ability to produce 2d drawings as well as sections, elevations, 3d views and walk throughs
Please note I don't have PI insurance so this is a drawing service only but have 37 years experience at UKs largest firm of architects. I also can obtain structural calculation from SE colleague if required.

DM for further info

I'll donate a percentage to the forum

The difference in price could be from the time there's started I suppose?

Partly that I think, but they started late last year and are only just finishing it off. The builder has been very up front about costs and the guy whose house it is only has positives to say about him, but I feel like we need to sit down and pick apart where the costs are coming from and how we can get them down. Some of it is caution I think, as they've allowed £20k for the kitchen alone, but I don't think we'll get near that.

£20k for the kitchen

Triggered

Is this the bloke whos quoted you the business end of 200 grand including the vat and professional fees?

Hes set his stall out very clearly by giving that price out from the start, yes, you might be able to cut a few k off here and there, a slightly more budget kitchen and windows, floor etc etc but I suspect the sad reality is that most of the fat within the figures are his crews wages for the job and a 40k profit for his company afterwards. I.e there will be precious little to take the scissors to unless hes prepared to earn less from the job.

Is 3.5–4k reasonable for a change of boiler from a system to a combi?
Seems a bit spenny to me but we kinda need to get rid of all the tanks dotted around the house.

Works out at about 1.5k labour for 2 days work, which seems like a very very good wage to me.

Having received a few quotes recently for my kitchen, I can only surmise that a lot of these guys are being overcautious on timings and adding fat to everything for uncertainty, forgetting that the total is going to end up unjustifiably high.

Quoted 41 man-days of work by one contractor, which is at least double the amount of time it would take me to do the work they've priced for (on my own). I have no issues paying someone a giant day-rate to do a job better than I can but if it's actually taking that long then they're obviously not spending the whole time on my job and that's not acceptable either.

Not sure what the answer is other than DIY!