Owning your own home

If I could underline will in the above I would.

Why buy that village hall looking place when £5k less gets you a whole island?

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37280895.html

This is from about a week and a half ago. In this picture it has most of the cement board lining (which has rigid insulation bricks behind) and the slot drain installed. There are also little pipes coming in at the bottom for filling it (these will be hidden underneath the bench, it will fill from the bottom) and what you can't see is that underneath the base in the screed is an electric heated floor mat which will be controlled by a thermostat on the wall just outside the bathroom.

As you can see at this point it still needed one piece of cement board putting in. The white plastic circle sticking out on that side of the bath is the control for the drain so we can empty it. They only come in silver and we hate all silver shiny bathroom things so we're planning to get it powder coated, probably black and probably at Armourtex as it's literally round the corner!

So once all of the cement board is in (I actually don't know if it is right now, the whole bath is temporarily covered up with big pieces of insulation so I couldn't actually show it to @tommmmmmm on Monday night) it just needs the micro cement (think a very thin layer of something that will look like polished concrete) layer applying. Colour will probably be Pizarra on this page:
http://www.en.kcberry.co.uk/colours/attachment/carta-cores/

As the forum is forcing me to write another post, here's a picture of the water tank that now lives in the cellar (some making good to do around there as you can see, but the 'hole' it lives in is actually very neat). Can hold 300 litres at 70 degrees, so plenty to fill the bath with.

How are the glazing details going to work around the bath? Can't remember what the intent looked like.

We've had to drop out, GF's scared she may be about to lose her job... Oh well, we'll have to wait a bit longer after all... Kinda nuts that the banks here will happily lend when we've only been working part-time for less than six months...

Ah, you'll find something. At least you're not in London and watching prices increase by 7% every three months.

In other news, its looking like we'll be moving in in the next couple of weeks.

Just waiting for the kitchen to arrive and the electrician to stop being a princess and actually turn up.

These are the plans:

I can't claim to totally understand it to be honest but our architect has worked with the contractor a few times before successfully so I trust them to deliver it.

Proper trees, not Froome trees.

Need to get a boiler serviced / gas safety checked and a couple of electric jobs done in east London, Bow - anyone know anyone suitable in the area?

Full Flame. Very good guy.

Shamelessly cross posting from the Home DIY thread because we have a baby arriving at Christmas and we are getting desperate.

We need a decent carpenter to do us some fitted wardrobes and alcove cabinets before xmas in SE4.

Does anyone have a recommendation of someone who is
a - good
b - reasonable
c - available...?

Shame, I'm a and b but currently not c due to fairly serious injury.

Ballcocks...

Is there anyone you would recommend who meets the criteria...?

Sadly being a decent joiner means I don't know too many others as I never have any need for them. I'm sure you are looking for someone like me, a one man band who can deliver what you want without charging the earth but the way the industry is most joiners are either working with developers permanently or in constant demand. I usually have a waiting list but I cleared my schedule to do a course and then had an accident.

I've know a developer who uses a guy he likes a lot but he guards the number jealously. I'll call him and find out though.

If I were you I'd be looking for someone who comes and measures up then arrives with mostly pre-cut and drilled material, possibly even pre-painted to an extent and sets it up in the alcoves. My days of cutting MDF on the street or in houses and measuring as I go are over.

What material are you considering, MDF, Formica, Veneered MDF? What paint finish? Type of door hinges etc. The more you know about the finished product you want the easier it will be to get it done.

That would be tremendously useful...
Thank you.

Get onto mybuilder.com, you'll like get a couple of interested people pretty quickly who will come round and quote. Ask them for examples of their work. The really good ones will have a website and there will be reviews on the mybuilder site

I tried to PM you but I'm not sure that it's not a more public version of messaging I've used. PM me or reply to the message and I'll send you a number.

I'm totally missing out on the internet side of the business these days. I've been word of mouth recommendation for 25 years but the market is definitely changing. Only problem I've seen with other guys/firms who are online is when they are successful they get overwhelmed with work very quickly. There's a killer app out there waiting to be born for this kind of thing.

I sometimes get recommendations from local tradesmen who I like for other trades. Eg. my roofer recommended me my plasterer, who then recommended me my wooden floor specialist.

mybuilder.com

buildings insurance - i do not have a clue and am renting out my house...

any simple guides to what i need to do - have used a few different websites for quotes, some are giving no results, others wildly varying quotations

I don't know what your definition of reasonable is - I reckon a lot of people underestimate just how much work making and installing fitted wardrobes is personally - or how high end you want to go. But. We got three quotes from the people below:
Karl Rees
Nick McAuley
Ola Leander (who @dbr had done some work with)

In the end although Ola was slightly more expensive we went with him and were very happy with the end result. Spray lacquered with inset English elm (ignore the marks on the first photo, they're from the phone that took the picture so aren't really there). The top set of doors have a pull down wardrobe rail behind which is very practical and a great way to maximise use of space.

They were constructed and finished off site then installed, as @Airhead says that's the way to do it.

Ola is no longer in the business of built in stuff but we would genuinely have happily gone with one of the other two who were also recommended to us as they seemed really good too.

I think getting some decent ones installed before Christmas could be a challenge to be honest but good luck. @BQ knows a friendly carpenter so you might want to ask him too.