Owning your own home

Unless you're a builder, have trade links, etc then I wouldn't refurb and sell. You won't recoup the cost of the work, never mind the hassle.

First rule of property- Don't sell. Especially in London. Especially east London.

It's safe to say at this stage that there isn't a clear consensus.

Hi all, in the process of buying a new house. It is a terraced house and we will (at some point in the future) be looking at extending. Both houses of either side have extended. They have extended up to the boundary. Would there be anything stopping us from doing the same? We have seen some terrace houses that have a gap but given they have built up to our boundary we would then be the only ones with the smaller footprint. Is this a risk at all? Thank you!

Unless there’s a planning restriction it’s not a problem. You’ll need party wall agreements. It’s unlikely that it will make your extension any smaller. It makes your life slightly easier in that it’s two less walls to build but slightly harder in that you need to work out if the walls were made of cheese :)

Good to hear! Thank you @Howard

Check out approved planning on that street with your local authority. Should give you an idea of what is going on.

My advice would be to speak to the architect who did your neighbour’s plans. They will have a very clear idea of what can be done.

And unapproved - useful to know what they don't like too. Planners round these parts a always seem to reference rejected plans.

Howard (to roofers) I hope you are going to remove all that sand and material from the gutters before you leave

Roofers: oh yeah, absolutely

Howard (internal monolog) I really want to get them to show me that the gutters work, but I don't want to be 'that guy' as they've been working really hard to rebuild our fucked chimney

Biblical rain: exists

Gutters: blocked

Slightly more exciting Sunday evening than I had hoped for.

Ours cleared the gutters, by rinsing it down into the drain. Gutters fine, drain blocked to fuck.

Ours cleared the gutters, by rinsing it down into the drain. Gutters fine, drain blocked to fuck.

Expectations meet reality!

Sent our builder a "get your shit together" email over the weekend asking for deadlines for completing the half started shit all around the house. Nothing. The two (really good) guys they sent out last week that were supposed to be here all week but only did Monday & Tuesday before being redirected elsewhere, were supposed to be here again this morning. Guess what?

Now resisting the urge to lump all their left behind tools out onto the pavement and tell them to get fucked. However, I'm not sure what belongs to the good guys and what belongs to the firm.

left behind tools

That’s really odd. You’d think if they were on another job they’d have taken that with them??

Slightly more exciting Sunday evening than I had hoped for.

That makes two of us. Mine was the sweet sound of gushing water after the cheap plastic tap on the cold feed of the washing machine I was moving snapped.

Seeing as they are primarily plasterers, I did wonder why they'd left a big paddle mixer

I’m sure this question has been asked loads of times, but any east London surveyors that get the forum stamp of approval?

Can recommend Pete Dowling at Mason Archer

Here's our chimney getting re-built.

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Mmmmm crumbly.

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90 bricks apparently.

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.

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Modelled after my favourite prett cake I guess

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Why is one pot shorter than the others?

It was the survivor of the original trio and didn't need replacement. You can't see it from the street or from the back of the house, so it saved a few £.