Owning your own home

The nails will only rip the belts if they are really proud of the surface, like 3 or 4mm. The sander will take down the heads of the brads as you sand, and give them a nice flush finish. You need to check that all boards are creak-free by walking up and down all of them before sanding. I left a single board screwed down so that I could get access later (countersunk pozidrive screws).

I'm glad the place I'm moving to has been recently done up, I think the only thing I need to do is knock up a cupboard for the boiler.

The pine boards are in really good nick, no varnish and with most of the nails hammered a bit below the surface already. There are a few little gaps to fill and the edges need a bit of tidying up, but it looks about as straightforward as it can be really. I'm sure it'll still be a right pain.
This is for a lounge something like 30m² or so and a hallway.

Fuck me they are expensive.

Something you learn very quickly! If you can find normal sized tiles (150mm, square) in a colour you like (or several colours) then you can save a bit of cash over the more expensive "fashionable" tiles (bigger, brick, bevelled edges etc). Tiling is pretty easy so you could save a bit more cash by doing a DIY job.

we're having 300x600 slate tiles on the floor, and bevelled tiles on the walls, which by the sounds of it both come in the "fashionable" bracket, unfortunately.
Deffo need to leave a bigger portion of the budget for tiles next time! (which hopefully wont be for a long time)

You'll probably have a relatively easy time with the boards then. Maybe go 80-grit upwards. Make sure everything is meticulously clean before putting varnish down, and wipe up dust with some rags and white spirit.

I think I blew £80 for just the Mapei adhesive for our tiny bathroom. It all adds up.

Just had my offer accepted on a place in Forest Gate. Apparently that was the easy bit! I'll be tapping up @tommmmmmm for tips no doubt...

Surveyors - my mortgage will be through First Direct who use Countrywide and the fee for their fullest survey is circa £750. I'm happy to pay for something more extensive than a Homebuyer report, but is that on the high side? Any local recommendations in East London?

it certainly was for me with lloyds the case that the surveyor is specified but the lender, so check that's the case with your bank. That doesn't seem too high (mine was c. £500 for the basic). the survey you need greatly depends on the property you're buying and the parts of the house/building that are your responsibility in the lease.

Ah ok that's good to know. I think FD will specify Countrywide, but I wondered if as well as them doing their basic valuation (at their own cost) whether I should do a separate, more thorough survey.

As the house is only 20 years old or so, I'm hopeful there's nothing too inherently wrong with it..

it'd probably be more cost effective if you want an advanced survey, seeing as you have to have a countrywide survey already, to get them to do a thorough survey than have the basic survey from Countrywide and another more thorough survey from a different company.

The vendor was planning to move the remainder of their existing mortgage over to the new property. Seeing as the new one is not a brick built one, the lender won't entertain that. Why this wasn't picked up by any number of organisations before now, I will never know. Anyway, they have to now find somewhere else. All's not lost, yet.

Fucking hell. Your vendor was trying to move into a Yurt?

Where does this leave you - waiting whilst the vendor finds a new mortgage, or a new house* to buy?

/*/Yurt, Wigwam, tree-house etc

(Fuck alone knows how to make an asterisk stay visible on the page btw)

* = \*

By that I mean you can escape the asterisk (or any other markdown characters) with a backslash.

*

There we go. Lucky you don't need to a fucking Computer Science grad to post, eh.

They hadn't actually checked what needs to be done to move their mortgage either, they just thought they would move and keep paying it like before. How the estate agent and/or solicitor didn't say "don't be so fucking stupid" at any point in the last seven months is what angers me most. Obviously the vendor is clueless and shouldn't be trusted around sharp objects but even still, if they are that clueless you would have thought someone would have paid more attention to the details instead of just letting it derail.

They are off to view/make an offer on another property tomorrow and then speak to their lender on Wednesday. I have expressed a wish for them to just GTFO and rent somewhere or move in with family or else they risk our mortgage offer expiring and being back to square one. We could easily get our offer extended but I don't want to tell them that.

I can only assume they were planning to buy one of those war era pre-fab type places

Or a yurt

@onyerbike glad to hear someone else is considering the merits of E7, where abouts is the place you've offered on? Happy to pass on some tips when I get them, my knowledge of the place is still a work in progress but I keep being pleasantly surprised.

All this talk of sanding floors is making me want to just hire someone to do it.

Could anyone tell me or PM me how much they paid or how much I might expect to pay for c.28 sq m downstairs and 15sq m upstairs?

I am in the process of hiring someone to do it. Waiting for the quote, he came round to measure up last week. I will comment again when it's in.

If you want a hand...

You can get this stuff that will clean the sanding belt if it gets clogged.