How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

That pipework!

Please leave some of that exposed, it's like a vintage organ.

I'm very happy with how it's turned out. You'll see some of what will be inside the boiler cupboard. The house is/was such a horrible mess of bodges from the previous owners that I vowed that I'd do everything as well as my meagre wage will allow and wait for the best tradespeople even if it's a very long way away. UFH and manifold not down yet but they've done a huge ammount of work for two people for one day.

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No, I haven't got that far. It's only concrete in the kitchen (similar size to @user67526 ), the rest needs insulating and I'm hoping under the flooring it's mostly not rotten. Kind of thinking about demolishing the kitchen floor DIY but imagine I'll hate it.

You may find you get condensation and then mould in that space between the boiler and the external wall, mind.

mould

Fwiw the roseal anti mould paint has worked really well in our bathroom.

Aye you can do that when the ceiling is ripped down and you’ve charged a hefty premium on the job.

does that make it less pleasing to see a job seemingly done well?

Good work, although I still can't stop admiring the door!

Are you sure the Millwall text isn't an early Times New Roadman, you should maybe get it valued ;)

As everyone has said that pipework is really impressive. There seems to be a correlation with plumbers between neatness and quality of work in general. Does he go north of the river?

Our plumber was similar, great guy. Can share deets.

Personally I hate neat pipes. My diy mixture of five different materials and diameters has far more charm. You should see my flexi hoses.

Coloured taps - like bright primary coloured taps - do these exist?
Can I get some taps powder coated?

Vola.

Does he go north of the river?

He can do indeed but depends on how north.

AXOR by Barber Osgerby now too

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Our architect wants to remove the chimney breast in one of our bedrooms as part of his plan for our extension, but there's a cast iron fireplace in there that I'd like to keep. Is it mad to remove the breast, but re-install it against the wall? It's only there for aesthetics - not for fires! They must recess into the wall a bit, but would it be too much to make it work?

Is it mad to remove the breast, but re-install it against the wall?

It's a lot of effort for something weird

Do it if you want to. Will look nice, even if it doesn’t work. Do it yourself if they say it will be a lot extra, but they can probably leave the gap for not when they rebuild the wall up. After removing the chimney

At the end of the day your the client and are footing the bill, if you dont want it out and think its a waste of money just tell them.

Archtiects will have you spending money you dont want to for there own gains if they get half a chance.

100% get rid of the chimney breast, it’s not that much work and will make any space much more useable.

Screwing the fire surround back on is like a one hour job so why not. I can see your architect rolling their eyes from here though 😂

Yeah that’ll look weird.
Removing chimney breasts does free up a lot of room though, kinda wish I’d done it but didn’t want to remove anything original.

Architect did indeed roll his eyes. I'm a little torn. The chimney breast on ground floor is going, for good reasons, and he wants to get rid of it on first floor too. But I don't want to lose a nice original feature. Totally fine with it being a bit fake and against a wall with no actual chimney behind though. Other option is to put it in our main bedroom, where there would have been one, but has long since been removed.

If you're taking the chimney out then that is because you don't need it, so you won't need the surround. Fixing it to a flat wall will look odd, like it's some kind of relic on display. But if you really like it then put it somewhere it can feel part of the room, rather than a bit of an oddity - could you build some storage around it etc

Sell it to an architectural salvage firm, profit, enjoy the space. That's what I'd do anyway.

As a general rule unless your architect is batshit it's probably a good idea to listen to them (it will look odd).

Archtiects will have you spending money you dont want to for there own gains if they get half a chance.

This is a crude and often inaccurate stereotype about architects, a good one will be trying to help you keep it on budget through their design choices.

+1 money well spent imo