How do I bathroom / kitchen / extension? etc.

I asked an electrician I've used before for a quote on replacing the fronts of some sockets and changing some light fixtures

the final quote is over £1k.

Lol

Can I politely ask what his day rate is instead? Or should I just find someone cheaper?

Nah, they don’t want to do it. Find someone else.

Changing sockets is a 5 minute job. DIY it.

Changing sockets is often a 5 minute job but I've also done incredibly annoying ones in the past that take ages and it's not something where you can just go "fuck it" and leave the wires there.

Main issue I've often had is where the wires are really short so you're attempting to wire it up with no slack to actually hold stuff in place. Or there's a corroding choc block with seemingly a dozen wires stuffed in there and you discover the wago connectors you have aren't big enough.

*laughs in red blue black to green brown blue*

And *fuck me, why are they all brown*

Ha.

Chuckles in 5yr new build with fully compliant electrics / plumbing etc. So nice.

Ok thanks everyone, I'll do the sockets my self!

Anyone have a north London (Muswell Hill) plumber recommendation? I need my mum’s bath swapped out for a shower

Got somebody in to finish the floor and oil it. he’s done a fantastic job, it’s about to get a second coat.
had some issues as it’s been brutally sanded at some point and there’s lots of movement in high traffic areas so as a bit of an experiment we core drilled a few holes and filled them with foam which has done a good job of removing some of the movement and hopefully we never have to rip this up as you can’t buy this stuff anymore.
I love the random heartwood/sapwood changes and can’t believe we contemplated staining them.

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looks incredible.

What's the oil that's been used? I can see the osmo label but not the model

standard polyX satin.
which was very cheap from a decorators mate store in streatham hill, less than £80 a tin compared to over £100 at LDM down the road.

Just got the quote in from the contractor recommended by my architect, and it's taking us like 140% over budget. And this was after the contractor suggested on a visit what we'd be looking at, and it was like 120% over budget, and we told our architect that it needed to be resolved. Not sure what the next stage is but I'm pretty bored of stressing about this stuff. Meanwhile I need to send him thousands of pounds in payment for stage 4b. How does anyone go through this stuff without losing their mind?

No going back now 😬

Already hit a snag; whilst digging the foundation trenches, discovered that our neighbour’s side return infill extension was built by cowboys with zero footings, so we now have to dig and pour our trench foundation in stages (taking much longer), or dig a perpendicular trench and embed a steel beam (more expensive)…

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You should keep the outdoor toilet

Sadly, a story as old as time…

What's the plan for this? Are you keeping the side access?

This is why I'm self-building full time on our renovation: it's incredibly hard to find main contractors whose pricing isn't absolutely insane, and some of them are really taking the piss (not saying yours is, if they were you'd probably be looking at 200% over budget).

We did the maths and realised it would be a lot cheaper for me to not work and pay me a token wage (enough to live reasonably comfortably, but I don't cost much) to project manage, do as much as I can myself and procure everything. Our architects reckon we'll probably save a six-figure sum.

Incredible, isn't it?

Feels like all decent trades are around 300 quid a day. If you’re competent and it’s nothing structural/gas it’s an easy choice if you can make the time.

Have you done the sums on taking twice as long as you originally thought?
Speaking from experience of doing something similar….

Same old same old, no one listens and they love going over budget!

would you mind sharing your plans? we have the exact same layout and also the same side access and contemplating an extension.

That’s my maths.
Although now maybe 1.5x slower.
Usually better quality than cheap trades too.
Pal of mine is redoing all his new woodwork as trade was bargain basement and results awful.

I probably took on more than I could chew but I’m happy with the work I did myself and of the trades apart from a shite tiler.
In fact the trades were not extortionate and really easy to deal with even when thing were missed or not quite right there was never an issue, good people are out there you just have to find them or get lucky.
The real savings are the long tedious fiddly things like stripping back crittall windows to the galvanising by hand and repainting them properly, I shudder to think of the hours I put into that job or how many £k you would have to pay to do it to the same standard as me.
The day you get your life/weekends back and can sit in the fruits of your labour is likely to be amazing, I’m about 2-3 weeks away from that!

Anyone got a good suggestion for an airbrick cover?

One that you can slide and doesn't look shit. Wall will probably be white, so white is fine, paintable would be even better.

This sort of thing:

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