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House Renovation: Yet More Quotes

// July 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal

Fi and I have been back up to the house again this evening. After work at 17:30 we hooked up with Chris (a builder) and Jason (an architect) to go over the work we are looking to have done. This evening’s quote was essentially for the same work as we were quoted for last night. We were put in contact with Chris by Morgan & Beddoe and I’ve had many phone conversations with Chris over the last few weeks so I was quite looking forwards to meeting them.

We went over the work that we wanted and they seemed to think everything was do-able. Chris also came up with a simple solution for our dilemma of how to shoe-horn a downstairs toilet in – we’re going to lose a bit of the ‘media room’ (i.e what is currently the garage) to accommodate it. I’m not super-excited by the fact that my home cinema is now 90 cm shorter (nor the fact that Fi is now referring to it as the ’snug’ room) but it does seem to be the most efficient use of floor space. We handed over a set of keys to Jason as he is going to return tomorrow with a structural surveyor and get to work on some drawings for us. I think that means that I have just spent the best part of £1000.

We also had a visit from Tim of Total Floor Care – a company that specialises in restoring wooden floors. It transpires that our hallway is solid oak (the rest of the downstairs is pine). He can restore it all to a high finish for about £1500. I think we will take his offer as if we lay new oak flooring we’re looking at spending around £3000. The only trouble is that his company aren’t available to restore the floor until September. Oh well, I suspect the house will be far from finished by then…

House Renovation: A Nice Electrician

// June 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal

After work today, I rushed to the house to meet an electrician. His name is John from InterServe and I found out about him from the Trust Intranet at work (a great recommendation from one of my nursing colleagues at Frenchay). He arrived promptly at 17:00 and seems nice enough. I asked him to quote me for adding/altering some power sockets and replacing some light switches. It turns out though that the lighting circuit does not meet current regulations (it’s unearthed) and needs updating. He also gave me some good advice about moving the main electricity board and general building tips. He’s quoted us £200 for the job (seems very reasonable). He’s even able to do it this weekend. This does, of course, mean that I have just given a complete stranger keys to my new home but considering there is nothing at all there worth stealing and the fact that I’m having the front and back doors (and locks) changed soon – I figured it’s worth the risk so that we can crack on and plaster the first floor.

Anyone know a good plasterer in the Bristol area?

House Renovation: First Weekend

// June 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal

Fi and I collected the keys to our first house on Friday (so exciting!). I had just finished a week of nights (they were horrendous – even for an ENT surgeon) and Fi was working until lunchtime so we collected them at around midday. We drove straight to the house (after collecting some batteries for my camcorder) and just enjoyed wandering around the house and trying to imagine what exactly we want to do to it (quite a bit).

I shot this video as a walk-around of the house to show what it looks like in it’s current state. I’m hoping that it will get better

As you can see from the video, the interior needs a lot of modernising. We are hoping to remove the wall currently separating the lounge and the breakfast room to make a large ‘L’-shaped lounge-come-dining room. We also want to enlarge the kitchen by knocking through into the downstairs toilet (we will, hopefully, relocate this to under the stairs). We want to convert the garage into a proper room (a small media-room/home cinema/spare bedroom). We also want to lay solid oak flooring downstairs.

Thom came around to have a nosy at our new purchase (you can hear him phoning Fi on the video in the background) and I think he likes it. He made a very reasonable point about flooring with oak; why not utilise the existing (we think) pine floorboards? They need restoring but if they can be restored to a nice finish it would save us £2000 – £3000! I got on the case and someone is coming out to quote us for this on Tuesday. If they’re not the ‘right’ type of wood for flooring or if it seems too expensive, we found a really nice flooring company on Zetland Road who we’ll probably use to fit oak flooring.

Saturday and Sunday were split shopping around Bristol for kitchen shops (and arranging for people to come out and quote us) and demolishing the inside of the house. We managed to rip out the fitted wardrobes in the bedrooms as well as the shelving units in the small bedroom and the lounge. I also pulled and rolled up the carpets in the lounge and the breakfast room.

Such fun!