Show us yer house and house-related meddlings

[Looby]

Sprocket, the room looks lovely.

I need flooring advice.
Currently we have laminate through the living room and hall and carpet in the dining room (over a very dodgy/wonky floor which will need repairing. We’d like something that will suit throughout downstairs apart from the kitchen but our budget is low.
Carpet is out.
We have three dogs who are mucky so it needs to be easy to keep clean.
We’ll get it fitted this time.

A couple of friends have Karndean flooring and it looks nice but I think what they have is going to be far too expensive. We need to replace the carpet upstairs too but we’re waiting until the puppy stops eating stuff.
Living room is green with tan leather sofas, hall will be blue and not sure about dining room.

What have you all got/want/would recommend? Thanks!

 

[danski]

Sprocket, the room looks lovely.

I need flooring advice.
Currently we have laminate through the living room and hall and carpet in the dining room (over a very dodgy/wonky floor which will need repairing. We’d like something that will suit throughout downstairs apart from the kitchen but our budget is low.
Carpet is out.
We have three dogs who are mucky so it needs to be easy to keep clean.
We’ll get it fitted this time.

A couple of friends have Karndean flooring and it looks nice but I think what they have is going to be far too expensive. We need to replace the carpet upstairs too but we’re waiting until the puppy stops eating stuff.
Living room is green with tan leather sofas, hall will be blue and not sure about dining room.

What have you all got/want/would recommend? Thanks!

Have a look at Flooring Hut - Karndean - Polyflor - Amtico - Carpets - Underlay - Vinyl - Wood
Get some samples. We went for Polyflor Lvt. Far cheaper than Karndean and it’s what our fitter had put in his house.
Flooring hut was really helpful when I kept fluffing up my order.

 

[equationgirl]

Found the before pic of that one ^
View attachment 235885

Don't have a clue what must have happened for them to put all that concrete down.

Some of the parquet looks like it was removed/relaid at some point as there are weird gaps right at the top of the pic, although I don't think it all was.

Another one of the many mysteries of this house.

That's really quite odd. I wonder if someone got a job lot of parquet and then halfway through found out they didn't have quite enough and somebody suggested making nice shapes and filling in the gaps with concrete...

 

[Boudicca]

I suspect some of the floor was rotten or damaged, so they took that out and filled with concrete to level off before putting something else down on top.

 

[teuchter]

I think they may be from the previous locations of partition walls. This theory is supported by the fact that the tiles don't line up from one side to the other of some of the cement strips. It would also be a bit odd for a floor to go rotten in that kind of pattern.

 

[mauvais]

I thought maybe some intervention had been required like access to underfloor pipes, but your partition wall idea is more likely.

 

[equationgirl]

I think they may be from the previous locations of partition walls. This theory is supported by the fact that the tiles don't line up from one side to the other of some of the cement strips. It would also be a bit odd for a floor to go rotten in that kind of pattern.

Look at the shapes if they're partition walls, admittedly we can only see part of the view but there's some quite strange nooks and crannies if those are where walls are. In my opinion, of course.

 

[Looby]

Have a look at Flooring Hut - Karndean - Polyflor - Amtico - Carpets - Underlay - Vinyl - Wood
Get some samples. We went for Polyflor Lvt. Far cheaper than Karndean and it’s what our fitter had put in his house.
Flooring hut was really helpful when I kept fluffing up my order.

Thanks! It seems like LVT is what we need.

 

[danski]

I think they may be from the previous locations of partition walls. This theory is supported by the fact that the tiles don't line up from one side to the other of some of the cement strips. It would also be a bit odd for a floor to go rotten in that kind of pattern.

Never noticed the not lining up before. Well spotted.
I did cross my mind about walls being removed as there has been a bit of previous work, to say the least.

However, there is a fire place to the left of the pic which has a brick chimney right up to roof (certain it's original) which would never be so close to a wall or not the focal point of the room. Also the concrete bits are too wide for stud walls and there is another strip of concrete to the bottom right that went toward the window.

Fuck knows

 

[Cloo]

Picked up some prints my sister hasn't got room for at her new place. Think they're all ones my dad bough - large one is The Alhambra, by Czech artist T F Simon, upper one beside it is another Simon - Paris we think, lower right one is domestic scene by a Russian artist, name looks like Maskova, so presumably a woman. I took another large Simon Paris scene which turns out to be a companion to one we've already hung, so I've hung it next to that and gsv's not noticed the replacement! Simon was pretty prolific so not expensive and my dad's been collecting them. Gsv's not a great fan so I've hung these in the spare room which is my office these days - might as well have something to look at!

 

[bimble]

public service broadcast: don't impulsively start painting your kitchen chairs green without even cleaning them first just because it seems like a good idea and you have work to do that you're avoiding.

those look great Cloo, the repeated tower shape.

 

[Cloo]

Thanks bimble - I just eyeballed it so I'm sure the distance between them would drive gsv mad, but he doesn't go in that room much, so I'm doing it my way (he spends many hours with rulers and spirit levels to get things just so when hanging pictures)

I've also swapped out another picture at top of stairs (will see if he notices) as the one that was at the top of the stairs could go as a set with two already hanging downstairs.

 

[Looby]

Sorry, can I ask more questions please?
My landlord is getting our bathroom done. It’s a pretty big job as it’s large, old and damp.
New suite plus separate shower. The bath will be moved.
The floor will need to be levelled before tiling.
Walls and ceiling replastered and walls fully tiled.
How long am I likely to not have a bath/shower for?


My friend has said I could stay there but that’ll depend on what lockdown restrictions there are in 3 weeks when they start. Ditto using the gym.

 

[teuchter]

With some good builders it could probably be done in 2-4 days. But it could also take a lot longer, if it's just one person and/or they get distracted onto other jobs, or aren't well organised.

It seems like a question you need to ask your landlord rather than u75.

Trying to negotiate a discount on your rent for the period of time the work is going on, might incentivise a fast job.

 

[Looby]

With some good builders it could probably be done in 2-4 days. But it could also take a lot longer, if it's just one person and/or they get distracted onto other jobs, or aren't well organised.

It seems like a question you need to ask your landlord rather than u75.

Trying to negotiate a discount on your rent for the period of time the work is going on, might incentivise a fast job.

I won’t be negotiating a rent reduction, I have a low rent anyway and this is being done because we really want and need it.
I will of course discuss it with my landlord but I thought I’d ask here in the meantime, I hope that’s acceptable.

2-4 days sounds good but a bit ambitious knowing what a hole the bathroom currently is but I clearly don’t know which is why I’m asking here.
The person doing the job is friends with the landlord so I don’t think we’ll be dicked around.

 

[mauvais]

It took our ones (two people) 2-3 weeks of fairly solid work to do that. It was a big room.

 

[Looby]

It took our ones (two people) 2-3 weeks of fairly solid work to do that. It was a big room.

Did you have no bath or shower the whole time? I’m just trying to work out if I should go and stay elsewhere. Mr Looby will cope with washing over the sink and popping somewhere for a shower every few days. I won’t.
It is a big room. Old house so it used to be a bedroom. I expect the damp walls will come tumbling down when the old tiles come off. The plumbing is very very old. It’s been a nightmare and I am so fucking excited to have a shower and walls that aren’t black and don’t need to be mopped.

 

[mauvais]

We 'moved' the bathroom from one room to another, by fitting out a new one and only then destroying the old one, so that didn't arise. Normally they leave the toilet connected at the end of each day but everything else will be done when it's done.

 

[Looby]

That sounds much more civilised.

 

[Sapphireblue]

there will definitely be a pause of a day or two for the replastering to dry after the rip out and before they can start tiling, and then tiling takes the longest. i would definitely expect 4 days minimum without facilities although as mentioned they might be able to leave the loo connected til last if you don't have another one. the other thing is if the workmen are doing more then one place they might not come straight back as soon as the plastering is dry because they're busy with another job. so you could add a couple more days on for that.

 

[Boudicca]

Know anyone with a camping shower you could borrow Looby?

 

[Looby]

there will definitely be a pause of a day or two for the replastering to dry after the rip out and before they can start tiling, and then tiling takes the longest. i would definitely expect 4 days minimum without facilities although as mentioned they might be able to leave the loo connected til last if you don't have another one. the other thing is if the workmen are doing more then one place they might not come straight back as soon as the plastering is dry because they're busy with another job. so you could add a couple more days on for that.

They definitely won’t leave us without a toilet they said, it’s our only one.

 

[Looby]

Know anyone with a camping shower you could borrow Looby?

View attachment 236944

I don’t but could be handy for hair washing.
A friend said I can use her bath when they’re out. I might still be able to wangle a stay at another friends if I don’t come home again. I don’t think I can WFH here anyway with noise and barking etc Mr Looby can deal with the noise, mess and dogs.

 

[mauvais]

We've got some paint.



The skirts etc aren't the final colour, that's undercoat.

Walls are Farrow and Ball Ammonite, woodwork will be F&B Railings.

Parquet goes in late this week.

 

[equationgirl]

Looking forward to seeing the finished results mauvais .

 

[mauvais]

I got some belated photos from the roofers today from work done in September.

Our house has a weird parapet at the front. This relates to the sloping roof on the interior. It also relates to how, when it rained, we got water pouring in through the ceiling.

This is the far end, with a step in it. Half of this raised section is ours, half is next door's.

You can see the step in the second photo too, and it flows from this into a thin, main gutter and immediately fills up with crap. This then flows behind the camera to a hole and a drain as you'll see in a minute.



Well, after the work it looks like this:



This is some modern plastic-based material instead of lead, I forget what exactly. The whole section is widened, the step is smoothed out and we should get less grief for blocked water.

Looks pretty smart to me.

 

[teuchter]

Yup that looks like a big improvement (as long as the continuous slope, rather than previous stepped arrangement, doesn't allow the water to reach a velocity such that it overshoots the hopper at the end when there's heavy rain).

In theory you could have some problems with damp getting into that parapet wall, where the capping pieces on the top are damaged. Would depend partly if there's any damp proof layer immediately below them (like some kind of tar type stuff or slates).

 

[mauvais]

Yeah, I might get that looked at, the whole front of the house is getting repointed so there's an opportunity. I don't know what the availability of matching/fitting capping pieces would be.

 

[teuchter]

Yeah, I might get that looked at, the whole front of the house is getting repointed so there's an opportunity. I don't know what the availability of matching/fitting capping pieces would be.

Probably not that easy to find matching replacements. There are two potential routes fro water to get into the wall: gradually through the gaps between the capping pieces (and damaged sections) and into the middle of the brickwork below. You can potentially deal with that by introducing a modern damp proof course somewhere below the capping. The other is that where they are badly damaged, they no longer project past the wall face, so they don't shed heavy rainfall away from the face of the brickwork. I think you can see, under one of the broken cappings, the face of the brickwork is spalled away which normally means it's getting saturated. To deal with this you need to somehow re-instate a projection of the capping at those points.

 

[Cloo]

Dumb question, but does anyone know what the hell is the status of having workmen in during this lockdown? Is it allowed as paid work? Or are you only supposed to be doing essential repairs? Or is it just 'at your own risk' by mutual agreement?

Cos it'd be good to have our front room redecorated in the next month or two and we could do it fairly low-risk as in we'd not be in the same room and we can declare one loo just for decorator during the day