Recoveringbuilder

I have a ladder phobia too but did manage to overcome it once so that I could go up and ensure that I liked the bathroom layouts. Going up wasn’t as bad as I thought but it took me an age to pluck up the courage to go down. Did manage it eventually. 

Buy a cheap set of stairs and get it temporarily fitted. 

This one is free delivery. 

I second the cheap stairs suggestion. We bought a cheap set and had to cobble up a couple of extra steps at the bottom to make up the height difference. So much safer and easier for all concerned. Your tradies will thank you!

 

9 hours ago, jack said:

So much safer and easier for all concerned. Your tradies will thank you!

 

I included temporary construction stairs in the TF contract, having seen the benefit of what @jack  had installed. 

 

MBC bought cheap stairs from  the nearest BM and they were in place  from the very beginning, We removed them when we  were ready to install the permanent stairs and  MBC  collected them,   taking them to their next job,

Edited August 12, 2018 by HerbJ

7 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Buy a cheap set of stairs and get it temporarily fitted. 

This one is free delivery. 

 

I bought a set of those recently for an attic conversion I am working on. They are very good - suprisingly strong and stable (ahem) and a lot easier to use than paddle stairs.

I only paid £118 for mine though ....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Madrid-Wooden-Space-Saver-Staircase-Kit-Loft-Stair-Ladder/161243883154?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

8 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Buy a cheap set of stairs and get it temporarily fitted. 

This one is free delivery. 

 

52 minutes ago, Square Feet said:

 

I bought a set of those recently for an attic conversion I am working on. They are very good - suprisingly strong and stable (ahem) and a lot easier to use than paddle stairs.

I only paid £118 for mine though ....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Madrid-Wooden-Space-Saver-Staircase-Kit-Loft-Stair-Ladder/161243883154?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

Same one but cheaper. 

Too lazy to scroll through prices sorry

I’m having a wobble today, maybe more like an earthquake! I just looked my last blog post on 11th August where I said I believed the upstairs to be almost finished, well guess what , it’s 15 days later and still not finished! The boss of the company we’re using has been on holiday and the 3 boys left to do the job have done as little as possible either through ignorance or laziness, which I don’t know! The weather has turned colder and wet and miserable, hubby is back to work meaning 4.45 am rises , my dogs aren’t happy getting wet and mucky, the ground is like a quagmire, every time you go outside the caravan you get dirty, the date I was looking at moving in is 6 weeks away and when I go into the house and look at what has still to be done it depresses me.We decided to get a builder this time to speed things up and save us from having to work out who needed to come in when, well realistically we would have been as well doing it ourselves. Although they have admitted to being behind schedule they still refuse to work weekends finishing at 3 on a Friday and returning at 8am Monday morning, it’s crap sitting here all weekend with nothing happening. I have booked in a tiler for a fortnights time in an effort to speed up the plasterboarding and plastering, the pellet boiler will be installed this coming week but quite honestly I’ve had enough, the point of no return has long past there’s nothing to do but continue but quite honestly I wish we hadn’t started.

@Christine Walker, I will be following in your footsteps, quite some considerable distance behind. I have read all your posts with careful interest. I too will not doubt have times when its hard to see the end. I am rooting for you!

Sorry to hear that @Christine Walker. I'm sure it's the sudden change of the weather that hasn't helped. From scorching hot to back to normal, and it's been bloody cold here today too. When does your main builder return from holiday so that he can kick some arse? Hopefully he will be displeased that there has been little progress, and I'm damn sure that you will make him clear that you are displeased too. 

 

It's pretty grim building when the ground is wet and muddy and I know your dogs won't like their current situation as mine hated it too, leading to us having them in the caravan with us at night. Maybe you could consider doing that? Won't be easy but if it's something that's upsetting you then it will be one way of addressing it. Mine weren't actually on mud during the day as I don't think I could have coped with that TBH. We had the garage foundations put in and had a run with kennels erected around that. And I live near the beach so beach walks are sandy rather than muddy. A warm shower to get them clean might help too. There was no way I was going to try that in a caravan shower so I bought one of these. Fill the thing up with warm water and use to get mud off. 

 

Mobi Pressure Washer

 

And believe me we ALL wish we hadn't started at some point, and you've done amazingly well so far so hopefully just a blip. 

 

 

Thanks for your kind words! The main builder was back last week and my hubby made it clear to him that we weren’t happy but he’s a dour fellow and tried to make excuses for his useless team when my hubby told him he was needing to kick arse, we are waiting to see what transpires tomorrow but quite honestly if it continues this way we’d be as well doing it ourselves. I think the dogs miss being in our company more than anything, don’t get me wrong they’ve finished all the block work and roof and the render is now getting done as and when it’s dry enough to do so but most of the work that’s finished has been done by people they’ve brought in, they keep talking about ‘yes we’ll get the gutters on etc etc but it doesn’t happen, my hubby said to them they’d be better getting the gutters on the dormers before the roof tiles were all on, easier to access, but no, now they’ll need to stand on the tiles to do it! Exasperated!

If the quality of the work is not in question, then that is a positive. Quantity will come, but its better to stick with a crew thats at least turning out work thats to stay.  

Sit the builder down, away from everyone else and scratch the words into his brain, that you expect him to rally around and pick up the pace. Give deadlines, check every few days with him on how things are progressing and that works / trades are programmed in accordingly, and then just keep on at it. 

Leave them worry about logistics, and if they break a tile, they shall replace it so that should be of less consequence to you about how its done, just focus on when  

56 minutes ago, newhome said:

And believe me we ALL wish we hadn't started at some point, and you've done amazingly well so far so hopefully just a blip. 

 

I can think of two specific periods in our build when I felt like that, and in both cases things got better soon afterwards.

 

I think anyone who's built a house will recognise that feeling of despair, although you seem to be getting it big style. I don't know if it helps, but I just kept telling myself that one way or the other we'd get through it, and that once we did, the problems would become distant memories. There are still a few memories from our build that can annoy me if I think too hard about them, but they've faded with time, and left me with mostly good feelings about the process.

Is there anything specific we can do to help? Might be advice, but might just be shoulder to cry/shriek on. We're with you, either way. 

OMG apart from a few minor details you could be telling my story.  Earlier this year.  Lads arrive about 8 ish - and have a cup of tea/coffee; get on site about half past and start moving things about, whilst sharing youtube links and loud swearing. 9am it starts raining, so into the garage they go for more drinks.  It's cold so they switch on my 2kw patio heater.  10 o'clock it stops raining - 10.20 still no sign of them.  I get the courage to go and let them know that it has stopped raining - 'What --- it's arr break'.  BUT it nearly half past 10 and you haven't done any f&&king work yet.

 

Eventually, after I was told that half the work hadn't been quoted for and they wanted another 46k,  (Yep £46,000) they got told to piss off   I would sort it out myself and they were no longer needed.  (It wasn't really as simple as that).  So although mine is a new build rather than reno, in other ways we are pretty much at the same state.  I'm sorting plasterers, joiners, plumbers and electricians.  All doable if it wasn't for the fact that their work has to coordinate AND I have to get the suppliers to get the right things, at the right price, to the right place at the right time.  

 

Obviously this is a brief summary of many weeks of feeling sick, waking at 4 in the morning and downing wine every night.

 

You have my sympathy - you are not alone

Can you use anything like scrap pallets to give you an area outside the caravan that will be at least cleanish.

As above it's time for a serious sit down and a time scale marked out. You have other trades booked in and can't be pushed back.

16 minutes ago, jack said:

I can think of two specific periods in our build when I felt like that, and in both cases things got better soon afterwards.

 

I started thinking this sometime in April and it hasn't gone away yet!

 

The difference is that I now know it will be worth it in the end - back then if I could have easily done it it would have been exhaust into the car.  I just didn't have the energy to do it

53 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

I just didn't have the energy to do it

 

Thanks heavens for being sufficiently depressed! 

 

Seriously, if anyone's feeling really stressed, don't let it fester. Take a break if you can, talk to friends and family, get some counselling if you're feeling particularly bad, and slag off the chancers causing you grief on here. It all helps!

Hi Christine. Sounds like a very challenging time a few things you can rely on though - 

1. You are not alone we are all rooting for you.
2. Self building is very challenging but the sense of satisfaction when you come through it makes it all worth while.
3. Just to start a self build takes a lot of courage and sticking to it takes even more but in the ends its your goal that matters and the pain of apparent mountains in the road when you hit them will look like bumps in the road when you look back and see what you have achieved.
4. You have come an awful long way already, just a bit further and the sunlight uplands will be all yours.

Keep on keeping on and you will come through it.

Yep, had my own wobble this week. I tend to have a depressive episode around this time of year (second half of August, first half of September) and sort of know to discount it a bit. Last Sunday (19th) I went up to the site to try to finish off fitting the membrane on the west gable but what with the slight depression and it being the first day I'd been able to work at height for a week I was already feeling a bit frustrated. My safety glasses (needed most of the time for the reading bit on the bottom) kept misting up under the midge net and the scaffold tower was being awkward to put together and I rather lost it - threw a few bits of tower down pretty hard breaking one platform and one top ladder section.

 

Haven't been up to the site since except to check that no other parts of the scaffold tower are damaged and to pick up post.

 

Through the early part of the week I was pretty seriously thinking about giving up on the whole project. On Wednesday I went and had a look at the outside of a cheap ex-council house that's up for sale and started thinking through what I'd do with it, etc.

 

Since then I've been thinking on two separate tracks at the same time: if or if not, while trying to do useful things to get out the depression cycle, which I am but still feeling a bit fragile. E.g., today moved most of my office stuff up from the living room to the small bedroom as that'll be a lot easier to heat in the winter.

 

So, yeah, maybe this forum needs a Mental Health section. Whatever, reading and talking on here has helped. Thanks all.

 

More amusingly, either I'm reading this wrong or you have very well-trained and dexterous dogs…

 

2 hours ago, Christine Walker said:

I think the dogs miss being in our company more than anything, don’t get me wrong they’ve finished all the block work and roof and the render is now getting done

 

 

Edited August 26, 2018 by Ed Davies

Although this is Christine’s 3rd self build this is the first one where they have contracted most of the work out to a builder to do / arrange and whereas in the past they would have worked like Trojans themselves to catch up the builders don’t have the same sense of urgency. It’s not their build and it’s not particularly inconveniencing them so they don’t have the same motivation I guess. Frustrating I know. 

5 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

More amusingly, either I'm reading this wrong or you have very well-trained and dexterous dogs…

 

Lol, it’s funny when you read it like you did ?. I bet @Christine Walker‘s dogs could do a better job especially if they are a working breed ?. 

24 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

More amusingly, either I'm reading this wrong or you have very well-trained and dexterous dogs…

Are you hiring them out @Christine Walker could make a fortune lol

59 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

So, yeah, maybe this forum needs a Mental Health section. Whatever, reading and talking on here has helped. Thanks all.

 

You’re not the first and won’t be the last to experience the real lows, and men are less likely to talk about it. Having somewhere to talk about it, or read that it’s not just you that is having problems, is the start to being able to find a solution for yourself. 

 

Keep talking. 

Hi @Ed Davies this forum is pretty good at support. Just coming on here and off loading like you have can be quite cathartic. It also helps with self analysing why we are feeling like we are. For those people who are self building as a lone venture it really is a lonely place to be, and even for those with families it can be quite isolating, especially when a few things go wrong in close succession and it feels like a downward spiral. You just have to cling on for a bit until the storm breaks because it invariably does and things start to pick up. 

God how I wish my dogs could do it I’m sure they would have the same sense of urgency as we do! Yes you’re right it can be a lonely place a building site, we get very few visitors even the family don’t visit because I suspect they can’t comprehend how we can live in a caravan, my son in particular thinks we should just buy a house and settle ourselves down but for the money we had we were only going to get a small house and we’ve tried that already and it didn’t work.We too went and looked at an ex council house just after the foundation was poured and it didn’t go as planned, but we decided to continue and I’m sure in the end it will be fine but you do get these moments when it all gets too much, for me writing it down did help and all your words of encouragement are much appreciated 

Hi, 

I hope things are feeling ..... you are feeling a little more able to cope today