Yzzy

That's sad but I totally get the sudden allergy to things, it's not just joints that mess up as the years tick on!! I am ADD so have a natural go-go-go in me that never wants to stop-stop-stop but my body gets to a certain point as says FFS NO MORE! and I end up walking like a 98 year old with soiled knickers for 24 hours while I heal!!! Youth is SO wasted on the young!

Oh heck well seeing as I am already facing major issues with the 'old' house and figs I'll keep my willow in a large tub! lol

One of my favorite trees is Willow, my eldest bought me a sapling last year... I love Pussy Willow too... Allergy to the sap / flower ? How awful :-(

oohh glad I looked in here.. I am loving the fedge! http://www.thewillowbank.com/living-willow-structure-products/buy-living-willow-hedge-fence/

OMG ho many on each pallet?

Another question...... if we have a small caravan in the garden for making tea and having a pee..... does that then make the house 'occupied'? It wont be for living in, just for a rest room although it will have beds in it etc of course..

Excellent, thank you!

woah... looks huge!

So this is my plan... after the lotto win of course! At the moment there is a wall between the kitchen and the dining room (we always called it the breakfast room but they didn't have that option in the software! lol ) There is also a door from the small lounge towards the stairs which I want blocked off.... The room marked 'other room' was our library but I want to build a wall down part of it, use the bigger part as a utility room / larder and the smaller part as a closet for coats and shoes. I was wanting folding doors on to the back garden and on to the side garden but someone said they are rubbish and aren't wind tight so I'm thinking sliding doors at the back (West facing) and french for the side (South facing)... I kinda like the idea of opening up the walls and not seeing the doors though so will sulk about that when the time comes. The upstairs is pretty much the same layout apart from no room where the toilet is and the small dining room..... The main part of the house (the original red brick build in 1900) seems to be solid and lovely... the back part (yellow brick added sometime before 1920) was slapped up by idiots, the flat roof is leaking like crazy and is rotting, the bathroom is falling in to the kitchen below it and the outside loo building as I said above has budlia and other fauna growing in it... Oh and there is a small box room above where the front door vestibule is.... we used it as a sewing / ironing room but I don't do any of that rubbish so it will be a little bedroom....

Outside the kitchen back door we have an outside toilet, the roof of which extends to join the rest of the house to cover the entrance to the loo. What we would like to do is extend the loo and make it part of the house.... Trouble is the loo walls have been infested with Buddleia Davidii quite badly so we need to take it all down and re-build. I'm saying we dont need planning permission to do that but a friend is telling me if we destroy the building we need permission to re-build it, especially as it's an outside 'room' now being made in to an inside room... This is daft surely? We can do what we want can't we as it's already there.. we're just fixing it and blocking off the exit...

I've been using www.homestyler.com but was wondering if anyone had a better suggestion... ?

I did consider putting the guano in the back garden but that all has to come up as it is devastated by a million fig trees.... *sigh*

What's an 'Essex' garden and why am I sensing it's meant as an insult? Mediterranean gardens are mostly paved with pots for plants... are they based on some 'Essex' design I haven't heard of? There's permit parking on the road... we thought it makes sense to use the front for extra parking, the front garden wasn't ever sat in or used plus the huge Sycamore tree outside on the pavement covers the whole place every year in leaves. There's a thin strip of planting space along the house edge that we will keep as a flower bed so old ladies have something to froo froo over as they walk past, the rest will be lavender and various other plants in pots of some description. This is all in my head of course because the likely outcome is we don't find enough money to actually do anything apart from empty the house and will be forced to sell it and carry on as we are...... only 500k richer lol

Thanks all for the tips... one 8y drop end skip ordered for Saturday! yay!!!!!

a door? What a door in the actual skip or an old door to use as a ramp (I'm a skip virgin!) ok did some googling and some have flaps.... cool

Stupid question time... dont laugh! Do skips come with planks to wheel your barrow up?

I was planning on going to the house today but my eldest son wasn't home to sit in the house while the Maths Tutor is here (youngest boys are home educated) so I am on my sofa with laptop picking what skip to hire for delivery on Saturday... (not that I don't trust the tutor alone with the boys but you know...) I've changed my 12 month plan a bit (mainly due to being ahead of schedule) and am going to get a 6Y skip and hopefully between hubby and I we can empty the front garden of all the plants, soil and masonry... Although I may keep some of the odd, lumpy, black brick things framing the flower beds and make a rockery in one corner. The goal for that garden is to have it paved and any plants to be grown in tubs / pots .... and the rockery of course if I have one! So, today is all about ordering the skip and picking 2 wheel barrows for us.... oohhh and some shovels! yay I get to do more online window shopping....

ooohh Onoff that's a good price... My German is good enough to understand luckily.... Free delivery though? Really! Hmmmm Ahhhh that's for a wheel!!!!! LMAO! It's £41.34 for the Angled barrow

That's one thing that was putting me off.... there is a LOT of rubbish about the house / garden and I could just see the tyres puncturing every few minutes and me ripping my hair out.... solid tyres it has to be!

This is literally the only bloody thing I understood from this whole thread.....!!!!!! Can I borrow that spoon to slap my eyeballs out?

Your cat reminds me of one of mine...... I am a cat fiend.... Horses are my fave animals but you know.... you cant get many of them to a lounge.... cats...... love...... cats..... I haz free katzes at the moment and they make me mis-spell everything to do with them.... magical animzls...... (plus I am 1/2 Czech) Miska (Mishka) - means mouse Siska (Shishka) - means dumpling Whisper..... well yeah she was named by my American hubba! I did have an amazing Tom Cat called Spider...... he had black fur, black whiskers and was built like a bear....... someone stole him.... (ok this is turning in to a pet thing, is there a pet section? lol )

The floors are all floorboards, I'm hoping the bedroom floorboards have had enough 'hoarded crap' to have protected them from the 'flappy crap' but the ceilings / attic flooring will have to come out, that will be saturated! I've lived on a farm, kept hens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, horses, goats, guinea pigs etc and have never even considered a mask..... this is a new experience even for me... layers upon layers of fragrant guano! A few foot at a time.... go outside and breath... few more foot... plenty of Jeyes... even kills birdflu! (plus I love the smell of it!) OK will go and look at the barrows, I need it to wheel rubbish / soil etc from back garden to the skip.

OK so as I am trying to do everything free or as cheap as possible the pigeon infestation is down to me.... got a full suit, gloves, trusty DM boots, Jeyes 5l, garden sprayer and..... are these ok? https://www.diy.com/departments/jsp-semi-disposable-half-respiratory-mask/32263_BQ.prd I am planning on opening up windows (for fugitives to escape) damping down with Jeyes, leaving it for about 10 minutes, and then tackling a few feet at a time, my hope is to be able to hire a skip with a chute so I can just ooof it all out the window in to the skip. The photos show one of the bad rooms (so far, one room hasn't been looked in yet as it's still housing flappy crappers) and the stairs....

Handheld what!!!!?? On second thoughts.....

oohhh am I allowed to say ass crack.... oh no I said it twice now!!!! sorry