recoveringbuilder

Maybe I’m not the right person to answer this as I have an interior design qualification but I think self builds are a very personal choice, we have all put a lot of time and effort into the design and build and have already made a lot of choices regarding materials and have a vision of what we hope to achieve and this includes the interior. In our last build I had the interior designed before the house was completed, this time we were once again refurnishing the whole place other than beds but I decided to live with the basics until I got a feel for the place and within a few months I had it in my head how it should look. I think most self builders work to a very tight budget and as the build progresses and things don’t always go to plan , unforeseen costs crop up and very few would have the spare funds at the end of the build to then engage an interior designer.

Whatever you do don’t screw into the floor!

We have an insert pellet stove however originally it was to be a double sided wood burning stove, we have no chimney so a false wall was built using the attached product , this went right up to the ceiling (cathedral) with the flue inside then the black flue out through the roof, we then tiled the false chimney breast

Yes we had a leaflet through the door a few days ago regarding this, smoke alarms, heat and co2 alarms, luckily we have them all but I did wonder if the local authorities would be able to spend all that cash doing all their rental properties.

Good luck with that! We got ours just before lockdown and were told then that we wouldn’t get a completion certificate while covid was on the go , apparently they will not come out which seems odd since you can have a workman in your house doing work! AND I’ve just discovered it has run out last month so will need to get on to them and see if they’ll extend it 😩

Typical planning department, didn’t allow the brickwork or windows because they didn’t like them!

I quite believe they will all be busy, I can’t believe the way property is selling just now around here, I watch rightmove on a daily basis and the properties are no sooner on than they’re under offer, will be interesting to see once the sold house prices update what they are achieving over their asking price.

+1 nobody looks after your money the way you would yourself!

Here’s a rookie question, been reading through this thread and it has made me wonder why you all seem to be stuck on these foreign made windows, what do they have or offer that you cannot get from a British manufacturer? Our windows came as part of our kit (VEKA) and they are doing the job just fine so if I was to build again what would I be looking for that I dont have with my current windows? This is a genuine question by the way as I definitely want to get everything well researched before I attempt another!

Ended up going to an independent bm , £30 a ton for the sand £4 a bag of cement and blocks were 85p each. Went to Jewson yesterday for enewall fine scratch render £9.50 a bag. Unfortunately the blocks etc are still lying waiting for the brickie who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth! Just another diy job to add to the list 😩

We are finishing off a 6m x 6m garage at the moment, did the slab ourselves, brickie did the block work, hubby put up the roof trusses with help from a couple of friends, sheeted it’s ourselves and he and a friend have done the roof tiles and installed garage door, it has a window and a single entry door to one side.rendering will be done end of this week and gutters, all in has cost us around £7k , decided to diy when the builders quoted us £25k!

I have used engineered wood in our last three houses, originally wanted solid American black walnut but the company I was dealing with said no good with the ufh. One company I have dealt with online was ukflooringdirect, we had all our engineered stuff from them and they are great at sending out samples, we’ve had engineered oak in different widths and all good quality, we have only used laminate this time but bought it all from them too.

Town near us , an old hotel that’s been granted permission for flats is to have no car parking! This is a town where there’s not ample parking for the shoppers so there will be even less once the occupants of the flats have to use what spaces there are.

We had a howdens laminate in the dining room of our last house (built2008)it was 50m2 and we never had any trouble with it at all , sold the house in 2016 and it was still as good as the day it went down, ufh and no expansion joint. I imagine their laminate will only have gotten better since then.

Not all self builds will be worth more than they have cost you to build, depends how carried away you get with the finishings and how long you stay there, we stayed in our first one for 14years and ended up selling for 6 times what it had cost but 14 years was a long time. Having said all that there are some very cheap plots near us that you just wouldn’t entertain because they are in deprived areas where it would be hard to resell and at the end of the day it would cost you the same to build x house in a good area or a bad so always have one eye on the resell value.