TheMitchells

looking forward to reading all about the build. Fab views! Good luck.

most people are more than happy to let you have things from their skips, if you ask.

Yes, I did get the extra tiles from there. I have fixed the ones under the breakfast bar but ran out of adhesive for the rest. they are quite a bit darker than the ones down but its only a small area so hopefully will not look too odd.

a rest! then we shall see. there is a really nice plot coming up soon near us but it may be out of our price range.

Ditto - I think we can all decide for ourselves which people we want to invest our savings in and I for one, think some of the people on this forum are far more worthy of the loan and I would be far more likely to get a better return on my investment than many other places.

is it all working?? looks nice and I am sure will bring some comfort to those winter nights coming up. Picture please of the fire in working order.

Great idea! we could add something! Particularly if we get our renovation sold soon.

yes it will as I have planted some lovely things - Peony and Alstromeria - that arent really looking their best at the moment. but they were all plants that i had spare. I just hope the new owner is a gardener and can appreciate the garden too. The next blog will hopefully be all the finished photographs. We hope to get all the odds and ends done by Christmas with only the wooden floor to do afterwards. Then it will be sold as soon as we get a good offer. the house two doors from ours has sold within two days of going on the market with a couple of buyers loosing out so I am having words with the estate agent and hopefully we'll get some of the disappointed buyers looking at ours. And while I am probably biased, I think our house is better than that one. I just need to see how much they acheived.

Finally!! At last there seems to be light at the end of the renovation tunnel. We had planned to have the house finished and up for sale by spring 2017 but that did not happen. Then the deadline was summer but no such luck , everything seems to take twice as long to do than planned. But at last we are nearing the finish line. The kitchen arrived at the end of October from Howdens and I thought we'd have it all fitted within a couple of weeks. Yet here we are nearing the end of November and its still not finished. Its half in but we cannot fit the breakfast bar and units till the flooring is done. We decided to keep the kitchen tiles for two reasons. A - they arent too bad - slate tiles which do clean up quite well and B - I tried taking one up and it was a nightmare. They have been concreted in, with underfloor wiring. So I agreed that we would keep them. However, that meant there were a couple of places where our new units did not match the position of the old ones and we needed some extra tiles to fill in. I found some similar tiles at Topps Tiles which should be fine. Apparently the slate tile is quite 'on trend' so it just shows that old things eventually become trendy and are worth keeping. ( I wonder if it applies to the OH??) This is the old kitchen before we took out the wall on the right hand side. That was half of the kitchen with a large range cooker taking up the other side. The breakfast bar is going where the old house wall was, which was taken out and replaced with rsj's. Once the rest of the wall was removed, we were left with a large hole as well as a lump of concrete. We worked out where the units were going and using an angle grinder, we took out the excess concrete so I could add the tiles. This was a really dusty job which the OH was not happy about doing but after covering everything up with sheets, as he cut, I hoovered up as much dust as I could and it wasnt as bad as we thought. But then when the units were placed in position, we'd got it wrong and we had to cut some more out! The OH was not impressed but in fact it only took half an hour and I had the area all cleaned up and ready for tiling. Unfortunatly that was when I came down with the flu bug which has meant no work for nearly a week, and then we are away for a few days at the weekend so its into another week before I can get the tiling done. Thats the way its been and why the renvation is taking much longer than planned. But never mind! We are getting there slowly. So here is the kitchen to date. The new sink and tap has been plumbed in and the oven (Ikea) and induction hub (Howdens) are in and working. Two sections of the Rustic Oak worktop are in place but now he is waiting for me to get back to work and get the additional tiles in place so he can add the breakfast bar units and top. The single unit on the right faces into the middle room and next to it will be a 700mm wall unit under the worktop and accessed from the main kitchen side. These units are where the wall was and it makes the kitchen much bigger. The compromise is that the breakfast bar takes space from the middle room but we think the kitchen was the important part and it does give much more storage than it ever had. The OH has been quite impressed by the Howdens units. The quality and fit have been very good and there have been some improvements made since the last kitchen we bought, ten years ago. Okay, it is not a top quality kitchen but we are very happy with it. Little things are much better. For example, the small bits of metal that support the shelves now have a little sticky up bit which locks the shelf in place so it does not slide out. And the legs were much better to fit and adjust than the old ones. The only issue occurred when he went to fit the legs onto the drawer unit (far left) and realised that the base had been put on upside down so the holes were actually inside the carcass. I rang the lcoal store and explained the problem but they did not seem to believe me (a mere woman - what would I know!!) and decided to send out a sales rep to see what the problem was. He turned up within the hour and was very good in arranging a replacement the following day once he agreed withour diagnosis. And we got to keep the old one as it was of no use to them - it would be impossible to turn the base round without damaging the unit. So all we need now are some drawer fronts and we have another drawer unit for free. In the rest of the house, the carpets and doors have been fitted to the bedrooms and stairs. The rest of the house has been plastered and I have been busy getting the garden sorted. We had pushed the garden back in front of the house to give ample room for sitting but I wanted to create a proper wall and border (I am a gardener after all). So I installed concrete foundations, then a twin wall using concrete blocks at the back and reclaimed bricks from the house. It took a lot of work but I am very pleased with the result. I did think that as the bricks were all odd sorts and colours we may have to paint the wall but it looks brilliant as it is. And we got the concrete blocks from a skip in BIcester so the only materials were the sand, cement and the coping stones for the top. I have used driveway pavers for the lawn edge and have now planted up the border. The only job now is to level the lawn and re seed where necessary. By the time we come to sell - probably in January or February now, it should all have settled in and the bulbs I have planted will be coming up - snowdrops and Narcissis. So what is left to do - finish the kitchen, clean and tile the kitchen floor, lots of odds and ends with CT1 and Filler, much painting, finish the coving in the lounge and then lay the bamboo flooring. Not much at all......

thats what I do so hopefully its okay.

I had three doors fitted and labour cost £140 so seems I had a bargain.

Its not my taste in fireplaces either but it has surprised me how many people have walked in and said they love it! And as its a renovation to sell, it makes sense to repair it rather than take it out and have to buy another one. I shall let you know how I get on once back on site - currentlydown with a cold so taking a few days off before getting back to work.

I have to repair parts of the fireplace in our front room and while I have the stone I am wondering how to match the new cement with the stuff already used? I have mixed up the sand with cement for the outside wall and its a completely differernt colour, more grey. So any suggestions on how to get something closer to the original? Thanks. It's Cotswold stone and the grout/cement used in similar in colour to the stone. The right hand side has a section missing and there is also some needed on the far left hand side which you cant really see from the photo's. here's what it looked like originally. I have removed the wood mantle but hope to get another nice oak mantle for it. should match the wood flooring which we plan to put down.

Nice spot Visti! we'd been looking at Graven Hill since it was first mentined by Cherwell but were disappointed by the layout of the roads - we want Passivhaus and a south facing garden but these are almost none existant on the edges, ie like your's over looking swales or wood. I may have to pop to their next open day when the latest plots are released. Good luck with it all.

we've just ordered our kitchen from Howdens - I'll let you know what its like after its fitted! The chap who came and measured up and did the plan was very clear about the difference in the door range. we've gone for the mdf wrapped round rqther than the cheaper chipboard. mid priced range.

And a lot of electricians will NOT certify others work unless they see it being installed. We've done most of the electrical work now so once his annual registration runs out, I doubt he will renew it. Unless we find that elusive plot or we do another renovation that needs the electrics replaced again.

pictures please!

When we contacted the local council BC regarding the new electrics planned for our renovation house, we were told they dont have anyone qualified to check electrics!. We'd have to find an electrician prepared to inspect it for us. Instead the OH joined a certifying Company. He had not bothered while he didnt need it but it cheaper to join up for a year then pay a local electrician. Lets hope you get somewhere with the senior staff at the company.

@PeterStarckWe were thinking of visiting the shop in Leicester as family live near there so we are often in that area. Let me know how much you need and I'll see if they'll do a deal on a larger order? we need to get it ordered sometime next month, I think.

If anyone sees any good offers for Bamboo flooring, I'd be glad to have the heads up. We'll be ordering in the next month or so. will need 24 sq metres of Natural strand woven and plan to get the Uniclic system as it does not need glueing down. Keep checking with Simply Bamboo and The Bamboo Flooring Co but neither have much off.

Welcome Amanda! Sounds like a very exciting project - we'll be with you all the way.

Have orderd the jenolite. sounds like just the right thing. thanks.

And yes, sleepless nights but not sure why. Just wake up in middle of night and brain will not let me go back to sleep so get up and do something for an hour. Usually works. Unfortunatly it also means I make mistakes - I'm not sure where a couple of those pictures come from at the end. I should have left it to check in the morning instead of posting straight away.

B&Q for the ceiling light. Not expensive at all but the OH said it was quite good quality and it does look nice. They have quite a good range of similar and as the ceiling height is only about 2.1m, we needed something that did not hang down much. Will see if I can find the box for the name. Unusually, we actually went into the store so dont have a link

thats not good news. its on about 4 corners. some worse than others. as we plan to sell it soon, i dont fancy the thought of having to get it all off and re-done.