canalsiderenovation

You do get some light at the top and bottom but it's massively improved my sleep and one reason we had to get them sorted sooner rather than later as I was waking up at 4am! I have just taken this pic at 10am so the sun is beaming. The blackout ones have a kind of foil in the middle of that makes sense.

Despite wanting to wait til the window ledges were painted we couldn't get on any longer without blinds in the bedroom and office. We decided on Luxaflex as we didn't like the perfect fit profile and Luxaflex has a very slim fit into the window. They weren't cheap and we didn't choose particularly expensive fabric. Three blackout bottom up, top down blinds for bedrooms W129*drop 93. Two non blackout blinds for office and lounge top down and bottom up (w86*drop 98, and w129 x drop 98). One fixed lounge window, top hung only (matching the other lounge window) around 2.3m in width. Six blinds in total were £1790 including fitting. We had a few different Luxaflex distributors quote, including looking at fitting them ourselves and Love Your Blinds were cheaper than going down the DIY route. Some pics below. The top up, bottom down is great for us, particularly being in a bungalow. Love the fact we can let light into some rooms at the top by having them lift up from the bottom giving us privacy - great in dressing room as it let's natural light in but you can block off the bottom (good if you need natural light for make up, hair etc) but aren't fully dressed!! Also work well in the office as you can block out particular sections of sun without having the blinds fully up or down. This is the lounge blind that is top hanging in a fixed window to match the one above that's a tilt and turn window. They are the same colour it's the sun! They are a sort of brown/grey.

Paperwork says not as you have to give details of boat, licence number etc.

Thanks @Mr Punter and @ProDave sounds a bit better. Perhaps I'll add this to the dad list when he gets sick of motorway barriers ?

Or pecking at the patio door for food whilst in a conference call.

Our plasterer says not as it's metal under the plaster but for the sake of 2mm I'm wondering whether to try and sand down some of the plaster. Unfortunately not, we only had glass ledges for two bathrooms and the kitchen the rest are MDF and it's a large kitchen window.

It's 8mm toughened safety glass with 5mm radius corners (frosted).

I didn't measure it so taking no responsibility for this! It's around 2mm too big. It's frosted glass. Any way of sorting this out rather than having to buy another? If anyone could pinpoint me in the direction of any suitable products to sort this that would be amazing.

My friend had a dutch barge built from scratch for his retirement as a liveaboard. It was 62ft and cost around £100k. It was stunning, literally all dovetail joints on internal mahogany woodwork. It was a real work of art.

Yes not far at all. I wouldn't have used the word chill over the previous weekend. There was a 3 hour wait at the staircase locks 5 mins walk away and we had a queue of boats. Tempers were fraying as there was only 3 let up then 3 down so it was manic. We can moor in our garden but you still have to pay a fee. Even as a continual cruiser with the various paperwork etc it isn't cheap. A fibreglass one may be a cheap alternative to start with. Canalworld forums are a great place to start but prices have rocketed recently. This was moored up opposite us last weekend in the queue for the staircase. A caravan and boat in one! You probably can't see it clearly but the boat at the back is a Caraboat.

We are on the Llangollen at Grindley Brook, in Whitchurch, right on the Cheshire/Shropshire border on the Sandstone Trail. It's not very secluded at the moment very busy with hire narrowboats. Our canal frontage is longer than that but we have a bywash too, basically we are sandwiched in between two canal bridges (pic before renovation).

We have mooring now so definitely at some point in the future when the house and garden is sorted. They ain't cheap!

Yesterday we worked so hard - all panels painted back and front and fixed on now. It's looking so good and I took some pics from towpath side too. The planting on the bank is looking good now too, kind of wildflower with lots of fox gloves. We did discover a baby bunny that obviously had tried to go under the motorway barriers and got it's head stuck and pretty much decapitated itself ? There will be a gravel limestone (we think) path then all the way along as the fence will continue outside our utility door too and all the way up. As yet there is no membrane the other side but the earth isn't exactly touching but it is preventing any fall off or gravel from the embankment tumbling down. I know it won't be to everyone's taste but we are happy.

Nope afraid not for me. CRT were very difficult and it would have costs thousands of pounds to even get their involvement to consider. We ended up with ASHP.

@ToughButterCup yep agree with you on the chickens. Ours have ended up in the wheelbarrow on more than one occasion and narrowly avoided being run over with the digger. They don't learn either. I dug into Geraldine's foot and took off one of her claws (I felt awful and it was a genuine accident). An hour later she was under the spade again.....

Yep the wood panels will be just fixed onto the barriers and with brackets so they can be lifted on and off for maintenance/replacement. All fence panels and posts should be on the weekend. And then we just have the other 20 metres to do but now we know what we are doing it shouldn't be too difficult.

Dad said these are galv steel too and concreted in.

Yep mainly agricultural use I believe. I don't want to harm anything though so will look at options. Got to get them all up first but it's looking good, really pleased with it.

Definitely! I'll find something else suitable seems to be lots of alternatives as long as it's dark brown that's all that matters.

It's nowhere near the water, opposite but not even close, infact it's the furthest point away from the canal. We have used creosote on our summer house multiple times since we have moved in which is closer to the canal (it was already done by the previous owner and we just continued with it using up what was left in the garage (I do wonder if it is the creosote substitute because it's the stuff seen on sale in shops around here). When we pulled down the sheds pre demolition everything was done in creosote - it still smelt of it when we got rid. I'm presuming dad means the creosote substitute type stuff because he can't get the proper stuff anymore though he use to have it when he did more agricultural work years ago. I remember me and my brother and sister travelling in the back of cattle box from a farm when he was doing some work and us finding it all very funny and complaining of the smell (not of cattle but of creosote - I'm sure this wasn't legal)! I'll double check though don't want to harm any wildlife as we have ducks that visit every day - our chickens are not impressed.

I bloody hope so, full credit goes to my dad! I'm an expert in mixing concrete though and lifting and shifting.

Ok so about half done and here's a glimpse of what we have done today and what they will look like with the fence panels bracketed on. The wooden posts are fixed onto the barriers/posts, not concreted in rather just for appearance. Really pleased with them and went for feather edge panels over waney lap. They will be sprayed with creosote or my dad said he does his with old engine oil so I'll opt for this easier job next weekend!

Saga is still ongoing.... We have a new smart meter being installed on Friday which will hopefully be the most up to date meter. Octopus have been very difficult to contact and I've been in direct contact with the CEO, or at least someone senior than the customer service advisors that sign their emails 'love and power' ? The have confirmed 'there are many customer accounts which have been affected by this' - as in the double billing issue - which would have been useful to know before I moved to them and relied on the app. As yet they cannot generate an actual bill based on my use but hopefully with the installation of a new meter this problem should be sorted. I've asked for significant compensation based on the stress this has caused to the point of obsessively measuring the electricity use and the fact that it took multiple phonecalls and emails to get someone who actually knew there was a problem despite it clearly affecting lots of customers and being dismissed multiple times. The initial compensation amount was £50 which I said was insulting so they asked me how much I wanted and I'm waiting to see if they will agree with my figure. I've had notification from Octopus with the 8 week letter that from 4th June 2021 I have the right to refer my complaint to the Ombudsman Services so let's see what happens. If I don't get agreement that's where I'll be sending a letter to. I presume they won't want it to go to the Ombudsman but we will see.

? Nope, and he is in Staffordshire and I should be an expert in pottery (I confess I did work in a pot bank and was pretty good at it)! Dad was raised on a farm and is very good at metal work (infact he's just brilliant at everything)! Although he should have retired a couple of years ago he is still very much working full time self employed as a mechanic with a lot of agricultural work so all the ground work, landscaping etc is now in his hands and he has all the equipment etc. On the plus we have gained lots of extra tools now - the track barrow is my new favorite thing and my cement mixing is as good as my cake mixing after a couple of dodgy mixes. So far I've kept out of the digger as I've got visions of me crashing into the house....

Thanks for this suggestion. I'll look into the cost of these too bad how it compares.