canalsiderenovation

Ok so I convinced SWMBO that open shelves is out and to go for more of a dressing room look and as long as we get a centre island we have agreement! Even after going round and round with Ikea designs and looking at similar such as DIY kitchens it wasn't giving us exactly what we wanted and then we would need a joiner to hack it all in. We went back to a company that makes fitted furniture and I can share my very professional sketch (measurements have been mentioned above). Basically wardrobes along the left hand side as you walk in (hinged) merging into a corner wardrobe all floor to ceiling and then all lower cupboards (TV above). Hers and hers dressing tables at the corner and then a window seat under the window with cupboards and storage below. Island in middle with drawers and we can source granite. We haven't had drawers in other places as we generally prefer Ikea boxes/storage solutions. The price for this is just over £6k and that includes it being sprayed in a colour of choice (they tend to use Farrow and Ball or similar). Not sure if this is good value or not.

I can now report that a resolution has been sorted and implemented. We now have a working app and smart meter that is working alongside the app. Octopus have finally been able to generate a bill based on our use from the end of Feb til the 16 June. Our use seems a bit excessive as we were hammering the heating earlier in the year and we didn't have insulation. Total units 2328.9 (split between 661.6 @ 5.5p (between hours of (20:30-01:30) and 1667.2 @ 0.146 during other hours. This usage with the standing charge gave us a bill of £306.50 and of course we had credit as we have been paying our £110 a month DD and had the referral credit too of £50 from here. We also have managed to get £250 bill credit due to the compensation for the stress and inconvenience so have a few months payment holiday now due to the credit on our account so we m. This took an almighty amount of time and energy (not the electric kind ?), daily emails before finally heading to Twitter and bombarding the CEO which seemed to get a reaction. I can also say with the warmer weather and nearly all the house insulated and some base coat on the heating has been off and the solar is doing all our hot water and for a number of weeks our use has been between 2 and 5 units a day maximum which is likely with things on outside of solar usage. We will have to see what the imapact of our insulation and things like blinds has on our heating use over winter.

We are looking at anthracite porcelain for our patio area and a path heading to a pergola. The chickens are continually at our sliding door and always trying to get in the kitchen. If we end up with chicken poo on the porcelain will it it mark them or cause any damage?

Anyone?

Our utility/back door seems to be the most used for convenience with laundry, shopping etc and also if we are gardening. Infact our front door is only really for visitors or if it's convenient not to take a key with the fingerprint sensor, running etc. We really need to find some sort of canopy for the utility door rather than our front door but it needs to be larger than the norm as we have things like welly boot stand etc. Has anyone used anything similar to this?

Yes it's the Luxaflex Tru-Fit Duette ones. Whereabouts are you - if you're in the Midlands/North West then Love Your Blinds may come out to you.

Comparing them to the curtains we have in the guest bedroom over a patio door (also blackout) they let light in at the top and bottom but we didn't want curtains in the bedrooms as the pole would have had to be far too long for the window size.

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.