jack

Couple of things (which you may already have thought about): Would high level windows (ie, lowest point say 1.8m) be acceptable, or could your neighbour still see in? We have a number of rooms with 2000 wide x 400 high windows that overlook our next door neighbour's garden, and they work very well. What about obscured glazing? Also, roof lights are great for light, but unless you have some form of blind, they also have a lot of solar gain in summer. In the wrong place they can also be quite uncomfortable to stand/sit under at certain times of the day.

Moderator hat on for a moment: This thread is drifting a long way from being productive. Everyone - and I mean everyone - please take a chill pill and stop trying to prove whether you're right or wrong. There's a topic here, so let's try and stick to it for the original poster's sake.

Bear in mind that there's a big difference between a timber frame and a brick/block with cavity on a raft. Brick and blockwork adds a lot of weight, so the slab needs to be engineered accordingly. Do you have a construction type (eg, timber frame, ICF, blockwork, etc) in mind yet? Here's a section through the raft we have (which is the same as Jeremy's):

Fair enough, just a thought!

I don't think anyone said price literally doesn't matter if it's "your forever house". What was said is that your planned length of ownership will have an impact on how careful you need to be with the finances. I don't think that's an unreasonable position as long as it isn't taken to extremes. If you aren't stretched and you expect to be there for 20 years, you genuinely can spend more than if you hope to sell in a few years and trade up (or move for schools, or retire, or whatever). I agree with the sentiment, but I don't agree that a lack of consensus about one complex issue involves us falling short of this general goal. I think your comments about recklessness etc have been useful counterpoints to the other views that have been expressed (and you have to admit there have been a decent variety). Those views, and the associated debate, are the only sort of "useful advice" that the forum can provide on a topic as complex and subjective as this. Perhaps this topic has reached a natural pause until the original poster has had a chance to digest and come back with any other comments or questions.

Edited to add: Welcome to Buildhub! Could you dig out the old concrete, lay a decent amount of insulation, and drop a screed on the top, maybe with underfloor heating? It's a fair amount of manual labor, but it wouldn't be hugely expensive, and the result would be much better than just dropping more concrete on top of what's there. It'd also be a lot lighter. @Onoff did something like this and documented the process. I'll see if I can find the thread later when I'm at my computer.

The following photos are all from the same area in the house earlier today (took them but didn't have time to post). It's actually really hard to capture the real-life effect of the concrete! Relatively speckled area: Less speckled (+ crazy dog): Transition between speckled and less speckled area: Another view:

You can take quite a bit off with diamonds, starting with a coarse grind and working your way finer once you reach the required depth. We have a "light" grind on our polished concrete floor, which barely shows pieces of aggregate. It isn't perfectly even - the aggregate shows up a little more in some areas than in others - but we really like the effect. It certainly doesn't have a terrazzo look about it (my wife was categorically against too much aggregate being on show). Can you experiment with gently grinding/polishing a bit of the slab that'll be out of sight and see what you come up with? It may be that you can get away with some sections (maybe per room?) with a bit of aggregate on display and other rooms with no aggregate showing. I'd personally be hesitant to scrabble back the entire surface as a first step.

@lizzie, I checked with the missus - turns out she made a mistake inputting the order! No biggie - the spare shelves we have now can be used in the wardrobe for which we're about to submit another order.

9.5m x 5m is not "large-ish" - that's a properly large space, and the ceiling height needs to be proportionate imo. Forget 2100 and 2400 imo. We have 2850 ceilings downstairs, and I wouldn't go much less than that in a reasonably large area. If you go for a touch over 3000, you can use 600 wide boards in conjunction with standard boards to reduce cutting. A friend of ours has 2400 ceiling heights in their new large open plan kitchen and dining area and I think it feels claustrophobic.

Same place Herb mentioned above: aplaceforeverything.co.uk/elfa My wife said they were very helpful and made a couple of useful suggestions. One minor thing: we ordered two different shelf sizes, and only one was delivered. My wife is contacting them today to discuss - will let you know how we get on.

Thanks all. Did a bit of research and went with the Elfa system in the end (thanks @HerbJ). A major factor was time - much as I'd love to have built this as a project, realistically, there's a lot of other more important stuff that needs doing, and work is completely flat out at the moment. In the end, convenience trumped everything else. It arrived on Friday, and was installed in no time. Not cheap, but clearly well made and should last a long time. I also like the fact that it'll be easy to reconfigure as needed. I'm so happy that I'll be acquiring some more to do the wardrobe in the guest room. As a bonus, I can install it now and we can use it for storage, despite the fact the the wardrobe hasn't actually been built yet!

We have 65mm polished concrete on top of an MBC slab. We were warned that 75mm was the minimum, and we do have three cracks that might not have been there if the slab had been a little thicker. I do think we'd have avoided them if the stress relief cuts had been done a little better, but that's just my inexpert opinion. Sorry not much help, but that's the standard polishable concrete situation as it was put to us. There are various epoxy-based topping products, but I don't think they look much like concrete, and I believe they're very expensive. How far away is the current result from what you were hoping for?

Ha, not really! Maybe go around before you get the survey and make sure there's nothing that would make a bat specialist start worrying about the potential for bats to be roosting. Things like access holes or cavities with accessible gaps.

You're not the first person to have mentioned this...

The Ring video doorbell system seems reasonably well reviewed. I know a couple of people who have them and are happy with the performance.

Also consider whether you'd ever have CCTV. If so, a couple of cable runs for that would be useful. One other thing you need to consider carefully is where all this cabling comes back to. @Hecateh, do you have somewhere that you could put terminate all these cables and position a router/switch? Ideally it'd be somewhere near where your phone/internet comes in.

Or better yet, don't!

No doubt there's an element of that.

My parents lived in the UK for several years in the early 70s based on that right. Ireland's relationship with the EU is the complicating factor. I don't presently see any approach to the Irish border that will satisfy the UK, Ireland and the EU, made worse by the fact that the EU seems intent on using it as a cudgel - or should that be shillelagh? - with which to beat the UK.

Yes, I knew about that one. My parents are Irish and my sister has an Irish passport. I may get one depending on what Brexit ends up looking like. My kids are also entitled to one, so it'll just be the poor missus standing at immigration trying to blag her way into Europe when we go on hols.

09:17 and I've already learned something this morning! Re: the problem with Octopus, have you tried calling back? Sometimes the problem with call centres is the individual, so if you get someone else you may get further.

Oh FFS, what is wrong with people? Glad the planning officer saw sense.

Surely something was written down? They must have had some written indication of where the cutout was going, for example?

Morning all Taking a break from balconies due to the weather, and looking at getting some other jobs done. We have a linen press on our upstairs landing that presently has no internal shelving. It's quite big, so there's lots of shelving needed: I have a rough idea of what the layout looks like - we need some smaller shelves for linen, some bigger ones for boxes, and one tall area for a vacuum cleaner. I'm interested in how best to construct these shelves. I was thinking about using battens on the walls to support the outer edges of the shelves, but given how wide this is, I'll need at least one central support as well. I was therefore thinking something like a central post (bottom of the "p" in "cup'd above", with horizontals going back to the rear wall. Is there an easier way? I'd also like to use slats rather than solid shelves. Any suggestions for what sort of wood and where to buy? Oak or another hardwood would be nice, but given how much I need that could be an expensive exercise for something that's largely out of sight. Obviously where sheets and towels are involved, the wood will need to be non-staining. Lacquer will help with that, but again, any particular suggestions for particular finishes? Thanks as always.