ToughButterCup

If you are making comments like that @zoothorn, then honestly, you just have to walk away from the build for a while. A day or two should do it. Give yourself a rest. Right now.

Cheap sheet DPM. £40 a roll from your local Builders' Merchant.

Imagine going to school at 5 years old in the UK speaking German only. I learned to fight hard very quickly. Entrenched-Minded locals exist in every country I have visited and worked. As I moved and worked round Europe, at first I found it really difficult. But then realised that I needed to give - be open - be generous with that difference. Relax with that difference. Shrug, grin, share a joke, but don't allow people to take the piddle - beyond the local average. I mean it's really hard not to take the piss out of @JSHarris, even harder not to take it out of @Declan52 and others. Judging how far to take the piss out of them is a learned art. And maybe it's some of those really subtle cues when talking to real people that you might have missed now and again. You - like me- might interpret some stuff a little too literally. Take stuff a bit too seriously - need exactitude . Because it's comforting. I've said it before @jamiehamy's advice above seems to me to be a good starting point. It'll take courage, I know.

@zoothorn, have you read @Russell griffiths post? Re-posted (reformatted) here [...] [...] mark on the wall finished floor height, not a dot or a mark on the render, a [...] straight line. get builder on site and ask him how he [...] will get your floor up to [the marked] height Outcome 1. builder agrees to get floor to [the marked] height at his cost, [...] Outcome 2. He tells you it’s your fault and he won’t do anything, [and then] pay him for his time so far [...], get another builder. [...] and then follow @jamiehamy's advice above.

The words that jump to me are ' ... I am very much alone ...' and your positive take on that. That positivity can be a useful start to building a wider friendship group. The process of developing that local friendship group can be a task when you act on @jamiehamy 's suggestion Building something when you - like me - are working on the edge of your comfort zone is deeply uncomfortable. I - like you - get frantically mad with some of the stupidity which surrounds me. It is astonishingly rare to find someone who can - on their own - take this amount of pressure. Look to your immediate support group. Build it too. Enjoy it. Nurture it.

Quite the opposite. My concern is for you and you only. I'm trying gently to suggest you have a chat about the build with someone other than BH contributors. Nothing more.

Apart from BH members and your builder, to whom have you talked about your extension? I ask because you seem to me to be over-reliant on the written content in BH posts. Asynchronous communication loses so much important stuff - tone - humour - emphasis - mood. Having an informal person-to-person chat about this with anyone - anyone at all - can be helpful. It helps us all. I am not suggesting you ask for detailed advice from professionals - merely that you let off steam.

@Triassic ... Lucy Martin : (2010) The Bible of Home Lighting : Ideas for every room in your home. Quattro Publishing. London. It's a useful book because it sets out simple core concepts, and then gives practical examples. My experience of asking people locally about lighting design is that they suggest they do for your job what they have always done on every other job, and don't think about what your needs are. In the private sector, of those people who market themselves as lighting specialists - and that I have contacted - seem generally to have no qualification to practice as lighting designers. I suspect that properly qualified, competent lighting design is focused on high end top notch private work and the industrial sectors. The second book? The dog ate it I think. If I find it, I'll put the reference on this thread.

No. But I have a couple of very useful books: I'll dig out them out and post here later this morning.

Hmmmm. I don't have enough fingers to count that many. ? I think I'll give it a go and get back to you when I have ballsed it all up. Here's yet another steep learning curve I got myself into.

Pheeew. Just bought a set. This electrics lark is extremely interesting. Its all so, logical - sometimes.

?: that's an emoji of me right there looking at a Scolmore 2 tier, 12 gang Minigrid Module and the associated plate, yoke and backbox. The practice of simplicity at last. But wait, whassthis? Nope, it's not spaghetti, it's the wiring for 7 intermediate switches and 3 one ways. Two bays spare .... Looking at the backbox, I see a mere 10 knockouts. Knees shaking a bit...... Please Dave and Clive ( @ProDave and @Onoff ) please sirs, can I drill a couple more holes in the backbox K.O. (WA512) if I need to too? I promise to drill them exactly the right size, and fit a lovely top specification grommet in each hole drilled. I also promise not do anything unethical, illegal, or untruthful or try to hide anything (but a cheque book) from any tame Part P who walks through the door. Honest.

?

Deep breath now ..... Fault allocation - on line or on the ground - is irrelevant. Its damned hard work stepping back from the whirlwind of stuff going tits-up. Forums can never be the best or only place in which to ask for and write about advice. On line, most people do their best to support others - but with the best will in the world, its a less than perfect place to deal with high stakes stuff like this. We are up to seven pages of responses - hard to read and interpret accurately. How about breaking your issues down into single chunks. Start a thread about each. And, where relvant, hyperlink them? And can I suggest that the more irritated you feel by any one response, the longer it should take for you (or anyone else for that matter) to reply. Yes, I dont consistently apply my own advice .?

Stress is normal @zoothorn. Use it creatively.

See @Hecateh, they - boys - all love their drills. I love mine too. When I am allowed to keep them ?

@Hecateh, think about more than the drill. It needs feeding. With power. And that means charging. So you might want to think about any other power tools you want to use. When you buy one brand, it almost inevitably leads to buying other items from that '' family '' because you save money on the charger. Teuton (I can't stand the real name) do a light-weight range of power tools (link to a search for that type : Bosch 12 volt range). I use those because they suit my mangled hands, and are much easier to handle. Just as powerful - if not more so - than the one you are interested in.

Give Beckham a ring .....?

Ahhh, so it was you lookin at our place withy yer spy glass while your mega yacht was grounded on the bar at the mouth of the River Lune. God, you musta' been bored.

Oh, shit.? ...... Ahhhh, yeah, ya mean Kev, 'im from down the pub. Yeaaahr, good lad. Ex- Navy, ( ee sez ). A matelot fru and fru. Walks with a rolling gait even wen 'ee's sober. Got one 'ell of a twitch. Keeps bangin' on abart 'is old war canoe, and servin' wiv the Heavy Underwater Artillary. Got dolphins tatooed all over 'is - well, bedder not say. Gor, those must a stung a fair bit though. Both sides. Pheeeew! Top man.

watch 4 episodes of GD back to back. I vowed never to watch one ever again. A few months ago that was. Fings ain't vat bad 'cos I've no; divorce in the offing (well, I'm pretty sure that's the case) nowhere near 8 years on the job yet got 3 million to burn a build where the professional fees are more expensive than my build haven't (recently) had a life-threatening disease SE who really cocks up a roof a builder called Chaz drive to build on a cliff-side got enough money to buy myself loads'a Festools have to go and have a blood transfusion every 4 weeks a wife with crazy 'Raaather Left-Field ideas dwaaahling' Imagine the sheer unadulterated horror of Kevin waltzing down your drive to document the fookoops with quite so much smelly glee. Stop moaning Ian. Can't be that bad, now can it? Head down, arse up ,go.

Give Beckham a ring, see if he'll fettle it with his right foot? No? Ok, I'll get me coat.

Yes, I do remember your roller-coaster ride last time. It's difficult to give a clear answer to your question - probably because the question you asked is very general. The answer to the question asked appears to me to be a matter of taste.

@Sensus, please excuse me. I'll step out of this thread now. Apologies to @phatboy

That's - for me - is quite an uncomfortable reply. As I understand it, you are an architect. And that implies authority. To refuse to reference an important statement diminishes your argument. A simple hyperink to the discussion would suffice. No need for rehearsal.