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Not sure. Here are some photos:

We went away on holiday and leant our house to some relatives. They lost the key. I would like to change the locks and yet my relatives (not the ones that lost the key, but relatives who arranged the house loan), are saying I’m overreacting. We live in a fairly safe neighbourhood, but it is London and crime has been on the up recently. Only two weeks ago some opportunist tried to get into the van of a tradesman who was doing some work for us. The van was parked in our drive, 1pm in the afternoon. The house guests don’t know where they lost the key, but the video footage I’ve seen shows them looking for it in our front drive, so I’m guessing they think it must have been lost locally. I’m pretty pissed off by the situation. Particularly because the information wasn’t volunteered. I worked it out from my Ring video footage and the fact that the keys which were returned are clearly copies not originals. We questioned this and the loss was confirmed. No apology. So obviously I’m angry, but trying to put that to one side and think dispassionately about this, it still feels like an unnecessary security risk, or am I being irrational? How much would it cost to change a 5 lever multipoint lock? The key is just a Chubb style key made by ERA.

This is a surface mounted wall light. It is IP44 rated for a bathroom, so maybe sealed so well it doesn’t have any vents to cool the bulb? Maybe I should raise a complaint with the vendor… I did buy it about 2 years ago though.

I have a bathroom IP44 rated wall light made by Astro, called the Astro Zeppo. It was installed by a highly competent electrician, as part of a complete re-wiring of our house. Literally everything to do with the electrics was brand new. It uses a G9 lightbulb. Since we moved into the house some 20 months ago, this light fitting is the only one for which I have had to change the light bulb. Not only that, but I’ve changed it about 4 times. So each light bulb is lasting less than 5 months. In some cases, it only lasts 3 months. The light is operated by a separate PIR sensor, which can be overridden to stay on by a separate switch. We override it every night so that it stays on through the night. It is therefore probably one of the most used light bulbs in the house, doing at least 10hr every night, plus coming on during the day whenever anyone walks into that bathroom. Are G9 light bulbs normally this bad, or is something not right here? If something is not right, how do I tell if it’s the light fitting or the electrics?

These are London rates, but I pay my cleaning lady £16.75 an hour, going up to £17.60 in the new year, and she would be very competent at doing all of that. I’m not sure how long it would take, maybe 2.5h to clean and do laundry and check inventory, then a further 30 minutes for check in. That said, you could invest in a lockbox so that check-in and check-out could be done without any staff, the staff is just there to check the key was returned to the lockbox, etc.

Well you can withdraw up to a quarter of a private pension as a tax free lump sum from the age of 55. That’s pretty good deal in my view. You then have options with what to do with what’s left, including taking all or some of it as cash buying a product that gives you a guaranteed income (sometimes known as an ‘annuity’) for life investing it to get a regular, adjustable income (sometimes known as ‘flexi-access drawdown’). But back to your initial question, I have some friends who I would hope know what they are doing, because he is a very successful investment banker, who now specialises in wealth management, and she is a solicitor at one of the big London firms. About two years ago we were discussing rental investments because at the time I had two flats I was renting out and they had money to invest and wanted to get into BTL properties. I tried talking them out of it, but they modelled the numbers and ended up buying a maisonette in Norfolk and operating it as a holiday let. I think the way they’ve managed to make it work is: 1) they bought in late 2021 when prices were pretty depressed; 2) they don’t need it to make much or any profit really, as they love Norfolk so much that they go there quite a bit and get quite a lot of use out of it. They just see it as a way of protecting their investment from inflation, as property in sought after areas should at least go up with inflation in the long term. 3) they did their mortgage calcs when rates were low. Who knows if it’s affordable when they have to remortgage - though maybe you would be buying without a mortgage. So my feeling is that unless you absolutely love where you are buying, so much so that a holiday let will make it affordable, then go for it. But if it was me, I would rather invest in something else, and use the income from the investment to rent a place whenever I wanted to go there or, as you say, go there with your own caravan. I’ve given up one of my BTLs, and if it wasn’t because I need to keep the other one so that my kids have somewhere to live in 15 years‘ time, I would sell that too.

How does the penalty clause work in these types of arrangements? I always thought penalty clauses were unenforceable under English law.

The 3D render looks best. Then the warm light. The cool light looks nasty. I would not be happy having a light switch that could come on to that. It’s cold and clinical and brings out the wrong tones of the tiles. But the tiles in the warm light look good. Finish the bathroom, choose the towels and floor matt wisely, I suggest a grey that is slightly darker than the floor tile, nothing patterned, just plain solid block of colour. Get some nice expensive bath robes too and hang them up somewhere quite prominent - they should match the colour of the towels exactly. Invest in some nice candles. Two or three, in the standard off white wax colour. The really thick ones that have a 75mm or 90mm diameter. That will soften everything up, and with a few shampoo bottles and other bathing paraphernalia I think you will start to enjoy your bathroom. Right now, you are obsessing too much with the tiling, but that is normal - it’s not come out how you or SWMBO thought it would. But that doesn’t make it bad. I actually quite like it. But I see that it’s not as nice as the render. Too glossy. Nevertheless, with all the paraphernalia in the room, it will look much more lived in and cosier.

I disagree. When installing tiles with this sort of veining, it’s crucial to respect the direction of the veining in the installation. Ask @nod. Had the veining been installed in random directions, it would look even louder and horrible, like a complete mess. Though a good installer should have consulted with @puntloos and asked him which direction he wanted the veining in; my installer asked me. These tiles just aren’t suitable for a I think the reason the estimate excludes anything to do with the electrical and water services is probably a question of liability. A tiler isn’t a qualified electrician or plumber, so he won’t be happy to do electrics or plumbing, and certainly won’t be insured to do it.

So I like the colour scheme of that last photo. I’d that your bathroom @puntloos? My only criticism is that there looks to be a small amount of picture framing going on. Perhaps it’s just in need of cleaning the grout stains, or it’s something that the camera picked up which isn’t so visible in real life. But in any case, apart from fixing any picture framing issues, I would be moved to leave that for a few months as @Alan Ambrose suggested. I think you wood get used to it. Looks very smart with the black towel rad.

the last picture you posted appears to show a mid to light grey Matt floor tile, which I think would work well. Is this your tile? Am I colour blind, or odd this not beige?

I’m still struggling to understand. I asked you to explain what you meant by too loud. Do you mean you wanted a more subtle effect? And instead you got very obvious veining that is too stark in comparison to the white background, that there is too much of this veining, and that as a consequence the whole effect is too busy? No, I meant that it appears that your tiles are glossy, whereas a matt effect marble imitation would probably have looked better if you were going for marble imitation. Not because marble can’t be glossy, but because matt tends to look better with artificial lighting, and gives a cosier more refined feel than glossy. Believe me, I have had to learn a lot about colour temperature as part of our build. It has a huge impact on the feel of a room. Warm lighting will really help here. I would swap out the LEd and or the controller to ensure you can only have 2700K or 2800 Can we see a photo showing the floor with the beige tiles against the wall tiles? If it’s not been tiled yet, I think you can rescue the situation by just changing the floor tiles to a dark grey, matt large format tile. Something like a slate effect tile in 75cm by 75cm or if your bathroom is too small for that, 60cm by 60cm, or 40cm by 80cm. Install with 3mm joints, with a grout colour that is the same colour as the tile. i don’t think beige would work at all, sorry. To explain: you are bothered by the degree of loudness/busy-ness and the fact that it is high contrast. But a beige floor will add to the busyness by introducing another colour. Whereas a dark grey will help ground the room, and keep within the theme, particularly if you get something that looks like a real stone, slate or granite.

Here’s an expensive (but beautiful) solution for you: https://www.corston.com/products/2g-mixed-switch-clear-antique-brass-1t1d

Painting the ceiling a different colour is a good idea, but I wouldn’t go for anything as extreme as black or navy as that will make the tiles stand out even more. Just a grey that is matt in finish and matches the grey in the tile in tone, though I would possibly go a shade lighter, as it might be too dark.

Please can you expand on this. Give me a couple of paragraphs of consciousness on what you wanted and how it is different to what you got. I’m also curious to understand whether you installed the same glossy tiles on the floor and in the wall. If so, what is their slip rating? Glossy tiles in a bathroom could be very slippery.

@puntloos can you explain what it is about the way the bathroom turned out that you don’t like? In detail please. I think gloss tiles over a Matt finish may be contributing to the issue. Also, what colour temp is that LED recessed ceiling lighting? Anything greater than 2800K won’t look good. You might find that researching a way to make the tiles less glossy and replacing the LED with a warmer colour, significantly improves the aesthetic.

About once every couple of months, we have family or friends over for a large brunch, when we get through 30 bagels (so sixty halves). That is probably the number @Mr Punter had in mind. That’s fine, we would relocate the toaster to the island for such occasions in any event.

True, but the cheaper ones don’t always have a great reviews, and it is only their most expensive lines which are fully repairable.

But seriously, is there something safe I could line the cupboard with? It’s really the cupboard’s pelmet which is the potential risk point, being the lowest.

Query: the Dualit toaster is not meant to be used under a kitchen wall cabinet. Is it okay to ignore this instruction? My cabinet is about 56cm above the worktop. So a 21cm high toaster would be c. 35cm below the cupboard‘s bottom. Safe or stupid?

I wonder how much of the Sualit price tag goes on the marketing budget:

Interestingly, there is a significantly cheaper Dualit one on John Lewis (which still costs what a large appliance might set you back), that has very mixed reviews. Some reviews are practically orgasming over the evenness of their toast’s toasting, whereas others say it’s rubbish: https://www.johnlewis.com/dualit-lite-4-slice-toaster-with-warming-rack/gloss-black/p231521950

Ah, but the Dualit one is made in Britain. Vote Brexit.

We’ve been meaning to get a new toaster for ages. Have been coveting a Dualit Classic Newgen 4 slice toaster. I think it’s the most expensive toaster in the market, at £209 including “free” sandwich cages: https://www.dualit.com/products/4-slice-newgen?variant=45452773032247 Our requirements are that it can do 4 slices, can do bagels and other thick slices and ideally can switch the slots that aren’t being used off. It is this last feature which I think makes the Dualit Classic Newgen unique, in that you can choose how many of the four slots come on. With all four slots active, it is consuming 2200W, but we probably only have breakfast as a family twice a week, so the rest of the time there are savings to be made. But is it justified? Delonghi make a much cheaper version which I can get for £80: https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/ctin4003.bk/delonghi-ctin4003.bk-argento-toaster

I agree. It will make the area look bigger. You can then have climbing plants all along the fence (jasmine Montana is evergreen, for example) and then some large pots for other plants to sit on the patio. I would lay the patio with a very slight incline towards the fence for drainage.