Ferdinand

That is a fair point, and I do not know But it seemed wise to mention it. My list of "needs" is drawn from what I would regard as a minimum, and what would be required by a mortgage lender (insight from which auction properties are / are not mortgageable). One way to check might be to have a conversation with a planner about when they would enforce. I think the test on enforcement is "is it expedient", so they have a lot of leeway. I would expect a greater likelihood of enforcement by planning or environmental health if there are complaints about nuisance or noise, if there is a safety issue, or if there is a situation which may go on interminably. And the process would take months. Ferdinand

Oh good ... the mistress has mistresses have not been discovered. ? ? ? You need to have been brought up by my mother ... she it was that found a Derbyshire Hall that had been empty for 2 years. We moved in on January 30th. If it is any consolation, that renovation took about 25 years. F

You have enough different opinions on this thread that you are inevitably going to ignore most of us ?.

I just registered and that gave that price. No apparent checks, but it is identified in the email as a Trade Account. And one of the options is landlord/property developer. Salamander Property Development? It is the price each, btw. F

LVT are more durable than they sound. Quickstep do a Uniclic version of LVT with a 20 or 25 year guarantee, but the normal cost is £32 per sqm or so. I was playing tag with B&Q for 3 months with their sales at half that when I was looking for the Little Brown Bungalow when they were replacing Quick Step with their own much inferior range. I think they have an underlay similar to laminate floor. In the end I spotted a sale lot of 25 year guarantee Uniclic laminate where B&Q had reduced to about £8 per sqm on a final sale, but somebody had left the leading 1 off the 14.00 price tag, so the were on the computer at £4 for almost 2 sqm packs. So I went for those instead. Still my best deal ever except for free. I got about 25sqm which was enough for kitchen, hall and bathroom with 4 sqm left over wear and tear or water leak repairs. IIRC even the Quick Step Basic Plus underlay ... £2-2.50 per sqm ... includes a dampproof membrane joined at the edge of the roll with adhesive strips. Ferdinand

Quick qu: How good is Sketchbook?

If it i a bathroom, a couple of coats of waterproofing would not go amiss too.

Hold your horses, Fanny Blankers-Koen! ? Aren't you driving this bus now? If there are no cost penalties to you in delaying or other BFO (eg contractual and you pay anyway) reason for doing so, then tell them to delay. Do not "offer an option" - you are the client, you now hold the swagger-stick, you are the project manager, so you decide what is going to happen. Then step back and do some reflection about your priorities - assuming that it is still all about cost savings as per last week. Why do you need an ensuite now, and to pay for it, now? Is there not going to be a family bathroom? Can you not put the ensuite in 2 years after you have moved. Delaying it will probably save you about 3-4k from this year's spend, that you will have more easily available in 2019 or 2021. At the very least it would be a little risky to go full steam ahead with this spend if you have not completed the evaluation and costing out we were talking about on the other thread. Is that 3-4k better applied somewhere else eg filling the hole that it will leave in the bank account? At least delay to think about it once you know the size of the hole you have to fill, not before. (*) If you are planning to save say £30-£60k on your (guessing) £350-£450k project (or whatever the number is), then this is the sort of thought you need to entertain. If you have to go ahead, then I see no reasons (plumbers such as @Nickfromwales may contradict me from a high tower of authority) for not doing the walls first. That is how I normally do it, in my case to avoid the risk of gunk or droppages ruining my nice new floor). If they must do it, then you could tell the tiler to leave 25-30mm at the bottom for eg a subfloor and tiles, or plywood and roll vinyl. Buying from what the sheds have in is the most expensive way - out of time, quality and cost you can only have two. And if your time is limited to "today", and your quality to LVL tiles, then you will get clobbered on cost and the limited selection may mean you do not get what you want. And I think good LVL is £25-£40 per sqm. Take off the time constraint and you will get your desired choice at perhaps 30-50% saving, or may discover something at £10 per sqm that is just as good, or put roll vinyl at <£10 per sqm down for the first N years. Ferdinand (*) It will also signal to your builder that you are deadly serious about the cost-savings.

To move in you need: Somewhere to cook. Somewhere to eat. Somewhere to shower. Somewhere to sleep. And you probably want heat and light in the relevant bit of house, and some doors on, and at least one cold tap. Plus any others you feel you need eg clothes storage (in extremis a suitcase under the bed unless the bed is a blow up mattress) and food storage (in extremis a fridge next to the camping stove you are cooking on). If children desire more comfort then not having it will be a character-building experience that will stand them in good stead later in life . You would have a fighting chance of raising not-snowflakes. If you have a caravan you can have a holiday-at-home for a bit, but I would not suggest that heading into winter. That is a bit tongue in cheek, and most people would have a bit more. F

I'd forgotten about those. For 20 years we had pull out wide backets about 150mm deep in 60mm base units. Like a less sophisticated version of these. They provide some of the functionality of what would be pullup shelves. I guess you can also think about wire shelves as used eg for storing sausage rolls in racks in food shops. Ferdinand

How are you getting in, @Jude1234 As I see it, with each work package (which might be as small a install a cupboard or as large as do a landscaping scheme), you have about 10 options wrt cost changes. I have left out things like major layout redesign or smaller house, as you are at second fix stage. 1 - Leave as is, which may involve increasing the budget. 2 - Delay into the future (easy one may be eg ensuite in small room), perhaps with a spec change too. 3 - Install facilitating infrastructure, but leave for later. Might be eg put plumbing in for ensuite behind plaster, but do not do it yet. Some on BH do this for things that may be needed in their dotage - eg leaving a space and an aligned gap in the ceiling structure for a lift, which is covered over for now. 4 - Find the same materials and supplies at a less expensive price. 5 - Reduce quality of finish, or materials, or products, or simplify (example - granite -> laminate worktop) 6 - Find less expensve labour. 7 - Do things yourself. 8 - Minor redesign. 9 - Leave out entirely. (Leaving out walls can be very creative). See William of Ockham 10 - Change something about the overheads eg move in earlier than planned and save the rent, even if this involves breaking the rules for a shorter time than it takes the Council to enforce. Ferdinand

Not quite right. The controversial comment - whatever it was - has not been quoted. The technique is to leave it just long enough for someone to quote it, then you can delete it and still claim to be morally virtuous because you had second thoughts. ? ? ? (*) F (*) I love these new avatars. There's one for a bunny-boy now, as well as a bunny-girl, they are so PC.

I am beginning to think that this might have been easier Roman mosaic style?

Might that not be a .. er .. premature ejaculation? Soneone might have put in pinprick in the impermeable envelope.

Do you have prices for 2 identicals? The Howdens one in the vid says it has a 9kg capacity. The linked Hafele was 3kg per basket. https://www.howdens.com/kitchen-collection/kitchen-accessories/storage-solutions/standard-600mm-pull-down-shelf/ https://www.hafele.co.uk/en/product/pull-down-basket-shelves-two-tier-chrome-wire-gas-spring-operated-for-cabinet-width-500-or-600-mm/50459222/?MasterSKU=0000004d000165a300040023# Ferdinand

I believe that Howdens do them ?. But they do seem to leave a lot of space unused for the gubbins, and have fairly low weight limits. More practically, I get to use the top shelves while my mum who has now gone to under 5ft uses the others. The same even applies in the Bear-Fridge, where my frozen low carb breakfast portions get exiled to the top, whilst the cornettos are lower down. I am sure you have lots of stuff that is not of interest to the boss. Alternatively, do not forget that glass shelves can be a less expensive alternative for top cupboards for things like crockery, and your teapot library (should such exist) - as long as they can be identified from below. For base units, deep drawers are a good alternative. I learnt that from a nice Scottish lady in the Edinburgh 'burbs, who had her mugs and tins arranged on their sides in drawers below the workstop. Again a possibly money-saver, perhaps used in combination with some of the pull-up shelves. I think that pots and pans and tins and crocks (ie heavy or bulky) would be good in drawers below, whilst lighter stuff (dried ingredients, herbs, tea and coffee and so on) would work quite well on these. Cocktails and chocolate, obviously, should always be out on the worktop. Ferdinand

What a tragedy for his family and fans. I really enjoyed those of his programmes I saw. I think he may have preferred to go doing what he enjoyed, though. F

Should not be a problem, sizes notwithstanding. If any are wrong there are trims and things available from any trade UPVC place or online that can be used to cover any muttwork (eg strips of wood down the side to make it smaller) that you have to do. The main thing is to take care and take your time. If you want to boost performance, then it may be worth replacing the larger 2G units with more modern ones - performance may be better (comments, anyone?) and they are not expensive. I have used a secondhand conservatory (4m x 6m for £600 off ebay) as the core of a sunlounge, which has turned out to be fine all year for the tenant concerned, except in eg the heatwave we had this summer. That has now been up 5 years. I have also used a couple of pairs of nearly new brown / white French windows off ebay for the front and back entrances of a side leanto, which cost £250 the pair, and one was only 3 years old out of a newly sold barn conversion, where the lady was turning it white to be more "classy" (from Essex to match the stilettos?). If you buy secondhand the real bargains are the ones too big or heavy for Fred Bloggs to put on the roofrack of his estate car. Ferdinand

Hi Neil. Warranty is something of a concern though they seem to be pretty reliable, but mine also gave me a couple of spare panels and Solaredge micro-wotsits when I asked them the day before finally agreeing the order. It was a 9.98kWp install, however, and 35 panels on 3 elevations all with Solaredge. £11.7k in 2016. Warranty not materially different from yours. That £7k should be more like £4,5k-£5k unless you are on a street needing a scaffold permit etc in London, or Fort Boyard, or other special circumstances. Ferdinand

The advantage of using a solicitor is that you may (may!) get a fixed price ,which would mitigate your risk. Or you may not. I would concur to talk to the Land Registry first, and I have always found them very helpful over the phone for an initial chat about the system and to identify the information needed etc, or to explain any baffling or antoque concepts after I have done some how to research on the info-sheets on their website. If you google there has also been a good LR blog maintained by them with a lot of q&a in the comments which helps see how people did a lot of things. Then if necessary I have gone in to the local office (ask to book a parking space - outs has half a dozen free for visitors) and had a free adviser meeting at the foyer side-desk while I do the actual forms, and they check them. Ferdinand

Bumping this thread, does anyone have any experience of Nabru sofas - particularly with regard to quality and ability to withstand hard wear? https://www.nabru.co.uk/buying-guide/corner-sofas-guide This is as a potential alternative to 2 x Ikea Klippans. Ferdinand

Strikes me as one of those things where service history and treatment probably outweighs age in determining the value.

@PeterW - a cherrypicker question. If you use one of those to rmove roof tiles, are you able to get them down intact? Do you need something like a fabric slide?

Some of those on ebay from about 2-3k. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NiftyLift-120-cherry-picker-access-platform-towable/153163374709 Hmmm.

Does baby-oil work with glossy black?