Ferdinand

Replying to this. 1 - I went with roofing laths as my support battens, and 25mm Celotex, with 18mm OSB3 over. Carefully sanded the OSB joints to reduce risk of imprinting, and I will chose my underlay carefully. 2 - The the service voids worked very well indeed, and also let me run cable ducts for future Sky etc. 3 - I reckon it saved a few hundred on the rewire / replumb by ease of access. 4 - Next time I will use a 30mm void as a slight bit of extra room would really help. Doors are being hung next week. Ferdinand

You needed to be working for TFL :-).

ISTM that we should always be extraordinarily cynical about house price reports and surveys imo. While I broadly agree with the comments about North-South divides etc, the report discussed on this thread about this BBC 'research' into how house prices had 'fallen since 2007 to 2017 in real terms for many people', which gave us to the chance to be outraged in salacious detail by going down to Ward boundaries, ignored at least one pink elephant in the room which was a huge variation. They used a 2007 starting point, which was pretty much at the absolute peak house price, and if they had used either 2005-6 or 2008-9 the price would have been 10-15% lower - entirely changing the narrative and conclusions. They were not even clear which ,month in 2007 they were using when there was a larger variation within the one year than many of the 10 year changes they were yelling about. This graph is raw prices from here. Many more charts on the same page. IMO that robustness test demonstrates their poor research quality. Ferdinand

I was looking at the site as constrained by fences, the road (?) etc, and which visually looks tighter on the new one due to hedge positioning, and how within that you could make it seem more spacious. I was also throwing in the "water's edge" idea.

Of anybody wants a quick reference - these are government regions and I think the boundaries reflect National Trust regions quite closely - an NT Handbook may be the quickest reference. EM is Notts, Derbys, Leics, Northants, Lincs and Rutland, I think. NI must be somewhere where they do things differently . F

I wouldn't go there as a primary support. Here we discovered 6 months after moving that that was how our heavy stair handrail is attached like that, when one came out. I spent half a day looking for structure in the wall and found nothing suitable, so I ended up bolting right through the wall and making the 100mmx100mm stainless steel anchor plates on the other side a feature in my office. For this, I think I would build a small custom boxframe from CLS to sit beneath the cupboard, either to the same footprint or slightly smaller to look attractive, then sit the unit on it and panel the sides with a suitable finish. You may or may not need to drill into the floor to hold the box frame in place, or could fix it the wall with something just to stop it moving. Alternatively you could glue the box frame to the floor. It could go inside the Ikea legs of you prefer. You could even make your box frame from 18mm ply as a simple box. I could also see something like an Ind Coop beer crate that builders stand on working if it is the right dimensions. There is nothing to stop you using bricks or a stack of one or two breezeblocks or thermalites or similar on their side instead of a box frame. You can just hide them behind a trim. If there is an issue attaching the unit to the top of the blocks, then plug a small sheet of eg marine ply the same size as the footprint and screw to that. Ferdinand

Good price for battens. What size? IIRC my pricing at the best local source was either (cannot remember which) 28p/38p or 38p/48p per metre plus VAT for untreated / treated 25mm x 38mm roofing laths. Suspect that this cost saving self-made battens measure may perhaps fail the effort / reward test. @recoveringacademic what would the total cost of bought in battens be at (say) 50p per metre? Ferdinand

I was thinking that a full wooden frame might be overkill, and that an ally or even plastic frame might do it. Essentially you want a light fitting 50-100mm deep the same size as your island. I was thinking about the lightness of structure that is used for suspended ceilings, and this sort of thing (from a quick Google), which is a shallow enclosure for panel-LEDs. This one is about £22, and easier to put up than a wooden frame. Not an area I know, but I expect that custom versions and various sizes / colours / finishes are available:

Suspended ceiling components?

My untreated oak veneer doors have just arrived, and will need treating. I am looking at either normal Osmo oil, or Polyx Oil - also by Osmo and iirc a harder finish. Sprayable versions do exist, albeit at the usual slightly eyewatering prices . I can live with that for only a few litres. http://www.osmouk.com/retail/product.cfm?product=359 Has anyone tried spraying their doors? Are there any lessons to learn? Cheers

Cheers @A_L What do you think is realistic, and do you have any good alternative or modified suggestions? Cheers Ferdinand

This is a spinoff from Jeremy's privacy thread. What are the best methods of creating a visual block quickly to disarm some potential "overlooking" objections from ground floor windows into neighbouring gardens, if it needs to look permanent by the time Planning is applied for? 1 - The classic would be a hard landscape feature - say a brick wall, or a 2m closeboard fence, which can then be conditioned to remain. Problem: pricey at approximately £40-£70+ per metre run for the fence and fitting, or perhaps at least £150-£200 per metre run for a decent 2m wall. 2 - Tightly cropped Lleyandii 2m hedge. How long? Does it take about 3 years to grow and be dense clipped to 2m from planting if planted at a tight staggered spacing in a double row? 3 - Are there alternatives to Lleylandii for the similar job? 4 - A fedge? (ie Living fence). These tend to be made from willow and later become thugs unless kept under constant tight control, 5 - Thinking around the box, plant something a little slower and propose a condition that first occupation not be allowed until a dense 2m visual barrier exists? That does not completely disarm the objection. I think my *strategy* would be a quick grower as above, but plan to remove it later and plant something else in front which will be more attractive. The con of that approach is the effective loss of garden when the initial block hedge us removed. Has anyone done this? Thoughts and comments are welcome.

Thanks. If I had the money to build that, I would not have regretted a loss vs inflation for that experience.

Or wasn't there a successful Grand Designs when a Scottish supplier of potatoes to chip-shops built his house *over* a private lake? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-1218678/Were-cashing-chips-selling-Grand-Design.html GD Episode: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/on-demand/38275-008 Could you shunt it forward or to the right and cantilever or balcony over the lake? Would that be a different response to the site restrictions? Lesson to the wise. Build cost was about a million in 2005. That Mail article has it priced at £1.9m in 2009. Around 2012 Rghtmove had it under offer at £1.25m. (To be fair they haven't lost money and the adventure sounds well worth it). Depending on the specifics, perhaps a classic approach for a constrained plot - build nearly to the edge of the plot and use the most attractive area as something you *look* at. Wonder what @caliwag thinks?

What are the laws about recovering ground? Can you build a mini-polder into the lake if it is your lake? Even 5m on all round would be a huge difference. Flood protection, innit. Serious question.

Seems to be a quite good selection, @JSHarris. Big hollies are beautiful My comment would be to be sure that you have the correct mix of holly trees to get berrys, should you want them. I like the thing about Western Red Cedars that they can have boats made from them by carving planks out of the living tree, due to the self-preservative nature of the wood. Your future purchasers will be able to continue your boat-building tradition if they wait long enough and let the tree go. Ferdinand

TBH I agree with you. In that model the new one looks very dominant. It would be a surprise to me if It helps in that form. However your Planning Consultant is the local expert and their opinion is far more weighty than mine. I think if presented with that as a Councillor on Planning Committee or as a potential local objector, I would be concerned enough to ask some awkward questions. I think you need to communicate that the house is in a far larger context than that shown on this model, so the extra space is really a very very minor overall change. One way to do that might be to have a small scale model of the landscape showing how small it is in the context of your 19 acres and umpteen lakes, then a model showing the detailed house and no landscape, demonstrating the high quality of the design - so the change is de-emphasised and the old size vs new size is not discussed in the same breath. I might be tempted to get the latter one 3D printed and dismantleable by layer. If you have to have one of house plus some landscape, then I would suggest putting enough landscape in to place it properly in context, and I would turn eg all that brown into green. If the lake moves then I would perhaps model it with the water lower eg in high summer. Never show the two side by side in the form imo. If you make sure to call it an "'illustrative" model In the definitive places even if you call it just a "model" elsewhere, then you cannot be formally bound by it. I would use it as a prop to your presentations rather than something you let people take away. Ferdinand

Intestng, I am doing my kitchen splashback and windowsill using sliced up 600x600 porcelain floor tiles in a contrast colour to a fairly monochrome kitchen.

I think you need to look at the two edges, white and brown, then use the colour that will mask the more uneven of them. So you get to create a new straight visual divide with the edge of your perfectly straight silicon bead if necessary using plasterer's tape or your preternaturally excellent silicone skills ! From the piccie, the brown looks less straight, so I would do it in brown to de-emphasise that wavy line and move the perceived colour join to the bottom of the skirting.

What is the windowsill treatment? In my bathroom for the LBB I am running Multipanel up to the pvcu frame using external corners round the opening.

I would probably use clear silicone as flush as possible or a quadrant, or silicone to stick the quadrant in place. Two considerations imo (?) ... airtight and aesthetic.

Or a slightly smaller one in the range, more used, for about £300. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rubi-DC-250-850-Electric-Tile-Cutter-Zero-Dust-110v/162727653896?hash=item25e352f208:g:JXQAAOSwZlZZ82Pa Might be worth it for someone.

Same model. EBay about £550-600 finishing tomorrow. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rubi-dc-250-tile-cuter-wet-saw-very-good-condition/263277528759?hash=item3d4c9046b7:g:MlYAAOSwBp1Z43sR One too far for me this time. I only have a splashback and a windowsill still to do.

I may even have run it to outside, coming out under gravel.

Has anyone done the heat loss math for one of these DMEVs vs a Lo Carbon Tempra, or taken thermal pics from outside? I guess the Centra is really a hitech, well-controlled trickle vent. I install the Tempras as a default in rentals, but not in bathrooms, and I would be interested. Yes, they do look quite phallic in thinner walls, particularly the extended length version the handyman installed in a normal wall the other day as the only one in stock. Ferdinand