The only appliance not yet purchased is a dishwasher. Whilst I am probably not under an obligation to provide one (there is nothing wrong with freestanding) a kitchen looks better when they are built in and I don't want to give a potential buyer a reason to walk away.
As we could not be totally sure about how much space there would be in the kitchen when we were planning it, the original plans had a slimline dishwasher. It now appears that there will be space for a full width until. I will need to pop down to Homebase to buy a suitable door (£45.00) and then I just need to buy the dishwasher itself.
Taking a look at Redhill Appliances again after they did such a good job last time they appear to have a couple of suitable units in stock. I am tempted by the Hotpoint. It is £30.00 more expensive that the other model I looked at but 4dB quieter which is quite a bit in a small kitchen. It is £260.00 plus £1.00 delivery so with the new door I will have spent just over £300.00 on the dishwasher. That is much better than it could have been as there is a limited choice of slimline units and they tend to be more expensive. I am pleased we held off from buying this until we knew how much space we had.
I am concerned that progress on this project appears to be slowing.
I am sensible enough to know that at the beginning of these jobs there is a huge flurry of activity, much effort is expended and the results are obvious. As you near the end the work gets fiddlier and the impression is given that things take a little longer. Never the less we seem to have less forward momentum now. I was told that the kitchen would be fitted this week and would be completed by Friday. I was told earlier this week by somebody else that this is looking unlikely and it now appears that the kitchen won't be started until tomorrow (Friday) and it will be installed by somebody else. The somebody else is someone who I know well (I wonder how many other parents of my eldest daughter's friends I can get involved) and he will do a first class job but these additional delays are very frustrating.
The fitting of the carpets on 10th February is the last job to be done so we have (from today) seven working days and two weekends to get everything finished. Will we do it? If you had asked me on Monday I would have been confident but now I am less sure. I am a born optimist and the glass is always half full so I remain positive but I have a double shot of realism in my half full glass.
I had naively hoped to have completed the sale of the property by the end of this tax year so I could take full advantage of Mrs APD and my CGT allowance for the year. I think that would have been a challenge two years ago let alone in the current climate.
Mrs APD is venturing forth this morning to visit the house and then, after getting some inspiration, setting off to buy carpets and tiles.
I fear we will very shortly be going over budget. This is not because Mrs APD has a tendency to purchase Italian marble flooring (although she does) but because even the initial quote we have had from the carpet suppliers indicates that it will be £1500 to supply and fit the carpets and with the tiles probably being another £400.00 on top of that we will have spent too much.
There will (I think) be one or two savings to be made elsewhere so I don't think the damage will be too bad unless she comes back with one of these in which case we are in deep trouble!
The famous Flanders and Swann song starts
"Twas on a Monday morning the gas man came to call.
The gas tap wouldn't turn - I wasn't getting gas at all."
If I am permitted some poetic licence to change the second line to "The gas tap would turn but I wasn't getting gas at all" it gives me a perfect link to our weekend trials and tribulations in relation to what should be a very simple challenge. Getting gas to the house.
On Sunday morning – unannounced and with no fanfare, our Corgi plumber arrived to so some work. He took a risk as there is never usually anybody around on Sunday but fortunately the builder was there and so he could get on. Everything was connected and the time came to switch the gas on and fire up the system. On went the tap and out didn't come the gas!
I got a telephone call saying "could I telephone British Gas and get them to reconnect the supply". Obviously they don't answer the telephone on Sundays so at 8:00am this morning I got through to be told that I would have to phone the emergency number that you would usually use for a gas leak.
I did that and in fairness they came out pretty quickly and diagnosed the fault. It appears that that when the gas main was relied a few month ago they sort of ……...... forgot our house and didn't put a connection to it. This is despite the fact that the house has a gas meter, an account an account number and so on. It did make me wonder quite what our Corgi guy was up to three months ago when he came round to cap the gas! You might have thought he would have noticed that nothing was coming out.
At the point of writing this we are now waiting for someone to come round and re-connect us. I have no idea what that will entail.
All of this reminded me of the classic Flanders and Swann song mentioned above.
If you have never head the song before the words are listed below and a really funny lego animation is on You Tube here.
The Gas Man Cometh – Flanders and Swann
As this project gets ever closer to completion I have been looking again at the budgets and forecasts to see how close to the original projections we may end up.
I am not normally renowned for keeping detailed financial records (in fact detailed records of any kind) but I have forced myself to be very disciplined with this project and looking back at all the figures now I am very pleased I did.
The final bills are all coming in and there are only relatively small balances left outstanding. So where are we?
This table shows three columns. The first estimate, the revised estimate and the amount of money committed (although not necessarily paid out) so far. It is the revised estimate I am using as my budget as that is the one we used to re-negotiate the price of the house in October last year.
First Estimate | Revised Estimate | Committed |
£30,370 | £40,677 | £39,000 |
If I have calculated this all properly and assuming the builder doesn't remind me of some extras I have forgotten about, I have just over £1500 left in the pot to deliver this project on budget.
I still have to purchase the following.
There is also the possibility of requiring yet another skip!
I think it is going to be very close but I might just do this. The flooring will be about £800, the tiles about £300 and the dishwasher should take the balance. Avoiding another skip could be crucial.
Ultimately, going over budget by a small amount will not be critical but I have been so focused on trying to stick to the original plans it would be great to deliver on it.
Just before Christmas I received a present addressed as follows:-
To
APD
From
PPD
Like a good boy I didn't open my present until Christmas day and found a copy of........ NHBC Standards 2007.
Now far be it from me to show anything other than gratitude for a present but I have noticed that the 2008 regulations have already been published so my enthusiasm for this gift remains muted. I was reminded of another present given to me many many years ago by somebody (you know who you are) of 100 gross of out of date condoms. That is 14,400 condoms!
I must get some new friends.
PPD by the way stands for Professional Property Developer. I bet he has the 2008 standards!
Possibly for the first time on this project I have got bored. Not with the whole thing, just over working out what oven and hob to buy and how much to pay for it.
The attempted purchase on eBay failed and looking at all the other options, by searching online was going well until I realised the huge gulf in delivery charges between different companies which makes comparison difficult. I don't really trust the price comparison websites as regular readers will recall from attempts to insure the property before we exchanged.
So I have taken on board some of Tim's advice and purchased stuff from Redhill Appliances on the grounds that they only charge £1.00 delivery. Their prices were there or thereabouts and whilst they didn't have the Electrolux I have bought an oven and hob from the same place.
I will soon be the proud owner of:-
AEG 21602GM Gas Hob | £114.00 |
AEG B21005M Built In Single Oven | £272.00 |
I am sure I could have brought cheaper or more effectively but as I said, I am bored. Tim, if Which? claim that this is the worst oven in the history of cooking please don't tell me or if you have to tell me break the news gently!
The one bit of good news is that I have sorted this out in a fraction of the time that Mrs APD (who is working in the same room on the other computer) has spent trying to find somewhere for us to go on holiday this Summer.
Our Corgi plumber from last week has still not started. He apparently made an appearance briefly on Friday to tell everyone he will round to start work on Monday.
I am not sure he was that convincing and I won't be holding my breath. Builders will never get rid of this poor (and in most cases undeserved) reputation while some individuals continue to think this sort of behaviour is acceptable.
Hopefully he doesn't read this blog or he won't be round at all!
Well well, you couldn't make it up.
Less than a week since a thread on this blog mentions The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin the BBC announce a plan to remake the series with Martin Clunes and others. They must have been reading this blog.
Now the likes of Tim who claims to be too young to remember the original will be able to enjoy it for the first time.
I was originally going to make this post last night but was delayed by a dead badger on the line at Berrylands.
The kitchen was delivered on Tuesday as scheduled but we did not buy (deliberately) an oven or hob. We need to source one quite quickly as the kitchen will start to be installed next week.
Whilst not completely necessary I am keen to install a multi function oven to ensure that a grill is provided in the kitchen. It is only a small point but one that may make a difference. The only problem is that multi function ovens are more expensive.
After having a good look around on the internet I thought I would look at eBay. I am (at the time of writing) the highest bidder on this oven and hob. I haven't bought anything on eBay in over a year but this seller is on my way to and from work so I can easily pick the units up if I am the highest bidder and examine them before handing over the loot.
I didn't expect eBay to be a supplier for this project but there you go.
I don't know why I felt the need to publish a picture of a plastered under stair cupboard. The advantage of having your own blog - you can do what you want.There is much happening this week and whilst we won't be finished by Friday, as the project clock suggests, we should be much closer to knowing how close to completing by the end of the month we will be.
Without trying to put the kibosh on things, by the end of the week we should have a bathroom installed (although not working), a boiler installed and commissioned, a kitchen delivered, tiling completed in the bathroom, all plastering finished throughout (except the kitchen), the under stairs cupboard finished, the garden clearance completed, the cracked brickwork repaired (subject to weather) and a start on the downstairs decorating.
I probably shouldn't have said all of that. They will probably all walk off site now.
I have received details of two more houses that I think may suitable for the APD.
I am off to see one of them at the weekend and I have been tipped of that another will be on the market very soon. One is close to the current project and the other is much closer to home. With the current project beginning to reach a conclusion (apart from selling it!) the timing is good.
Mrs APD is rather less convinced and thinks we should do our own house next. She is probably right but ........
We needed a new skip to be delivered to site and one was duly ordered. It was £45.00 more expensive than the last one (ordered just before Christmas).
When I queried this I was told that the local authority insists that all skips are collected over Christmas and all permits automatically expire. As a result I need a new one.
I am either being ripped off by the skip company or by the Local Authority. I cannot be bothered to find out which as I will only get annoyed and then I will feel obligated to complain.
Life is too short.
After much thought we have decided to change the specification and not re-render or re-point the flank walls.
This is not because the jobs don't need doing but because the weather is making it pretty impossible to do any meaningful outside work that won't need to be redone is few months time. I would hate to dress a house up for sale and then the new owners have to spend money on repairing it all again.
I spoke to the estate agent who was of the opinion that provided we are up front with potential purchasers it shouldn't cause a problem i.e. don't wait until their survey points it out. Overall it is likely to be cost neutral to us as we won't be paying the builder for the work but may have to reduce the sale price accordingly. Having said that we are not going to be greedy with the resale price so it is possible that we end up making slightly more without having wasted money on work that will need to be redone.
The terms of the insurance policy state that the house must be visited once every seven days so as nobody has been working I paid one visit over the holidays.
As we start the New Year – this is where we are.
That's about it although I am sure I have forgotten something.
I still hope to have the house back on the market by the end of the month.
