Creating Space

Since all the work has been done to strip everything out of the house and the floorboards have been put back down and made "true" it is possible to walk around the house and take more of it in. If you excuse the body in the following photograph you can see through from the rear reception room to the front room and out of the front door (across the road etc .....). This had led to the suggestion that we should consider not replacing the doors between the rooms as it helps to open out the space. This makes sense but it has made me wonder about whether we should open it out further.

The pictures above and below show both sides of the same wall. You can see in the picture below, the wooden lintel although as the wall is solid and non load bearing there is some doubt about what it is doing there. I have come up with the idea of removing much of this wall and opening out the staircase to the rear reception room. I would like to remove the wall completely but this cannot be done without an RSJ and by the time that was installed and clad with fire retardant material it isn't worth the extra cost.

A cheaper and easier option is to take the wall down to just below the ceiling and but in a 4x4 lintel to say half way (or maybe just over) the wall by the stairs. This will open up over half the stairs into the main room and create a much bigger space as well as making a feature out of the stairs. APD Observer and MeatOnTheBone will probably remember doing something similar in a house in Cobham over 20 years ago. Any memories they have of this would be appreciated.

The picture below shows the wall above the door from the reception room side. The lintel would just about be at the top row of bricks and would need to be boxed in or painted black and made to look like a beam to match those in the front room.

If we did decide to do this I think it would make sense to replace the door from the front refeption room to the stairs.

I have the day off work tomorrow (mainly for Christmas shopping but Mrs APD has done most of it) so we will be have a chat with the builder about this in more detail.

Bathroom Shopping List

The new cloakroom suite arrived and gave us the chance to offer the units up to the wall and see it fitted OK and that there was enough space. I am pleased we did this as it showed us that whilst the units we purchased would fit upstairs we need a much smaller sink (and no pedestal) downstairs.

So here is the list of all of the other items I need to purchase to complete the bathroom and the cloakroom except for the small sink and associated taps as I need to make absolutely certain the unit I chose will fit in the space we have available. I have sent this lot of to our plumber for his thoughts before I place the order. I also need to know what waste units etc I need to buy and get the specification of the cloakroom sink in the same order so I don't have to pay another lot of delivery. When I have finished the order I think I will have spent about £650.00 on all the bathroom units. I could have spent a little less but I think it is worth spending money on taps and things that have a high visual impact.

This is a much better shower unit and I hope that those that have been rightly critical in my choice of unit so far will think this one is more appropriate.

Bathroom (s) Shopping List

Taps

Shower Unit

Shower Screen

Bath Panel

Bath

Toilet

Accessory Pack

Fiscal Stimulus

I did not expect the chancellors PBR to have a mention on the blog but the following story made me laugh.

I received a text message from the builder yesterday - "could I order another skip and settle the account." No problem with this. We have had four skips so far (the first we paid on delivery) and I hope that this next one will be the last. We have gone over budget on clearance fees.

I telephoned the skip company to be told that I owed them for three skips and another one would be the fourth.

He then said the first three skips were at 17.5% and the one delivered on Monday will be at 15% (it being 1^st December). I asked how come they weren't all at 15% at I hadn't received an invoice from them for any the skips so far and the tax point should be the day they raise the invoice i.e. Monday 1^st December. His response to this was that we should have been paying for the skips as we took delivery of them. The fact that they hadn't asked for payment nor had they issued an invoice was irrelevant.

I did try and point out that this was not how the new rules were supposed to work but he beat me with his response.

"Do you want the skip or not?"

I have read forum after forum about how the new VAT rules are supposed to apply for services already delivered and not invoiced and confusion reigns (I know this is sad but my real job has some exposure to this). Government seems able to make the announcement that VAT will change in one week without giving any meaningful thought to the difficulties this puts business in. I have a sneaking admiration for the way the skip company operated. They are wrong, they are not short changing HMRC and they know that reducing VAT by 2.5% will not make any difference to whether I buy their goods and services or not. In that respect they are right and I ordered the skip.

So much for a fiscal stimulus.

Quick Update

Building work continues and good progress is being made. There will be 7 people working on the house tomorrow including plumbers and electricians. The damp proof render has started to be applied and things are good.

The picture shows the steel straps that we have used in the problem corner to hold the wall together. The gap has been fixed with sand and cement as a "glue" and this wall is all ready to have it's thermaboard attached. As usual you can click on any of the pictures to get a higher quality image.

Here is a close up.

The stud work that forms the new landing has been finished although it is difficult to see it from this picture here are the two doors frames. One leading to the bathroom and the other to the bedroom.

The windows are going in on Monday so all the lintels have been installed in readiness and tomorrow a suitable hole will be cut out the side wall for the new bathroom window.

Decisions need to be made on showers and sinks and I'll post something about that over the weekend when I have more time to research and plan.

Oh yes - and while I think of it. This is my 50th post. I wondered whether I would stick at it.

More Pictures

Here are some pictures showing how how things are progressing.

This first one is my favourite as it shows the stud work for the new bathroom so the house is beginning to take shape. The new brick wall you can see at the back was the door to the cupboard holding the hot water tank in the back bedroom. The brickwork above the wooden lintel was "live" (got the use of this term sorted out now) so the builder decided to replace all of it with new block work and a lintel underneath it to hold it all up. You can click on all of these pictures to enlarge them.

This will be the door into the bathroom.

This is a better photograph of the new wall with it's lintel.

Just as impressive is the amount of work that has happened outside in the garden. There has been three solid days spent out here and it is amazing how much progress has been made. This photograph has been taken from the back wall of the house. Three days ago it was difficult to get to the back wall let alone take a photograph down the garden!

Squeezing past the sink

One of the problems with trying to plan a bathroom or a kitchen is that you have to make decisions that cannot be easily revoked. Once the pipework is in etc the scope for change is limited.

It seems to me that this situation is worse with a bathroom as you are usually tying to squeeze three or four pieces of furniture of different shapes and sizes into a small a space as possible. With a kitchen you are trying to squeeze as much stuff as you can into the space you have. Kitchens have the other advantage of using equipment and furniture of a standard size; 600mm deep and so on.

As a result of all of this I think it is nigh on impossible to pick a bathroom suite and be certain that you have enough space between the wall and the sink to get to the toilet or the bath and the toilet to get to the sink and so on. Templates etc would work well but it is not like the real thing. That is why I ordered a sink and toilet today so we can see how it fits in the bathroom. If it works - great. If not we will use this kit in the downstairs cloakroom and buy something smaller for upstairs. It means paying more than one delivery charge (£40.00 each time) but I think it is worth it. It costs a lot more to send these things back if they don't fit and you don't want them anymore.

Bathroom Suites

I have been told that it is time to start thinking about the bathroom suites we want (and buy them I guess). The type of toilet is particularly important as it makes a difference to the way that the soil pipes are attached.

I have looked at various bathroom suites on-line and have been quite surprised and how much they cost (a lot) and how much they get discounted to (also a lot).

So, here are links to the proposed suites.

Upstairs Bathroom

Downstairs Cloakroom

Thermostatic Shower Mixer tap

This all comes to about £550.00 with the taps costing £255.00. I have sent details of these over to our plumber for his thoughts but I am going to make life size templates of the units and take them round over the weekend to see how it all fits and to find out if you can get past the sink to the toilet and so on. We have decided (on advice) to move the sink and the toilet around upstairs which should make this easier. Apparently the stud walls are up so I will take some pictures at the same time.