[Watsey]

10.76sq.ft per M2

[gangzoom]

Feels good to get into the house via the front door after 15 months .

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by Pond

I presume you do know that a a square metre is around 3ft by 3ft?

250 mile round trip today for work, left the house at 530am, got back ‘home’ at 6pm, had about 45 minutes to my self before evening club pick up was due…..Honestly cannot believe how we’ve ended up with space like this as our home. Worth every single penny.

Now just need to keep the builders focused to get the job finished, but all those pennies I’ve paid them means they keep on going on holidays.

[gangzoom]

Compared to ade555 experience of the trades, I’m feeling really lucky with our build!!

Have now confirmed the final flooring choices for the house, which I think is the last major decision that’s needed. Been going back and forth between carpet versus laminate etc, but given it’s the main central bit of the whole build I just wasn’t happy with putting down carpet or posh plastic (LTV).

Today we popped into a sister flooring showroom run by the same guys who supplied the tiles for the kitchen/atrium/bathrooms, and have gone for a light coloured wood from Ted Tood in herringbone layout. Not going to be cheap, but we didn’t start this project with the aim of saving money





Next week however is pushing the tiler to finish downstairs which is getting close, and than getting the flue finally installed midweek so that the plasters can come back and finish the bathroom before the tiling than fittings can go on.

Kitchen people are also apparently coming back for 2 more days next week, I make that over 14 days onsite they have spent installing just the kitchen, the local trades/suppliers we have coming onsite certainly don’t seem to have the same pressure to time to finish/move on to the next job am sure national companies. Hopefully that means we are getting a good quality of finish/install.

[Pond]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

Kitchen people are also apparently coming back for 2 more days next week, I make that over 14 days onsite they have spent installing just the kitchen, the local trades/suppliers we have coming onsite certainly don’t seem to have the same pressure to time to finish/move on to the next job am sure national companies. Hopefully that means we are getting a good quality of finish/install.

That..or they don't have a lot of work because they are either very expensive or rubbish (from this thread, in your case probably the former TBH).

I am not a professional kitchen fitter, but have fitted many kitchens with lots more units than yours in less than 2 weeks. Ours has 40 cupboards, including utility room. I did those in 2nd lockdown in 8 days (including wiring for all new appliances in different positions).

But as long as you (and the Bank manager) are happy that is all that really matters.

[ade555]

Lovely view in to garden, I lost faith in roofing trade, I think the likes of sparky, plumber, kitchen fitters ect are just have more pride in what they doing. I'm looking at your build pictures and dread to think costs behind it 😉. You can always leave it to me in your Will 😀

[gangzoom]

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[gangzoom]

Hopefully one of the last bits of proper building work done today. Fire installed and commissioned today. Given the horror stories on trades, I count ourselves lucky in the last 16 months or so we've only come across people proud of the job they are doing .

Flooring is nearly all done downstairs, and work has started on one of the bathrooms, we even have a tentative completion date for end of June!!

[Panchoa]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

Hopefully one of the last bits of proper building work done today. Fire installed and commissioned today. Given the horror stories on trades, I count ourselves lucky in the last 16 months or so we've only come across people proud of the job they are doing .

Flooring is nearly all done downstairs, and work has started on one of the bathrooms, we even have a tentative completion date for end of June!!

Looks amazing

Have fun clearing the grout off those tiles…..we had a large area of flooring done and cleaning the grout properly was back breaking…….unless your paying someone to do it of course.

[NotGotABimmer23]

Originally Posted by ade555

Lovely view in to garden, I lost faith in roofing trade, I think the likes of sparky, plumber, kitchen fitters ect are just have more pride in what they doing. I'm looking at your build pictures and dread to think costs behind it 😉. You can always leave it to me in your Will 😀

There are plenty of cowboy kitchen fitters out there! Sparky's and gas engineers definitely have higher barriers to entry than builders/roofers/carpenters (all you need is a van and a drill) plus they need to be members of professional bodies for BC self certification etc so the standards should in theory be higher.

[Pond]

Originally Posted by NotGotABimmer23

There are plenty of cowboy kitchen fitters out there! Sparky's and gas engineers definitely have higher barriers to entry than builders/roofers/carpenters (all you need is a van and a drill) plus they need to be members of professional bodies for BC self certification etc so the standards should in theory be higher.

In theory, yes. In practice not necessarily. All this 'certification' for some trades is just that...a certificate.

The training industry is all about getting bits of paper these days, nothing to do with knowing what you are doing.

I see it in my industry, kids with virtually no experience go on a week course and come out as 'qualified'. I spent 5 years at college and another 5 on the tools to get 'qualified', but on paper we are the same.

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by Panchoa

Looks amazing

Have fun clearing the grout off those tiles…..we had a large area of flooring done and cleaning the grout properly was back breaking…….unless your paying someone to do it of course.

It’s getting there, my ‘hard’ work for the project is attending meetings and getting board papers in ontime so I keep getting paid so I can keep on paying the trades .

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by Pond

I spent 5 years at college and another 5 on the tools to get 'qualified', but on paper we are the same.

You should appreciate than why I’m more than happy to pay the trades working on our house. All of downstairs is now done, and it’s not been a straight forwards job. They are back next week to do the upstairs en-suite, the tiler will than clean up, and put a protective layer on the white grout, and put some tiles on the back of the fire place.

Week after plumber can than get on with fitting the fixtures, a few more light fittings to go, carpet/wood flooring to go down and we’ll be done .

Outside cladding/rendering still needs to be done, and new garage roof, but all those jobs wouldn’t stop us moving back in. Cannot wait.

[Pond]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

but all those jobs wouldn’t stop us moving back in. Cannot wait.

The last house I built I kept making excuses to the wife why she (we) couldn't move in. I did that for three months!
The house was completely finished and looked absolutely amazing but I didn't want it to get 'ruined' by living in it. I banned any pictures (or anything) on the walls for over a year, as drilling or nailing stuff to my beautiful walls was sacrilege.

As soon as we moved in I lost interest in the house and wanted to move!

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by Pond

As soon as we moved in I lost interest in the house and wanted to move!

I can see why people like building houses (even though I've not even picked up a screwdriver for our build). I'm already planning what I want to build in around 2050, need to convince my wife to go through all this again, but I've got around 25 years to work on that .

[j.s.]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

I can see why people like building houses (even though I've not even picked up a screwdriver for our build). I'm already planning what I want to build in around 2050, need to convince my wife to go through all this again, but I've got around 25 years to work on that .

Mine says she won't participate in any other house building projects again. I fear she would divorce me if I pressed the issue.
Building is quite stressful, I have to admit, especially when you're a control freak like myself.

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by j.s.

Building is quite stressful, I have to admit, especially when you're a control freak like myself.

I guess it's all realitive, in the time the project has been going at work I've had to help lead/manage the largest industrial action seen in our organisation, a measles outbreak, countless IT 'issues' inthe context of seeing just badly wrong the postoffice got it, a couple of 'critical' organisational wide critical incidents, all the while keeping onto course work for a level 7 leadership MsC.

The build project has honestly been the 'easiest' thing to manage, and pretty simple, essentially pay some ££££ and something gets built by someone .