Christmas? What Christmas? Where?

[tim]

New floor planned 2 months ago.
Storage heater must be moved first.
5 weeks for an electrician.
Prepare to lay floor - a 2 day job.
"Oh, that (inside) wall (which obviously was an OUTSIDE wall - note the 'coin' [can't find the spelling] stones) is 99% water. Can't lay the floor against that!"
But it's faced with 1" cement. So take that off and face with ventile lime plaster?
"No - it's so wet that plaster will not adhere!"
So - strip up to 3' to incorporate membrane. 5 hours hard labour. £90.
"Can't find membrane" - I look up what we had 45 years ago & he's ordered it. How long??
But the new storage heater has to be wall mounted. Wall? We have no wall!!
So we need to incorporate a "?" to screw into.
Need measurements of the fit.
TODAY he asks for measurements.
Membrane not here.  When it comes, boards have to be scribed to it, after plastering. You have a plasterer??
The floor then has to be waxed.
And the 2 rooms that house the 'furniture' have to be emptied back. Including a piano!

Christmas?? Have a lovely time!!

[tim]

[Tinkie_Bear]

Tim,

Sorry it's going to be up hill for you but you have just cheered me up, suddenly cooking xmas dinner for 11 doesn't seam like such a challenge.

Have a good one

Helen

[tim]

A change for us - usually have to borrow a table from the Village Hall to seat either 13 0r 17!! Relief!!

[SMP1704]

Tim, I feel your pain, just had the plasterer in to do the bathroom ceiling.  Why do they NEVER clear up after themselves or think to put down covers?  I wouldn't mind but I had supplied 3 old duvet covers - I was at work when he arrived so they were never used - he had left by the time I got in, probably just as well - grrr!

However the ceiling is beautifully smooth and a rather fetching shade of pink :D

[Tulipa]

Tim, nothing ever goes smoothly does it?  You have my sympathy, it sounds just like our projects.

We have four windows sitting in our garage waiting for the builder to come and fit them.  Although I really want them done I am not sure I want them done before Christmas now as then four rooms will need decorating!  At least we are not having anyone to stay, just us for christmas so we can cope whatever happens.  The rooms have been half emptied since he said he was coming at the beginning of November.

Not as much upheaval as you though Tim, hope it all gets done.  At least you are going next door for christmas dinner....

SMP, just seen your post as I was about to post, there is nothing worse than the mess plasterers make, our next project is the bathroom and all the walls need re-plastering.  I keep putting it off..... :(

[Jill]

Well, fully expected to be in the same boat as you, Tim so I booked a cottage for the Christmas week just to get away from the mess at home.  However, firstly new kitchen was installed really quickly then plasterer said he'd had a cancellation and could fit us in: both reception rooms, hall stairs and landing (and not a spot on the carpet! ;D).  Then floor sander chap also had a cancellation and fitted us in so front room floor boards are sparkling.  Then decorator had a cancellation and has painted the hall stairs and landing.  (I painted the two reception rooms and ran out of steam - HATE doing the woodwork.)  Now have fab new kitchen in newly plastered and decorated house and we're going away :(

[tim]

Some have all the luck!

Of course, it doesn't end there. We are told that the whole house needs re-wiring before the electrician can sign off any future job. EU again? That's 13 rooms & 3 hallways. No, it's NOT grand, but it's likely to take all our savings!! Have to say that the last major wire-up was 45 years ago. Some dates to well before that!

[Tulipa]

Tim, I don't know about you, but it just seems to go on and on, we finish one job and another comes along.  I just have a wish to walk in the front door and not think about what needs doing next.  One day....

[Mrs Ava]

Tis the joys of being a home owner....or so my mum tells me!  Have decorated the hall - how much woodwork to sand, clean and gloss please?!?!?!?  Now the lounge looks grubby - would like it done before Christmas but am working every day until the children break up from school!  Also have on order a new range cooker - but we currently have a crappy built in one, so the whole kitchen is going to have to be emptied and everything moved and rehung to fit the cooker and matching hood.  The the dining room desperately needs decorating - I don't know how the children get so much food on the walls and carpet without me seeing it!!  And we have cavity wall insulation booked for the start of the new year - mostly done on the outside, except to save us £100 the lovely man is going to do number one sons room from the inside - so no scafolding is needed.  It never rains........

[kt.]

Would appear baby jesus was better off than you then. At least he had a manger in a stable.....

Any consolation - we moved house on Dec 19th and missus decided would do christmas dinner for 14! I was not amused. Not one of 'em volunteered to take the chore for that year :(

[moonbells]

Ouch!

I have been waiting since March to get my falling-down, holey fence replaced with something a little better.

It got done today. At long last, I have concrete gravel boards keeping the soil in place and intact panels. Done nicely, but ... have had a dreadfully neglected back garden all year. (Why plant stuff if it's going to get dug up or trodden on?)

On a more postive side, Tim, I see that your son was mentioned in today's Guardian letters!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1964798,00.html

moonbells

[mc55]

you have my sympathy, I've been doing up my house for a while now and I manage one step forward and then 6 steps back.  Its amazing how quite a simple job escalates into a full time job for a gang of builders ... hope it gets sorted soon.

[froglets]

I've had 2 years of fun upgrading a first timers do it up and get rich quick renovation house.  I knew what I was taking on so it's not been too traumatic. 

My neighbours either side ( party walls) were really reticent when I started doing work on the place & it all came out that "Muppet Features" the previous "I've seen them do it on telly how hard can it be owner" had caused all sorts of mayhem in their houses and property & they'd had to keep an eye on him to stop him doing stuff without their permission.

At last I've reached the stage where I can do up a small house the way I'd like it, so I've engaged insured reputable contractrs & OH & I do know what we are doing.

Last winter I had the roof off and redone in the two weeks it snowed & blew a gale, so I can predict an icy wind in South Cheshire in mid January when all the windows get replaced.  I redid all the roof insulation on the two hottest days of the summer ( well, the insulation was half price that weeek!!!) and looking at the project financial plan, I should be ripping out the cheapest kitchen Ikea do around about Christmas next year.

Between the windows and then, replace all the flooring to finally remove the smell of wet dog on the stairs, probably replacing the staircase in the process - It's been covered up with board underneath & knowing how Muppet Features brain works, that means there's a probelm & he will have left in a state where it can't be worked on without first taking a sledge hammer to it.  sledgehammer has already been used in lounge & bedroom to remove his handywork.

And don't mention that his mate who did the dampproofing which I had done again properly, drilled through into next door & broke his gas pipe so when he came home from work, the house was full of gas, or when putting  up the kitchen cabinets, he drilled through to the other side and knocked tiles off their wall, and then he put in a fire but didn't waste money on a flue and filled the other side with smoke........

You get the picture.

[moonbells]

heck froglets - I thought that the previous owner of our place (also often referred to as Muppet Boy) was bad! We are still trying to fix the things he did some 9 years later... including soldering on an immersion heater cap after he'd cross-threaded it, getting corrosive flux all over the tank. This tank subsequently leaked like a shower when our electrician pulled the lagging jacket off the day after completion - and brought our main room's ceiling down 2 weeks after we bought the house. Took weeks to get the place habitable again.

Luckily (!) we'd sorted out insurance beforehand, but despite that it cost us a fortune in extra rent as we couldn't move in...

Fence was one of his efforts too. Corner shed's next - built on half concrete foundations (for a standard 6x4') and half balanced on bricks !!! At this rate we'll just have it sorted before we move...

Glad we had the place rewired though - was a bit of an electrical deathtrap... bare wires anyone?

But all this pales into insignificance with the news just coming out of Kensal Rise - anyone here live near there? Poor folk, getting hit by a tornado...

moonbells

[tim]

Thanks for that, Jane - a wee surprise given that he's among the top 20 or so in the States!!

DIY? Great admiration for these foolhardy folk!! I'm afraid that I'm well past the use by date for anything more than a half cwt. And I'm not allowed to go up ladders any more. HATE paying to have the gutters cleaned!!

[Carol]

Once Christmas is past, OH is ripping out our kitchen and renewing everything in there.  Tiles to come off the wall and if that tears away the plaster board well that will ahve to be re done.  Plumbing re done to put in a dishwasher and Electrics for new type of lighting.  He insists we need extra sockets as well, I dont think we do but can't argue with him about that.  Then the units get ripped out, cooker and Hob.  We shall move the fridge, freezer into the Dining Room and perhaps wash the dishes in the Bathroom.  Kitchen units gets delivered 22nd Jan.  with a template for the Worktops done on the 26th.  Will be cooking in the micro.  borrow a slow cooker and a Forman grill.  I do hope he manages to get it done and that we have not too many hitches (but we will).  I am already fed up with this kitchen and still have the wall tiles to choose plus the colour of the paint for the walls as well as choose someat for the windows.   Roll on March or April or May.   

:o :o

[lorna]

Carol at least by then you will be able to hide in the garden :)

[saddad]

You have my sympathy with the rewiring Tim, our first terrace had been lived in since the start of WW2 by the same couple so was seriously short on power points and the extension over the bathroom wiring had been connected with insulation tape and sparked continuously. I used the entire summer holiday rewiring it myself and those regs are a real pain!
( but very necessary!)
;D

[TULIP-23]

Tim

At the end of it all
Have a Great Festive Season with your wonderful family

Greetings from Holland   Mike

[tim]

Thanks, everyone, & Mike - I have very fond memories of your country.