My house!

[annwfyn]

pierot have just got back from our house.

Yup. Our house. Our own house, which is ours, all ours (well, ours and the Abbey National).

We collected the keys from the estate agent, went over there, and ordered pizza which we ate sitting on the sitting room floor. Then we wandered around the place, argued over how much building work needed done, and then kissed and made up, and agreed to get the builders in for a quote. We're now home, and I'm making a list of what needs done in the next two weeks so we can start moving in in September, and jez is lounging in the bath, occasionally reading bits aloud from the Inquisition book and cackling demonically.

I fear for ZG Mage. I fear greatly.

Anyway, for my own reference, I add the list of 'Stuff Wot Needs Done' to my livejournal. Feel free to not read if you find it dull, but if you are a homeowner/long term tenant/builder/electrician/helpful soul, feel free to comment with any advice, idea on how much things may cost, any ways of getting it done cheaply, recommendations on people who could help, or offers to come over and redecorate my house for free*

So, without further ado...

270b Lower Road - Stuff Wot Needs Done

Needs done immediately

Lock on front door is broken - need a new yale lock. Sorted - Surrey Quays Locks ltd on Lower Road think that they can provide me with a new lock which I can fit myself for £18.50. Drop in tomorrow and pick one up.

Need to get builders in for assorted quotes on how much french windows would cost/chimney breasts knocked out would cost/assorted walls knocked through would cost

Need to contact electricity providers and get them to change from a key card system to a normal billing system and get our names on the bill - done

Need to get in touch with BT and arrange for phone line and broadband to be transferred (probably at the end of the month)

Need to fill in council tax forms and let them know we're moving

Need to contact Diamond Insurance and change my contact details, and then get my resident's parking permit. Done - cost me £70 to move!

Needs done next week

The wallpaper throughout the house is vile. We need to strip, re-paper and paint. If anyone wants to come along and have a Fun Paint Party (I'm being overly hopeful again, aren't I?) then they would be very very welcome and I shall even provide wine for those who show up.

The ceiling in the living room has an icky crack in the plaster - I need to get someone in to re-plaster that ceiling.

Shelves - I need more shelves put up.

Some of the electrics are looking pretty rough - the light switch fixture in the bathroom is hanging out of the ceiling, dangling by the wire, and the wiring around the meter in the hall is apparently held on by gaffer tape. This needs fixed.

Needs done next week/week after

I need to order a new sofa, and a bed of some kind for ksirafai, and work out if we need any more new furniture.

Needs done at some point, but may well be a long term project

The stairs need re-carpeted.

The garden needs sorted - lawn mowed, then I need to work out what I want to do/can do with it

What else am I not thinking about? Is there anything blindingly obvious to anyone who hasn't even seen my house that I'm not thinking about?





*I know, I'm being a tad overly hopeful there.

Comments

[vireton.livejournal.com]

there is a second hand charity shop with reasonable and cheap furnature near my house for furnishing's

i will be able to help some weekends with re-decorating and i can also do some home repair stuff.. posibly monday and wednesday evening's to.. but i will pass on the wine and ask for water instead.. home repair is a thirsty job

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Would be lovely if you could come over at some point and help. I'll mail you with details?

[vireton.livejournal.com]

lemmie know how and when i can help ;)

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Is there anything blindingly obvious to anyone who hasn't even seen my house that I'm not thinking about?

You haven't mentioned where the orbital defence lasers go...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Actually, a paint party sounds kinda fun to me :)

[portilis.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who was at last count attempting to sell off some furniture, etc, vouchers if they'd come in handy. (They already lived in a shared house with furnishings, but no one knew what to buy them for their wedding!)

Also, we may be in the London area on saturday. I can possibly look at electrics if desired (unfortunately, I'm no longer a certified electrician, but I should still be able to do what you have said needs fixing and check the place over for any risky stuff).

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Oooh...if you could that would be very much appreciated...

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

If you've got time and don't mind it, mi padre can sort the plaster, I think, and definitely the wallpaper stripping. While I have no problem with helping to paint, I can also see a lot of sense in getting the wallpaper off by someone who knows what they're doing.

Also, get paint/plaster done after any brick-work...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

What kind of time scale is he availble on?

Jez and I have been chatting about your Dad - we'd really really appreciate it if he were able to help sort the ceiling. We're reckoning that after that we want to try and get as much of the grunt work as can be done ourselves, ourselves, coz that way we don't have to hire your Dad for 5 days to do work we could have done for much much less cash (and we can put the cash saved into the wall destruction fund).

What do you reckon is best done by a professional out of that list, then?

[isalani.livejournal.com]

Anything to do with electrics - get a proffessional in due to the new laws about what you are allowed to do.

If your not certified for electrical work and you do it then if you get caugth for any reason - you get one hell of a large fine - min 4 figures

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Yep, I was going to say that. I think it's if you come to sell the property though?

While there isn't the same legal requirement for locks, the same principle may also be true for getting the front door lock fitted by a locksmith, to satisfy insurance peoples in case there's ever a security issue.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I don't think the latter is true - I spoke to a locksmith this morning and he seemed to think that there was no need for him to come out - it was just the back of the lock which was screwed up, and he reckoned one of those would be totally safe to fit ourselves.

Surely he'd have mentioned if there were likely to be insurance issues?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

*looks confuzzled*

What laws? Where? What do they exactly say? It can't be illegal to do DIY these days...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Aha! I found the law on the internet.

It doesn't apply to us, as we're not doing any major work involving a complete circuit.

[wraithwitch.livejournal.com]

why are you gonna knock down chimney breasts?
chimneys are crispy.
besides if you get rid of them you have to get rid of them properly so they're capped off and there isn't a pile of bricks still attatched in the roof somewhere making everything warp.
i can probably help somewhen with painting / wallpaper stripping - give me a specific time.
might i suggest the hire / purchase of a steaming machine to strip the paper? (or is it old and falling off anyway?)

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

why are you gonna knock down chimney breasts?

Because they've been painted over and are, mostly, these bulky things sticking pointlessly out into the middle of the rooms, eating up space. But leaving behind, to be fair to annwfyn, lots of cool nooks she can put shelves in if it All Goes Horribly Wrong. :P

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

We're getting in builders to give quotes. I am Darkly Suspicious and fear that it will be dramatically expensive and way out of budget to knock them down, but I have been requested to investigate it, and so I shall at least comply.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Yale locks are deeply insecure. You might want to think about investing in a 5-pin mortice lock in addition or instead of the Yale lock.

(How insecure? Gordon's dad can open one in about 3 minutes without the key, from past experience.)

Also, mortice locks, or any other lock which doesn't automatically close, reduce your chances of locking yourself out.

Ikea really is the dog's bollocks for furniture. I did a LOT of looking around for my new sofa, and nothing else was within 50% of the price for something of half-decent quality.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

We've got a mortice lock in there already, which is why we haven't had to run down the street and get a yale lock put in immediately. The plus side to having a yale lock as well is that you can't forget to lock the door entirely when going out, which believe me, I have done many a time when living in Lambourn where there is only a mortice lock.

But thank 'ee for advice. :)

[commlal.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that the law in England is the same as Scotland for various things, mind you, I could be wrong.

In Scotland you have seven days to report any major faults to the previous owners and they pay for the repair. So go round and check everything carefully. When my friend moved into her flat she found a cracked gas pipe on the eighth day.

Go you though, don't you feel so grown up!

[windzswept.livejournal.com]

Are you still planning on knocking the breast out? First thing to check is whether it goes all the way through the house, because if it is you're going to have the chimney that goes all the way up and may need to redo the entire ceiling in that room and take the breast out in other rooms too (and the attic, which may cause structural issues - and next door may still be using the chimney.

Call the council. That's how we did it. :o) They sent us the book and told us to fill in the DD form at the back and send it back. You should have got the relevant details to give to the council from the solicitors. :o)

Call BT at least 10 working days before you want it :o) Oh and check first that the people in there before had BT, else it could be a minor nightmare - the people here had Telewest and according to BT it would have taken 3 hours of engineer time to switch us back to them.

Check whether you can paint over the wallpaper, that way you avoid the possibility of needing to replaster the rooms - wallpaper hides a variety of sins. The biggest mistake I made at Moredunvale was stripping the wallpaper instead of just painting it. Course this is awkward if they had borders up, but you could make them a feature and it gives you a defined line for stenciling ;o)

The crack in the living room should be sorted by whoever does the knocking out of the fireplace. Mainly because as I said before it'll need replacing anyway.

Homebase is currently having a half-price sale on it's home collection, or it was on Wednesday when we ordered our new bed (for the sofa and the bed).

As for the carpet, yeah we need to do that one too. Hallway and Living Room, currently the chair is hiding an iron burn (from the previous owners).

As for what to do with the garden, weedmatting and purple slate is your friend (it looks pretty and you can cut holes in the matting for plants, and thus minimise the number of weeds).

Other things: Cat flap? Have you got one, do you need one etc. Curtains? white goods? Other furniture (TV stand, table, chairs etc.)

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

Check the plumbing and heating - last thing you need is to find out it doesn't work in the middle of December

[ravenseer.livejournal.com]

and jez is lounging in the bath, occasionally reading bits aloud from the Inquisition book and cackling demonically.

Oh dear.......
Thats just too funny for words......

and makes me wish i lived over there.....

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

You are probably trying to do too much too quickly, particularly on the decorating front, my advice is that you take some time, and just live in the space. No matter how evil the wallpaper is :)