My house extension diary

[Gregory01]

eeek it's nearly Christmas and we are hopefully going to semi move in this weekend! This update it just about the rendering. So we went with a local chap who just does k rend thin coat systems. I did some digging before and concluded although there are less well known products which are probably better than k rend finding anyone with experiance in using them is not easy. For that reason along with meeting the area rep for k rend (nice guy) we decided to go with it.

The chap we chose gave us the option of externally insulating the house. It came with a few plus sides. Firstly we didn't need expansion joints between the old and new parts of the house and meant cracking was less likely. Secondly With the thin coat it is also easier to repair than the normal k rend so if we do have any cracks it is possible to fix it without redoing the whole side of the house. Thirdly some of the blocks which were used to build the house had what appeared to be rust spots. Apparently these will eventually show through the render but obviously by having the insulation it will prevent this. Lastly it will make the house more energy efficient. It was only around an extra £2k so we decided to go with it and are really happy we did.

The only issue we did have with the render is it seems to be a bit hit and miss as to how long it takes to dry. Unfortunately our house being not far from the sea does have a side which takes a bit of battering. This lead to the side being ruined before it had time to set. Fortunately the guy we used was very good about it and re did the whole side again for us.

Anyway onto some pictures.

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

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• Gregory01
• 3 Dec 2015

 

[sh4d0w]

Well what a fantastic read! i read each and every post (i think) - is it wrong of my to ask... what was your budget for the project and how did you do in terms of sticking to it

 

[Gregory01]

Hi Sh4d0w. Thanks for your reply. Having never done more than change a door on my first house I was what you might call stupidly naive about how much the project would cost. I'm somewhat known for finding a bargain so I dred to think what it could have cost is all the windows, doors, bathroom suites etc has been brought from the big companies.

Throughout the project I have found it hard to compromise on much and as with everything in life you can always pay that little bit more and get something a bit better. Unfortunately this isn't too good for the bank balance.

The original budget to get the shell up and inside plastered was set at £60k but with £80k put aside as I knew it would probably cost more. I'm chuckling to myself now as knew I shouldn't have worked out my budget on the bag of a fag packet after a few too many beers. After the first builders stitched us up and the new builders costing more than the first ones the extra £20k contingency was gone pretty much straight away.

I'm not 100% sure where we are so far but think it's around £120k. Fortunately there is not too much more to do as I am officially skint When you think that we literally kept 1 side wall and half the back wall and pretty much everything else has been changed I still don't think it's too bad. Every pipe, cable, internal wall, staircase, window, door... Everything has been redone. It's an awful lot of work and materials.

Since my last update I've had the driveway done. I will pop a few more pics up shortly with some more progress. Also a big recommendation for anyone local who wants their drive done. The guys were fab.

 

[sh4d0w]

Thank you for the figures and being open about that! - it really does go to show what "Shopping around" does for you i guess.

Looks like you have a hell of a house to show for your hard work though.

Good work!

 

[lisa500]

Hi, just came across this thread and was wondering if you could tell me who you got to do your 3d rendering? I'm trying to get some mock ups done of my house, but no idea where to get them done and what you had done is exactly what we need. Thanks, Lisa

 

[kingandy2nd]

Really good to see your house taking shape now - and it looks absolutely amazing! Congratulations.

I bet your neighbours must be getting jealous of how bad it makes their houses look

I would be interested to know how much the K rending/insulation cost for you to have done, as I'm thinking of doing similar to my house.

Thanks again for the updates
Andy

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I would be interested to know how much the K rending/insulation cost for you to have done, as I'm thinking of doing similar to my house.

 

[Gregory01]

Hi Everyone and a happy new year to all. Here is another update with lots of photos and an answer to everyones questions.

Firstly the questions. to Lisa500. The renderings I got done on a site called people per hour. I normally use it for outsourcing small work projects where you can source people for small projects either by the hour or on set price work. some people are a lot better than others. The guy I used has a user name Hallan A. Here is a link to his page. Currently her is charging £50 for 4 renderings (you would be looking at adding a 0 on the end of that if you want to use someone in the uk. http://www.peopleperhour.com/freela...-3d-and-cad-services-expe/432407?ref=provider

To Kingandy2nd and Ban-all-sheds. The rendering was one which I shopped around for and it ended up costing £7800 excluding scaffolding. Fortunately the guy had just de registered for VAT which made quite a saving.

Onto the update and I will start with outside. We have had the lights installed and the driveway done. Here are a few pics of the driveway.

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

Overall im really happy with how it has turned out. I went away from the original plan of grey pavers as wanted to add a bit of colour to the curently black white and grey house. The guys did a fantastic job. I ended up buying the materials myself and just paying the guys for the labour. It cost around £1700 for the labour and the total all inc was about £4500 and there was about 70sqm in the end. We did have a bit of an issue with a gas leak but this was resolved and so far no bill through the post

Inside the house is really coming together. A couple of areas I haven't shown yet are the hallway and main bathroom. In the hallway we made a half height wall rather than going with spindles and capped it off with oak butchers block and Danish oil. I'm really happy with the outcome.

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

In the bathroom we saved a bit of money putting down lino rather than tiles. The tiles I wanted were the sparkly quartz ones and I'm sure we will get around to doing them at some point but this was a financial compromise for the time being. We have put in a whirlpool bath (which was only an extra £200 and well worth doing). To save arguing about the sink in the morning (one of the downsides of living with 2 girls) we went with a double sink. There were no units off the shelf which were reasonably prices and fit our dimensions so we used b and q wall kitchen units, added some feet to them and viola. As you can probably see we still need to get some door fronts (think we will go with acrylic), also a splash back and a mirror light. For the mirror there is a company on ebay Germany who can make them to measure so will probably go with that when we have a few more £.

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• Gregory01
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The hallway and stairs are coming together. Im planning on a glass infill between the newel posts which should work well. I will then put an handrail on the other side. The hallway is currently covered with carpet offcuts. Cant get this done yet as we seem to be having an ongoing issue with our front door and it isnt quite keeping all the water out

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

The studio is nearly finished, I just need to get the wall bed up and operational and furnish it. Went with stripey carpet which has made it look bigger.

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

The office which I originally thought might be too small has worked out to be perfect. We custom made the desks out of butchers block oak worktops and again used danish oil to finish them off. I used a kitchen base unit with bits of wood underneath as feet to lift it slightly from the floor. Will put a kitchen door on it when I get around to it. Just enough room for 2 of us and is a lot better than working from out lounge which is what we previously did in the old flat. excuse the mess.

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

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• Gregory01
• 1 Jan 2016

The lounge and kitchen have been decorated. We are in desperate need of some new sofas as the ones we have really dont do. As these are yet another thing we will be saving up for we went with just a cheep carpet and will change it in a year. We didnt want furniture marks on an expensive carpet. Considering it was only about £4psm im really happy with it.

In the kitchen we have managed to get the kitchen cabinets in but end panels and doors will come later in the year. We compromised on the worktops and went we some good laminate ones and they work well. We haven't finished the kitchen island off yet and plan to have a breakfast bar with pull out dining table when we get around to it.

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One last thing which is worth an mention for anyone doing a project from scratch. Im quite a fan of my gadgets / toys so put in cables for a projector, speakers and surround sound before plaster boarding. Im really happy I did. The screen you will see on the ceiling is 120 inch and is really good fun when you have friends over. All electric so at the touch of a button you have a home cinema and the cost isnt much different to a new 50 inch tv.

Anyway I hope people like the update and it helps give some ideas. Myself and the family are loving the extra space and feel very fortunate to have been able to do a project like this. I have to be honest and say that it has been far from easy and its nice to be able to enjoy the rewards and have a bit of time back to myself. I will keep the post updated as we progress but finally feel like we are on the home stretch. As always feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks
Greg

 

[davestow]

Hi Greg,

You should write a book.

Thanks for the thread - thinking about an extension and just reading this gives me an idea of the work.

You talked of budget, but what of time? How long did it take, and how long did you estimate initially.

...and what of your quality of life - how much of your waking hours (and sleepless nights) were spent thinking about this?

Thanks again for the thread - awesome! House looks great too by the way!

 

[Gregory01]

Hi Davestow,

Thank you for the message and Im glad to hear the thread is still being read. Its now been just over a year since my last post and I would love to say all is finished but looking back at the pictures I have done the grand total of nothing on the house since my last update. Due to having borrowed some funds (from the good old bank of mum and dad) to get the house finished to a standard where we can move in, I thought it was best to get them paid back before continuing with works. This is now done so over the coming months I will be getting the house finished and of course will add some more pictures.

Time frame wise it took quite a while. We purchased the house back in August 2013 and it took until December 2014 to get the shell finished and December 2015 to get it to a standard where we could move in.

Initially I had estimated circa 5 months from starting work but then I had planned to have all the works completed by other people (unfortunately a luxury in the end I couldn't afford). To answer your question yes it was pretty much an all consuming project which took about a year of my life. Working on it in every spare hour I had in the day and every evening researching and buying bits for it online.

Having said that I wouldn't change it at all. It has been quite a journey, a real eye opener and I have learnt a huge amount along the way. They say the harder you have to work for something the more you appreciate and enjoy it. This is certainly the case with this house and I am thankful every day for what we have. In the grand scheme of things it was a short stressful period but means myself and family get to spend many years enjoying what we have made.

Sorry for the long post but 1 last point to mention. I'm keen at some point to do another project (probably something from scratch - grand designs style). The one thing I would definitely do differently is make sure I had a lot more money. It's fine doing work yourself if you want to save a few ££ but would be lovely to be able to just pay someone when you come up against something you don't want to tackle or if you just want to push the project on a little quicker. All of the stresses with this project were down to the finances and lack of control on how long it would take.

Thanks for your post and keep an eye on the thread. Will be some more updates shortly.

 

[Ian H]

What a good read!! Thanks for sharing

Do you think your next one might be easier as a new build rather than big renovation?

 

[staffsvw]

wow

 

[eddieed]

Sorry for the long post but 1 last point to mention. I'm keen at some point to do another project (probably something from scratch - grand designs style). The one thing I would definitely do differently is make sure I had a lot more money. It's fine doing work yourself if you want to save a few ££ but would be lovely to be able to just pay someone when you come up against something you don't want to tackle or if you just want to push the project on a little quicker. All of the stresses with this project were down to the finances and lack of control on how long it would take.

Thanks for your post and keep an eye on the thread. Will be some more updates shortly.

I have enjoyed following as well - we are currently in the planning phases of turning our 2 bed bungalow into a 4 bed house, some issues to resolve but slowly getting there.

I would agree with you about sometimes spending money, on our first house an old cottage I did some jobs which in hindsight I would have someone else do. For example I built a stud wall, it took me 3 weekends (it wasn't an easy design) of hard work. It probably would have taken a chippy a day maybe to build and board. Thats hindsight for you. As we enter our new project I'll know what I can do and what we should get people to do.

Good luck with finishing it, I hope that when we do ours we don't have to move into something unfinished, we did that in our last house and the kitchen was finished about 2 weeks before we put it up for sale, 5 years after it was initially fitted!

 

[Mike313]

Brilliant thread. I've been through a similar project and despite all the planning and budgeting it still took longer than expected, problems arose and it cost more than estimated. I did the drawings and the planning application myself and that all went fine. I had an architect check them and write a specification. I was quite remote from the site so I hired him to carry out site inspections too. One saving grace, and I am so pleased I did this, I re-wrote the specifications as I thought they were too basic and not specific enough. I added pages of detail throughout and eliminating the 'grey areas' you mentioned in an early post. In addition I editted the builders contract (they are a medium-sized firm and have a standard house-building contract which they alter to suit the project) to remove from the contract all terms that allowed the builder leeway in charging including PC sums for things like kitchen units, heating system, bathroom units as all of these were specified in detail in the spec. Several times the builder tried to stick me for 'extras' and I was able to refer him to the specifications and the contract. I think the build would have cost me 25% extra if I hadn't done this. The one thing it whole exercise taught me is you can never have too much detail in your spec. Thanks for putting your experiences on here, we can all learn for them.

 

[bilabonic]

Great thread, did they use Krend ?