Nickel and Dimed to death

Nickel and Dime to death is an expression we use in Canada (where I lived to the age of 21), not sure if there is an equivalent here in the UK, but basically it means that you keep asking for little bits of money here which then amounts to a huge amount in the end.

I really don't want to whinge, but I am fed up to the eye teeth. The plasterer has ripped off loads of lining paper in the hall, almost all the way down to the dado rail so that he can 'match in' the old plaster, and has left me with a massive wall that is going to have to be stripped, relined all the way up, and then re lined. It is a mess. I have rung the project manager and asked that he confirm that he is happy with leaving me with this as the final finish. The plasterer then came downstairs 5 minutes later and told me he will make it good after all. WTF is it with people trying to do the minimum work and just seeing if you will accept it?? I hate that attitude. If I want the whole wall re skimmed, there will of course be the charge for another whole days work.

I have also had issues with the fitting of the rooflight. When we had the initial site meeting, I showed the project manager the rooflight I proposed using. I then printed off all the information for him and the lead builder. I emailed details of the rooflight across. They kept telling me, no problem, no problem. The rooflight arrived almost two weeks ago and has been sitting on my patio since. A fox has done a big poo beside it. Well, I assume it was a fox but it might be the builder, because they have since told me that they are 'worried' about installing it, and that it is bigger than they thought (even though I told them the dimensions of it, and they built the hole for it about 3 weeks ago). I had the project manager waffling on the phone about it the other day, and I asked him to cut to the chase and he said they are going to have to make an 'extra charge' for the installation because it isn't 'standard'. I asked him how much the charge would be and he said he couldn't tell me until the rooflight had been installed. Who runs a business in this way??!! I was on my way out the door when we had this conversation, so I told him I would need to speak to Mr SLS about it. I came home to a letter saying that 'he had tried to ring me a number of times about this matter' (news to me!!) and that he would be making an additional charge. To say that I find his approach unprofessional is an understatement. Here it is, sitting on my patio, not on my roof.... (I left the big pile of poo out of the picture).

I rang the project manager to question the letter. I also stated that I feel that asking us to make an additional payment should have been mentioned when I showed him the rooflight at the outset. He then started saying I am being unfair, that I am now blaming him.... blah blah. Really, it was like a conversation with a petulant child. We eventually agreed that he would give me the cost in writing and then we could discuss. So apparently this is being dropped by today. If it is anymore than a couple of hundred quid, I am not paying it. I am so hacked off with the way the situation has been handled. I have generally been very happy with the quality of the work, and the speed at which it has happened, but this really takes away from that.

OH, and today he told me that the cost of the doors to the ensuite and new bedroom aren't included, and I need to pay for them. You will find it in the small print of the contract....

SO, hopefully I won't be on here ranting and raving about the £1000 he proposes charging for the rooflight installation, but I have a feeling I might be. Feel free to tell me if you think I am being unreasonable. Am I???

Week 5

Can you believe it has been 5 weeks since the building work started? I can!! Actually, it hasn't been too bad, but this week with the kids off school has been difficult. I find it difficult to have a conversation with the numerous people in and out without being interrupted by one of my children asking:

1. Can I have a snack?



2. Can I have a drink?



3. Can we see a friend?



4. What are we doing later?



5. Why can't we go out?



6. What are you doing?



7. Can we work on my Victorian Schoolhouse project?



8. Why is there water running down the wall?



9. Why do I have to have a brother?



10. When will all these people leave our house?

Question 10 is a very valid one! Who knows. I would say we have another 3 weeks at the very least. I am starting to tire of it all now. However, we have had progress. Would you like to see? Here are some photos that I managed to get today. It was starting to get dark, so they are a bit dark, but hopefully you get the idea?

Stairs are in.....

Builder even less keen on the rooflight as he has realised it is going to be tricky to fit! Whoops! This is where it is going to go.

New landing (rooflight above this landing):

Getting plastered....

Other side of the room:

So we are getting there. These pictures look so bland and boring and building site. So I have to balance them with some gorgeousness. My lovely friend Helen came to visit last week with her 3 supermodel children. She brought lovely gifts for my children (Mr SLS has had great fun playing with the Top Gear magnets) and I was given the most beautiful flowers. My favourite, Amaryllis. Aren't they gorgeous.....

Thank you so much for all the feedback on the last post. I have decided to have the Vola tap at the basin. I can't spring for the marble shower tray as well as Vola shower fittings, so I have gone for controls as close to the Vola ones as I can get, and a fixed shower head and kept the marble shower tray. I would have LOVED to buy the Vola shower controls as well, but they are SO expensive. I can't find a brushed chrome shower control to match the tap, so I have gone for the normal chrome and have convinced myself I like it almost as much...

This is the Vola shower that Helen suggested in the comments section back when I was considering a digital shower. I can see why she thought of me when she suggested it. Clearly that woman getting in the shower is my spitting image.

Tee hee!! Sadly not..... perhaps in my next life? Please?

Who knew??

Mr SLS had last Thursday off to go bathroom shopping (more on that later). As he is very brave, he climbed up the ladder like a little monkey and snapped some photos of the loft for me. We were both surprised at how much they have achieved.

The top left corner of the room is the ensuite, shower will be on the left. That is the electrician doing the first fix....

The three velux are positioned high so that I can have some cupboards set into the eaves. I love how bright the room is looking already.

Another sunny day in SouthWest London. Can you see why I wasn't so keen on scaling the scaffold? These photos were taken last Thursday and they have told me that all the plasterboard is now up. The stairs are being fit tomorrow (they are currently sitting on the landing) and then I will be up there taping out the ensuite fittings to make sure they work.

Thank you all so much for the feedback on the shower. It did really help. I agree that the control panel is not the slickest thing around. We have therefore decided to just go for a fixed shower head and the bare minimum of controls. Had a look at the Vola shower control that Lady Helent suggested in the comments section of the last post. Very nice, but also very pricey. I do like the brushed chrome. So now I am trying to decide.

As a bit of background, this is the sink we are going with:

Are you interested in seeing the loo? Is it a bit strange to post a photo of a toilet? You can nominate me for a 'crappy blogger' award then (tee hee).

Back to the shower valve. So here is the Vola option, but imagine it in brushed chrome weighing in at a hefty £656.83:

Below is the an option for Crosswater which is just a shade under £300, but doesn't come in brushed chrome.

I think you would agree that they aren't a million miles apart. It is when you look at the basin taps that it all goes in Vola's favour:

Here is the Vola basin tap (in the brushed chrome, weighing in at over £700:

And here is the Crosswater, looking rather pedestrian and clunky, but at less than half the price.

Sigh. Not sure I can do the Crosswater now. What do you think?? Thing is, we have already maxxed out the budget for the shower tray. I was hoping to save some money on the taps. Or should I ditch the shower tray, get a nice low profile one for less than half the price of the marble one, and go for the pricer taps. Or should I risk divorce and order it all? What would you do??

Shower Room

As I mentioned in a post many moons ago, I plan on using marble in the ensuite shower room in the loft. I even conducted a marble 'test' as I was worried that the marble might be stained by our hard water that we have here in SW London. The sample tile that sat in our shower for 6 months is the one in the middle. No orange staining at all. So the marble gets a big tick. The picture below is my inspiration room!! Sadly, my shower room won't have a lovely free standing bath in it! This marble is also much more darkly veined than the sample I think we are going with. It is amazing the variation in the different marbles out there.

I have decided on the marble sample on the left of the three sample tiles above. The veining is much more subtle than the veining on the other two, which I think I prefer. I think the room is too small to carry off the deeper and darker veining. The other reason is that the provider of this sample can also provide me a low profile shower tray made from the same marble. The first picture below is the sample tile that we decided to go with. The second picture below is of the shower tray. This example is in limestone, but it gives you an idea of the look I am hoping to achieve.

I think the tray above is a different material from the wall tile, I am hoping mine won't look darker than the floor or wall tiles. I want it to look as seamless as possible. Mr SLS has always been rather 'anti' wetroom, as everyone we know with one has had leaks. I spent ages researching wedi boards and he was happy with the marble shower tray as a solution. Now he gets his shower tray, and I get the look I want. Win win as they used to say when I was gainfully employed in the big world of business. Now I just spend all day on the internet finding expensive options for our loft room.

We are currently in 'negotiations' regarding the shower. I am loving the idea of a digital shower. Grohe do a lovely model with 3 pre set temperatures. It comes with a wireless remote to start the shower!! Mr SLS thinks it is faddy and doesn't see the point paying double for something that we can do easily ourselves (get out of bed and start the shower and adjust the temperature). I would love any thoughts any of you out there might have. Have you ever come across a digital shower? Do you know anyone who has installed one?

This is the write up from the Grohe website:

Imagine how wonderful life would be, if every morning you could simply press a button and a warm and inviting shower would be waiting for you when you reached your bathroom. The temperature, pre-set to the level of your choosing, and the flow rate finely tuned to suit your mood.Few of us can deny that at some point we've dreamt of such a luxury. With our digital shower Grohtherm Wireless, the dream is now a reality.

PMSL at 'the dream is now a reality'. I will be brave and admit that I have dreams of not having to get up and start the shower. I am not only a fussy cow but also a lazy cow. I can't wait to hear what the builder thinks of it!! Here is a link in case you decide you can't live without one either.

http://www.grohe.co.uk/en/bathroom-products/browse-by-style/cosmopolitan-style/tap-thermostat-lines/grohtherm-wireless/p/25_794.html

Thursday this week will be an exciting day, as the rooflight will arrive and hopefully be installed, and the stairs are due to go in. Mr SLS has the day off and we plan to visit a few bathroom suppliers to purchase the fittings for the shower room. So expect some pictures soon!! And the outcome of the shower negotiations....

Could it possibly rain any more?

No, seriously, what is this rain all about? We took a daytrip up to visit my inlaws in Cambridge yesterday and it took us 4 hours (normally 2.5hr journey) to get home. As we S L O W L Y made our way home, the rain was lashing down and I had a bad feeling. I was right. The pics below are about a half hour after we mopped up, the amount of water coming through was unreal. The last picture is of the ceiling above the row of buckets, the water found a crack to come through.

Do you like my lovely assortment of towels? The little ones were very upset by the leak, and kept asking me why I had let the men take the roof off our house.

Fortunately, the rain seems to have stopped for a few days. I had the hall stairs and landing carpet lifted and stored a couple of weeks ago, so we were lucky that the only damage was the ceiling with the crack, and that is to be replaced anyway as there is a loft hatch in it which becomes redundant.

The building work is actually progressing at a very good rate. The dormer frame is up, and the flank wall brickwork is starting on Thursday this week. The builders have broken through in preparation of the stairs going in next week.

I have ordered the rooflight, and it will be delivered next Thursday. I am very excited to see it installed. Hopefully I will have some more interesting snaps to post next week as these things happen. The builder did ask me if I wanted to come up the ladder today to have a look at the space, and I declined. I am a bit of a scardy cat!

Week 2

So the builders came as promised yesterday. It was very busy here all day, with lots of banging and cups of tea. They have put up the framework for the hip to gable roof (covered in blue tarp in picture below, this will be our new roofline), and the dormer is going in tomorrow, weather permitting.

I am sure the builder thinks I am such a fussy cow (which I am). The plans specify a polycarbonate dome in the dormer roof to let light in to the landing. While I agree it is important to let light in, I am not keen on a plastic dome. The builder asked me 'Can I ask why you don't like polycarbonate domes' I replied, 'Because I don't like the sound of rain on them and they get all dull and scratched' (which is true). He gave me a look of , 'Oh, ok....'. So I have been researching alternatives and have found this.

Much more attractive than a polycarb dome don't you think?? The rooflight will measure 1000 x 1500 and hopefully let in lots of light to the stairwell. We won't be having the dodgy halogen circle around the rooflight though!! I guess they wanted to draw attention to it!!!

As this option comes up as considerably more than the polycarb dome, we are having to 'tweak' the budget. One of the things that will have to be 'trimmed' is the flooring. The elements 7 flooring that I posted earlier (I should probably insert a link here to it, but cannot figure out how to do it) is just so expensive. I do think the roof lantern is more 'bang for the buck', so I we are going for that, and I am now on the hunt for some lovely flooring for the space that is going to cost less than £1500! I still really want grey stained oak, so I am flirting with the idea of getting some unsealed oak boards and experimenting with stain. This makes me VERY nervous! Yet again, I find myself wishing for endless pots of cash. Sadly, as usual, I have champagne tastes and a lager budget....

Rain, rain, go away

Well, of course our Indian Summer broke the day the builders came back. They pulled a load of slates off the roof first thing Thursday morning. The heavens then opened, so they drank a million cups of tea and finished off a kilo of biscuits (so back to Poundland I go to get another kilo for a pound - can't say I'm not treating them well....). They then buggered off. They haven't come back since. No leaks yet, but I am very thankful that it hasn't been that windy with the rain, as I am sure the tarp has only stayed put because of the lack of wind. The rain was torrential on Thursday but has only been a minor drizzle since.

Meanwhile, a house 6 doors down started a loft conversion on Monday of this week. They now have the dormer up, the steels went in today. WTF.

I am hoping that it isn't just that our builders don't like getting wet, and that they are actually prudent to not do all this in the rain. I hope the house down the road has had water in as a result. Not that I want to wish them ill, I am just not sure our builders need to be as delicate about it as they have been? Anyway, they have PROMISED me a team of 4 to get the gable end up on Monday.

Are you bored yet? I am...

In more exciting loft news, the very clever and handsome Griffo has posted some pictures on his blog of his loft. Check it out:

http://obsessilicious.blogspot.com/2010/09/loft-flooring-and-ikea-hack.html

Well....

Not even going to try to justify the massive silence here!!! Not sure if anyone will even be looking at this anymore, but I thought I would update anyway. I want to keep a record of things so that I can look back on this as a log of our work and decisions.


SO, after a considerable amount of time (and money), we finally have a party wall agreement with next door. Scaffolding went up last week. We have a skip (I love having a skip, let the clearing out begin...). The builders arrived yesterday. They moved a load of wood onto the scaffolding. They plonked 4 steels in the front garden. They then sat in my shed for an hour, ate an entire packet of chocolate bourbon biscuits, drank tea, and then buggered off to finish up another job!! Great start. I have been promised a return tomorrow. The weather has been glorious here, so I would like things to start while it is dry.

We moved Miss SLS out of her bedroom at the top of the house as the ceiling outside her bedroom needs to come down as the wall supporting the back of the dormer is just outside her bedroom. So she is now installed in a double bed in the spare room (which she loves).
The photo below is taken from the first floor landing. The door facing the stairs is her bedroom, so the ceiling ouside her room will come out, along with the skylight to turn the roof from a hip to a gable end. I have plans for replacing that skylight that I think I just finalised today. More on that soon!!

Approved!!!!!!!

Yippeeeee!! Our loft conversion plans have been approved by our local council and they have issued us with a lawful development certificate!! We are so pleased. 3 years ago our neighbours (next door but one) applied for planning permission to do the same thing and were denied (they, like us, had used all their permitted development allowance for their kitchen extension). The law changed last October, and separate lawful development rights were introduced for lofts. We were so excited about this, as we had thought we would have to have a big planning battle to argue the point that a number of homes in the road had already converted from a hip to a gable end roof, so there was precedence for planning to be granted. This amendment has made our lives SO much easier. So now we just need to hash out a party wall agreement with our neighbours (the other side of the semi).

This will be long and protracted (and expensive). We have a very difficult relationship with them, they were not happy at all about our kitchen extension, and will be even less happy with a loft conversion. I am putting it in the very capable hands of a party wall surveyor. Once we have the agreement in place, we can start. Yikes. I will of course keep you in the loop!

In other loft related news (!) the marble tile sample in the shower is remaining unstained, I am going to keep it there until we need to order tiles, but I am hopeful that it will be ok. A forum that I was looking at the other day said that staining occurred after a year so I still feel a little nervous about it, but I also wonder how often this person cleaned their shower? I would be quite happy to wipe it down every day if it meant it would stay unstained.



And because I don't want to post without a picture:


I really want this lamp, and how TO DIE FOR is that view??








Also, we made some cupcakes last weekend













Am off to Ikea tomorrow as they have Rosali bedding back in. I bought a duvet cover and made it into curtains for Miss SLS's bedroom a few weeks after she was born, and have since wished I bought another to use as a duvet cover. Thanks to Lindsay at Notes from My Days (see the link in my blog , not to sure how to create link here!) I learned today that it is back in stock after 7 years!! So I am going to see if I can do a quick dash over to pick some up, and any other goodies that I can find as well!!! I will report back!! xx

Yellow

Great song, tricky colour. This fabric is still haunting me along with the TOAST cushions that I should have just ordered when I saw them. I haven't made it into London to hunt down something similar. I only have one day a week that my youngest is in nursery all day and this week I did Ikea in the hope that they would have the perfect yellow cushion. Nope. So I hit all the shops locally to see what I could find.

Wandering into Debenhams, I spotted a flash of yellow! Sold. Not velvet fabric, but the shade of yellow looked promising. 20% off the already reasonable £15. But they are the wrong yellow.






I am also not sold on having two of them. SO back they go. They are really a canary yellow, and I want an acid yellow.


But I do have a bit of the right shade of yellow in the house.





I have had these over two weeks now and they are still gorgeous. I love the yellow against the grey vase.

Speaking of grey, as I couldn't track down the Chanel Particuliere nail varnish I bought these:



OMG the Berlin is just hideous. I took a photo of my nails varnished in Berlin but there is no way I am posting it as it was really rather cadaver'esque'. When did my hands start looking so old??? I put the Minsk on my toes and it is quite nice, it is a very dark grey and quite cool but not really something I would wear on my hands.

So there you go, that is what I have been mulling over on my Saturday. I hope your Saturday was more productive!!

What's behind door number 1?

You might have noticed the door by our cooker in the pictures in my last post.

That is the door to our larder. I didn't want to have too many cabinets in the new kitchen (although I wound up with upper cabinets, which I hadn't wanted, but found I needed), so Mr SLS had the fantastic idea of tacking on a bit at the corner of the room to act as our larder. Once the building work had finished, we threw in some IKEA shelves and the room became the dumping ground for food, drink, kids art supplies, play doh. You name it, it went in there. The shelves were quite deep and I could never find anything. Inspired by a friend's larder (Janice, that is you if you are reading!!), I decided we needed to refit the whole thing, as it wasn't working for me. When we cleared it out I found 4 half full bags of self raising flour, 3 half used bags of rice, a rather petrified banana at the back, you get the idea ...

Here is the larder before

OMG what a hideous mess. The space behind the bigger shelf on the left was total dead space and the kids 'stuff' had infiltrated in an attempt to keep the kitchen clear of clutter. I used to spend ages looking for things that I needed while cooking.

So I spent ages trying to convince Mr SLS that we needed to do a 'refit'. He didn't really see the need to revamp it, but I was determined. So back to my old friend Ikea, to stock up on Billy bookshelves as that is what Janice had used (I am such a copy cat!). I loved the way the food looked against the black, so I had to have them. We moved the old shelves into the shed where they now hold tins of paint/decorating supplies (this was key in convincing Mr SLS).

Ahhh, lovely clear empty space!!!!

Sadly it meant that the kitchen was a disaster zone...

This was the point of thinking, 'Oh, why did we start this.....' we actually went to bed on the Saturday night leaving the kitchen like this. It was very depressing to come down to it on Sunday morning.

But once we got the Billy bookcases in, I got to get to organising, decanting and making it usable and workable. Here is the final result:

Behind the door my spices have a lovely little home of their own...

Ahhhh, that is better. Now I can find the flour (I have since labelled the jars so I know the self raising from the plain after some rather flat scones!).

I still have what seems like a never ending amount of areas like this in my home that need a good sort out, but at least I find this area much easier to keep tidy and organised!