Tag: extension

Phase I: Mould Begone (part i)

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It’s been more than four years since any updates from us, but to be fair , that was 2019, and some rather big things happened after then, which put the breaks on a lot of people plans! But we’ve also been bad and not kept you all up-to-date with the things that have been going on. So here is a catch up!

During this time, we’ve had three new jobs between us, increased our Lego collection way too much, and been trying to get fit and lose some weight. All in between Zoom calls, episodes of Tiger King, and trying to dodge coronavirus. So to sum it up, we’ve not been very busy with any DIY for the last three years!

But it’s not been a complete waste, because in 2021 we decided to finally move ahead in some of our plans for the extension.

Whilst our funds were pretty close the the amounts we’d been quoted in the past, we’d seen enough epidoses of Grand Designs (and Homes under the Hammer), to know that in almost every case the costs and timescales always end up way more than originally expected. So we didn’t want to try and do it all and run out of money before the end.

But during one of the visits from a builder, it was mentioned about having the utility room stripped out, insulated and redecorated as part of the extension plans in order to get rid of the black mould, and make it all good. The builder gave us 2 quotes for both the new part of the extension, and the improvements to the utility room, and it was this that gave us the idea about splitting the works needed into the 2 parts that needed doing.

Over the previous six years of living in the house, the black mould in the utility room had crept further and further up the walls and bloomed in previously untouched areas. And when it rained heavily, the water would seep in around the door frame and though the holes in the roof, despite having had the roof professionally repaired a few years ago.

So we really wanted to try and sort this out once and for all, and we spoke with the architect to see if it could be done. Fortunately it could be, without having to change things very much.

The drains in the garden would need to be moved, which is something that we would need to do as part of the extension foundations anyway, so we decided to include the foundations as part of the work in this phase. And since we were doing the utility at a different time to the bathroom, we decided to add a shower into the utility as well. It’s something that we previously thought about doing, and we thought it would come in handy when the bathroom works will take place, and we won’t have a bath/shower.

This had the added benefit of being enough work for the council to accept the plan as being officially started, which meant that our planning permission wouldn’t expire, as well as having a new (mould free) utility room without having to pay the huge cost of both phases at once (which would have required a few more years of saving)!

There was another issue that splitting the work into phases also helped with, and that was inflation! This was in mid-2021, and so the world was beginning to open up again, and building supplies were struggling to keep up with demand, so the price of a lot of materials were increasing month after month. That meant that a quote given to us at this point might be considerably out of line with the final price we’d end up paying. So at least by only doing a part of all of the works, we’d be able to stop the possibility of inflation becoming a bigger problem for us (which as it turned out, was a very good thing).

We went through the normal (long) processes, with getting quotes from a few different builders and eventually works started in November 2021, and were due to finish around Christmas (although actually ended up finishing in April 2022, but we knew it would always take longer).

First jobs first – Out with the old

Before any works could begin, we had to try and clear out as much of the stuff in the utility as we could move, which was a lot more than we’d realised.

It’s amazing to see how much things have changed, now that we’re looking back.

Second Job – Foundations

Obviously starting in November meant that the builders were already going to have to face into a lovely English winter and its weather, but it was relatively mild, although I am still glad it wasn’t us out there every day in the mud.

One thing that the builders did request of us, was the need to knock down part of the back wall, to give access to some machinery to dig up the ground. By sheer luck, the wall in the back garden backs on to a road, that would allow the access, and we discovered that the wall acutally belonged to us too! And we think we happen to be the only house along our neighbours who happen to have our back garden back on to another road, so for the first time, it actually felt like we had a bit of good luck!

The machinery defineitly helped with the groundworks, and made quick work of it, even if it did effectively turned out garden into somehting that looked like it could be used in a WWI film set!

And becaue we now both work from home, we were actually around for almost all of the works, which meant that we were able to have a little play around with some time-lapse videos.

And eventually things started to come together, with soak-aways being added, and foundations being laid.

Even the new drains came together well, although I know it took many days of being sat in the rain to finish it off.

It felt pretty strange to actually see the foundations going in, when we’d spent so long talking about it.

https://youtu.be/KbnvHqMDMos

And although we tried our very best, the nice smooth concrete surface did end up with a few cat paw prints in it!

The garden was left in ruins, but you can’t have everything!

See part 2 for the details on the Utility room!

It’s been a while…

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After nearly a year without an update (the reason for which we will come on to), I thought now would be a good time. It’s approaching summer and we have been working in the garden, and although not much has changed in the house, our application for planning permission has been submitted to the council.

We have gone with our original idea of having a ‘one and two story’ extension, this expands the upstairs bathroom, the kitchen and the dining room.  We now just have our fingers crossed that permission is granted.

So with that in mind, we are trying to save as much money as possible, and we have mainly been making a few improvements to our front garden.

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Pictured above: Our established ‘Loddon Blue’ Lavender and ‘Totally Tangerine’ Geums

On the last May bank holiday weekend, Paul and I went and bought nine different types of lavender to plant in the front garden. These now line the wall that runs parallel to our house. We’ve left space for them to grow so they do look a bit meek at the moment, but we’re looking forward to having a long row of fragrant shrubbery in years to come.

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We have quite solid clay soil which makes digging more than a couple of inches very difficult. Coupled with the buried bricks, making space for the lavender was not as easy as we’d hoped.

Above: The variety of lavender now planted in the garden. 

The two french lavenders ‘Tiara’ and ‘Regal Splendour’ didn’t come with tags, as we had to go to an entirely different garden centre to find these. I intend to document the order in which they have been planted in a garden book so we don’t forget.

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Earlier on in the year, in March we re-planted our hanging basket with a variety of succulents and an alpine lavender plant. The reason we went for those is because last year the plants tended to dry out very quickly and didn’t do well. It’s all doing much better and needs a lot less watering than last year’s arrangement.

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We also replaced a the couple of plants that didn’t make it through the winter in our strawberry planter, it’s now bursting at the seams. Again, alpines and succulents seem to be the way forward for some easy gardening.

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Above: The bees have been loving the abundance of chive flowers this year.

Our kitchen garden is doing well. We’ve removed most of the mint and had to re-plant it in spots where we don’t mind it taking over (on the ground below the raised bed). It’s now happily mingled with escaped strawberries, sweet woodruff and chamomile (and a few determined weeds). And we replaced a few of the things we lost over the years like sage and lemon verbena (which didn’t survive the Beast from the East last year).

We have also pulled out and replaced some of the plants near the top of the front garden.  I have tried to introduce some more colour as it was previously just a bland blanket of green.

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From left: Hart’s Tongue Fern, Carex ‘Bronze Form’, Berberis ‘Thunbergii Orange Rocket’, a hosta (whose tag we lost), Heuchera ‘Marmalade’ & Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’

We’re hoping it will all fill out a little bit and look even better next year, providing the slugs don’t eat them.

The plan is to begin work on our extension in 2020. The application was submitted to the local council by our architect in April and the decision was meant to be made on 6 June. We have yet to hear anything, but are hoping for some good news soon so we can start making some more concrete plans!

Architect

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Since we first viewed our house, just over a year ago, we planned to build an extension. In fact 18 months ago we tried to put an offer in for number 54 (a house opposite us) which already had an extension. Number 54 had many extensions, none of them approved and it was a bit of a higgledy piggledy house with more charm than sense really. But charm us it did, with it’s nonsensical floor-plan, room for a drive and more importantly; improvement.

We didn’t (obviously) wind up with number 54 in the end. As we tried to book a second viewing to invite our parents for their opinions, we had the call telling us we’d been thwarted. Thwarted, it later transpired, by an old work colleague of Paul.  In hindsight it was probably more of a blessing that we were discouraged at this point because it led to the purchase of our current house, which is a better point to start at rather than having to sit and listen to words like ‘retrospective planning permission’ and ‘indemnity insurance’.

So when our time came to view the house we knew we wanted more room before we’d set foot inside. We wanted as much room as number 54 had but we wanted to do it properly.

In August I emailed a few of the most suitable architects in the area and very quickly had responses. The very first response was from my preferred choice of architect. However, although he was very cordial via email, when he called me ask for further details about the project he was fairly patronising and decided our project was ‘too tedious’ for him. No loss there then.

Find an architect here

Always check they are ARB registered here.

(Of course, it’s always much better if someone you know has used an architect and can recommend one but if you are new to an area then this is a very useful site).

Around September we had a couple of architects around to discuss the project, both architects had very different approaches and I would have been happy to have gone with either one of them. By this point though we had a building firm in mind already who also had their own architect they worked closely with and we decided to give him a go.

Paul met with him a few weeks ago after a month of back and fourth emails and many missed calls. Yesterday his initial sketches of some ideas arrived in the post.

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There were four sketches in total, with three different ideas for the extension. The first idea was just a ground storey extension to the kitchen and dining room, next was the same as the first with the addition of a small extension to the bath room and the third and favourite idea is the ground floor extension with the fully extended bathroom.

The plans aren’t perfect just yet, but this is a definite step closer to the extension we want to achieve and seeing it on paper, rather than just our mind’s eye, is exciting.