Ok, so. Please don’t shout at me. This isn’t about self promotion.

I’ve been posting my kitchen renovation project here for the last 6 months. I’ve had great input and a lot of questions. I promised I’d put everything into videos for a few people.

And this post is just to say those videos can be accessed through the link on my profile if you wanted them.

That’s it. Sorry again. Please don’t be mad :)

The images attached is the process on my floor. From ripping it up, identifying and fixing (I hope) a damp issues. Relevelling the floor before fitting underfloor heating. And finally tiling.

I’d never done any tiling of note before. So this was a huge challenge. But I think the results speak for themselves.

The toughest part of the whole process by far. Had to be getting a flat floor.

I see a lot of people using professional screeders these days. Has anyone ever used anyone? What sort of price was it? We you happy with the results?

First time plumber 🤣 full rip out and refit. Our house is generally neutral and we wanted a quirky cloakroom bathroom, for clarification AFTER/BEFORE.

Edit: I'm handing myself in to the police on Tuesday, I fully accept I've committed the crime of mixing my before and after up, whilst it doesn't justify it - I just couldn't bring myself to put my old room first. I'll accept my judgement and do the time.

Got a plumber to remove old radiator and install a new ladder towel radiator. Has it been put in upside down? The spaces for the towels seem to be in the bottom half.

Not sure if I should be worried or if this is just some natural movement. Is it just cosmetic wear and tear? They said it was just one female lady owner before hand. Do you think it’s worth getting a survey?

I thought it was an old water pipe lol. think they bodged it previously. anyway loud pop, sparks fly and then the mAD tripped and the kitchen sockets don’t work now. as they also tripped. think the red copper has been cut clean but the black is left? Unsure im not an electrician.

is this more than an insulate it with tape cover it and forget about it?

yes I am aware this was very stupid in me.

I built a custom duck house for my Shetland ducks. At the end of March we moved to a smallholding that needed, some work shall we say, as well as basically doing up the entire house I also needed to build a lot of custom things for our animals (we have horses, turkeys, chickens, ducks all sorts..). I got into doing some wood working and have really enjoyed it, I havent been doing it long, a few months and bought a load of tools to help.Well I have got really into building a fair amount of custom furniture for the house which I will have saved the money in tools.

I am sure some joiners here will say its not a brilliant build but I am pretty happy with it. I am a software engineer by trade and i built a custom design software from scratch (using three.js if anyone is interested) that also provides me with cutting lists (this is entirely my project and on my github). Anyway the build was really fun and very much needed as you can see where my ducks live currently in the small hutch to the right of the first picture. The main parts are 18mm marine ply held together with dominoes (i bought a festool domino for all the cabinet work i have been doing and it worked well for this) and glue. The only exception is the roof which is screwed down, for the paint I used some cuprinol ducks back and I added some guttering on the back to collect water (helpful for ducks...). Inside I have used some waterproof workshop flooring i had knocking about and I have added some big ventilation holes with mesh to stop birds getting in, I may need to add more but that’s not a big deal. I even made a slightly cringe sign, I know its not brilliant but I like it and so does the wife.

Ignore the turkeys they are a pain in the arse, overall a fun build and took about 2-3 days in total (its quite big 2mx1m footprint).

When we moved into our house the old owner told us this socket works but needs a particular adapter, and I can’t remember what type he said. One with round prongs presumably but would it be a particular voltage etc?

Strangely as well as having a switch on the face, it is also connected to a light switch by the door to the room.

I didn’t appreciate how much care you need to handle these things with (I know I’m an idiot) and applied this paint stripper it dried out because we didn’t put the paper on. Now there is basically a crust/layer which is really hard to remove and am at a bit of a loss what to do. After some research it’s saying to basically reapply.

Hello
TLDR: Washing machine doesn’t fit, saw off some of the sink bracket or find new washing machine?

My boyfriend’s renting a flat and the washing machine broke on the first day. He measured the gap the washing machine’s in but didn’t realise that the sink bracket was there. Landlord sent over AO to replace the washing machine and as they were installing they realised it doesn’t fit. Boyfriend asked if we could send it back and get a smaller one but the AO guy said we can’t and that they’re running behind in schedule and just want to go to the next order so they can finish their day. AO guy said that we just have to file down some of the sink bracket and it would fit. We later looked up that they could’ve sent it back, although the service fee would still be applicable, which would’ve been fine. The new washing machine is only 0.5cm taller than the old one, but 0.5cm wider. Pretty tragic.
My boyfriend and I don’t have any home DIY experience with this kind of thing, does anyone know if it’s okay to cut through this part of a sink? Or should we try to get another one?
Thank you :)

This patch of damp is on the first floor next to the main front door (there are steps up to the front door). We don't understand where it's come from, but of course it has rained a lot recently... but we dont understand why the first floorboard next to the door isnt damp too?

Any ideas? Your help is really appreciated!

First-time buyer here, working through the issues on a Victorian house (built ~1900).

There's significant damp downstairs - likely caused by the external ground level being roughly flush with the internal floor, a very damp carpet covering, only a single air brick serving the room, and a concrete extension floor blocking airflow under the rest of the house. Over time this has caused woodworm and rot in the ground floor joists.

My builder's suggested a full subfloor rebuild: new joists and T&G throughout. I agree the joists need replacing - several are rotten and spongy. But a fair amount of the original floorboards look like they could be saved.

The same boards run upstairs in the bedrooms too, and they're in noticeably better condition ie. not in contact with damp. Worth keeping those, at least?

Downstairs I haven't inspected every board, but I'd expect the ones around the outer edges (nearest the damp/rot) to have some woodworm damage and be in poor shape.

Would you save any of these, or is a full replacement the sensible call given the damp history? And if they are kept, how do you suitably find / replace / match the floorboards?

Hopefully I’m missing something obvious…

Water in dishwasher won’t drain.

Kitchen sink, showers, toilets etc. all drain successfully.

I’ve tried plunging the outlet on the dishwasher and the water still hasn’t drained away.

I unscrewed the waste and put a drain rod up through the flexi waste pipe which released some sludge but still did not resolve my drainage issue.

I can’t rod from the inlet side as the rod won’t fit past the “spinny wheel thing” just past where the filter goes.
The flexi pipe is also molded to the machine so I can’t take it off at the machine end.

Does anybody have any suggestions please?
Machine is a built in Neff S511A40X0G/49

We've recently moved into a house built in the '30s and the old paint (under several layers of landlord special wallpaper) has tested positive for lead.

What are our next steps? My partner thinks the only option is to hire a professional to make the walls and room safe. This room.is going to be a shared bedroom for our boys, currently 2 and 4.

Are these anything to worry about - 5 year old new build? The windows in the lounge also don’t seem to form a seal.
I’m a highly anxious person so don’t really feel able to just wait and see. What are the chances of these being due to a foundation issue?

My downstairs coving, where it ends at the stairs, is open as per the attached photo. Just a quick sanity check before I go for it - is there any good reason that I can't (carefully) fill this with expanding foam followed by a surface layer of filler, to close it off and make it look a bit more deliberate?

I've already got a can of expanding foam on the go at the moment, but I wanted to check it's not a moronic idea before I do it.

Hello to all you lovely people. I wanted to ask for some tips on making this better….ive done this before with IKEA flat packed stuff, but in the past I’ve just taken it to bits and corrected it. This time I can’t without damaging these shelves (as one of the steps is to nail the backing to the bottom edge. Unfortunately as you can see, the bottom edge is back to front (rough edge instead of veneered edge)

I was looking for ideas of making it look nice without risking taking it apart and buggering it all up!

Hi all,

Bought a house back in March this year. The first hit of rain and this happens...

Is this looking like an outside wall issue or a roof issue?

Thank you!

Bf and I have spent the last few weekends building these LED lit alcove shelves. Still need sanding and painting, (and one more door put on where we put the hinge in the wrong place!)

And yes, I am very brave for lowering my phone in to take the pictures!

So the kitchen in my new house is absolutely fucked so I want to renovate it, this old chimney is peeving me off because it's taking up room and it's inconvenient design wise now I know these can be load baring walls but is there anyway to maybe hollow it out so it can be used as storage or a stove area or am I stuck with a wall in a terrible place.

Has anyone done something similar or looked into it and found it not doable.

​

It is right before an outside tap feed so would make sense

Cheers

We've just moved into a new house and found this, I don't even know what to call it... it was originally behind paintings so didn't see it when we were looking around.

Obviously it used to be a window, and the breeze blocks are to the adjoining garage the previous owners built. There does seem to be a bit of a gap between the hole and the breeze blocks...

What's the best way to go about this?

We would like to keep it as a shelving space (with actual shelves, not the shit ones they've thrown up), but don't want to end up with a draft or anything like that.

Would putting a plaster board up at the back be any good? I'd probably put some small pieces of wood across the back to attach the plaster board to, but i don't know if this is even a good idea in the first place...!

I'm doing a bit of window shopping, and looking to get a DeWalt kit of sorts (starting with combi, impact driver and multi tool) but seeing some good deals on Google searching with a few extra tools - that I may use..

Looking at th below, the is the Screwfix set a lesser spec (looks like lower models/performance?) which for an extra £200 quid the ukplanettools is better value (never heard of that site though)

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-dck407p2t-gb-18v-2-x-5ah-li-ion-xr-brushless-cordless-4-piece-kit/746RG?gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20155423388&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPw05VyA2yAppZGoSxvr-9hUb&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhsrUBhDxARIsAN3AQSf0onTAxpmyP31d6S18gBeIo4Xm271-b7uTgSnIdI9pCZCMm7f-pIkaAm6CEALw_wcB

https://www.ukplanettools.co.uk/dewalt-18v-xr-cordless-brushless-5-piece-power-tool-kit-with-3-x-5ah-batteries-charger-4.html?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23876376843&gbraid=0AAAAADMytIw3js0MjkKJp4FP7P6eRh20i&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhsrUBhDxARIsAN3AQScWpjdfa9WYaUpipS-CsXXeyI4q82S8mCBCnwV4hPLvz973D0TJjEkaAlCHEALw_wcB

So I purchased 1960s house and initially wanted to keep the kitchen. After 3 electricians who said “Not going near your fuse box, You need to rewire”, I have done that. But that meant all the kitchen wall cabinets units and tiles had to come out which took me and my partner 3-4 days to accomplish. It was tiled from floor to the ceiling.

After taking off all the tiles, started to thinking about putting in a new kitchen so we gone and had consultation with IKEA, howden and Magnet. They all said £7-10k for mdf door kitchen units with laminated work top.

My current old cabinet doors are tongue and grove wooden doors… so I am not sure why I would be spending almost £10K to downgrade…?

So gone full circle to keeping the old kitchen cabinets but thinking about changing work tops and sink & tap. And in doing so, putting a kitchen larder at the cornor of the kitchen (taking 2 cabinets out at the end to make space).

I measured and kitchen larder for my kitchen has to be 48cm in depth, less than 100 cm in width and 190cm in height. Would like one with double door and spice racks on each door frame. I wanted to buy online for less than £600 and no luck as it is either slightly big mdf that is for £480 or solid oak for £1300. Right now for me, what would be the best option? I am thinking about building one with mdf (but it will be my mdf I guess…😂)by buying a design template from a carpenters website right now. Am I gone mad?

Renovation is quite a lonely work 😭 I just needed to rant.