Stress!

[YnysMon]

A long last we will have builders arriving next Monday to make good the damage caused by subsidence. Today half our home is being packed away and taken off to storage - so Alec's bedroom and our bedroom have been cleared. Alec will be sleeping on the sofa and we've moved into the guest room. The dining room and downstairs study/sewing room have also been cleared. I hadn't realised we have so much stuff! The removal guys have been here since 11 and are still not done.

I'll be glad when it's all over!

Arrgh!

 

[Lulu]

I certainly don’t envy you. We had work done on the house last autumn. They only took 3 days but its the dust getting everywhere that stressed me out.  How long do they anticipate it will take to complete? 

[Mouldy]

I didn’t realise how much stuff we’d accumulated whilst in our last house until we moved.  It took ages clearing the loft and a couple of days clearing the garage.  I’ve vowed that the bungalow won’t get like that and banned the wife from storing tat in the loft.

We’re still trying to sort out the things in storage from mum’s house and I won’t leave our son to deal with a similar situation when our time is up.  I cannot believe the things we’ve had to go through.  Some of it has been heartbreaking.  I can understand why mum kept her wedding veil and decorations from her wedding cake, I suppose, but we can’t continue to hoard things like that, we just haven’t the space.

Good luck with the building work.  We had a similar problem with my first house in Milton Keynes.  The walls upstairs had caused the joists to deflect by a significant amount and to compound the problem the cold water tank in the loft had been installed illegally.  We had to move out for three weeks whilst the builders moved in and took all of the upstairs walls down, reinforce the joists and rebuild the walls.

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, Lulu said:

I certainly don’t envy you. We had work done on the house last autumn. They only took 3 days but its the dust getting everywhere that stressed me out.  How long do they anticipate it will take to complete? 

They told Graham a fortnight, but I don’t know whether that’s a fortnight including Easter or a working fortnight.

 

31 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

 

We’re still trying to sort out the things in storage from mum’s house and I won’t leave our son to deal with a similar situation when our time is up.  I cannot believe the things we’ve had to go through.  Some of it has been heartbreaking.

Good luck with the building work.  We had a similar problem with my first house in Milton Keynes.  The walls upstairs had caused the joists to deflect by a significant amount and to compound the problem the cold water tank in the loft had been installed illegally.  We had to move out for three weeks whilst the builders moved in and took all of the upstairs walls down, reinforce the joists and rebuild the walls.

We were very lucky that my mother had already got rid of a lot of stuff. For several years she hired a space and did a pop up charity shop to raise funds for the church she was trying to keep going, so a lot of the stuff she had that she didn’t need ended up in the charity shop. I did think she slightly overdid it, but it made my life a lot easier when I had to clear her house.

You semi rebuild sounds like a complete nightmare Malcolm. Hopefully ours won’t be that bad! 
 

[Chelsea14Ian]

Can agree moving from our home in Belvedere to here,after 24 years.Was stressful.I hope the building  work Helen is dealt with soon and is as painless as possible. 

[MargeandParge]

Good luck with all. A long story for us but we still have unopened boxes after an internal rebuild. That happened in 2010. Just take care and know that it is your families home and only your families home.

Your two lovely dogs may feel unsettled as well.

Take care you All

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[kpnut]

1 hour ago, Mouldy said:

won’t leave our son to deal with a similar situation when our time is up.

Exactly a conversation I had with Tony, my husband this week when, for the umpteenth time, I tripped over something in the garage. 
It’s just not fair to leave it to the kids to sort out. 
And I’d like to move in the next few years, do we need to start clearing. 
 

I’m very grateful to my late mum who left very little that had to have decisions made. A couple of trips to the tip with stuff from the garage and all the rest was accepted by the BHF for use in their charity shops.

3 hours ago, YnysMon said:

I'll be glad when it's all over!

 Keep your spirits up Helen. It’ll be worthwhile in the end. My best advice would be not to try to continue life as normal with meals on the table etc as usual, but be kind to yourselves and ‘go with the flow’. A few ready meals and takeaways won’t do too much harm in the big scheme of things!

But whoever remarked that the dogs might feel unsettled is right, so as near normal for them as possible. 

[YnysMon]

1 hour ago, kpnut said:

continue life as normal with meals on the table etc

LOL…We haven’t got a table at present! This is our dining room this evening.

The high viz vest has been hung from our light fitting by Harry after he collided with it more than once.

If you look carefully you can see the cracks up the wall behind our chairs.

I am intending to cook as normal. This evening we just threw in the towel though and got a (rather nice) selection of curry from Waitrose. All vegetarian too, which is impressive. We had two vegetarian mains and three side dishes as well as pilau rice and naan. A feast!

The dogs looked fairly chilled out this evening,  having spent too much time in the car this afternoon as our lounge was a thoroughfare. 

[Lulu]

When we thought we were moving to Norfolk last year we were absolutely ruthless in getting rid of stuff as we were downsizing. When it all fell through at the last minute we unpacked and now really like having no clutter.  Nothing has gone back in the loft either (and wont be).   If we try again to move it will be very easy to pack up and nothing to sort through (unless we go even more minimalist…..)

[MauriceMynah]

Lofts are for Christmas decorations and pretty much nothing else. 

[floydraser]

14 hours ago, Mouldy said:

 I won’t leave our son to deal with a similar situation when our time is up.  

This was brought home to us recently. We buy stuff from house clearance auctions occasionally and while bargains are there to be had, we are reminded sometimes that we are buying someone else's wasted hard work. Far better to sell it or give it to charity. I would try and sell it first or choose the charity carefully; some of them charge silly money while the stuff stays on the shelf.

"I'd like to know where it's gone" is what one of my grandparents used to say.

[kpnut]

13 hours ago, YnysMon said:

We haven’t got a table at present! This is our dining room this evening.

We did a very big building project in winter 95/spring 96. I was without a kitchen or even a back wall of the house (a blue tarp sufficed) for a very cold late January and February. All the brickwork was getting delayed cos of the weather. 

With two kids, the younger being only 2 and working full time by then, it was quite eventful. No heating in the house cos the back boiler had been removed from the fireplace and Tony hadn’t yet built a new fireplace or a new utility room for the boiler, BUT Helen, I was one up on you, I DID have a table in the living room, along with a microwave on the floor. Luxury!

You’ll see in the photo below my plumbing system -a bucket off the side of the only kitchen unit left in the house, a very wobbly sink unit. That was about April 96, so the going was slow. Fitted in around a full time job, often working very late into the night. Good thing our neighbour was amenable and very deaf, bless him. 

Then in December 96, on the day my parents were arriving for Christmas, I went off to Morrisons and when I came back I was greeted by this!!! Tony had decided that his Christmas holiday was going to comprise building a new staircase. Just wish he’d waited till the guests had gone. 

You might notice the token protective sheet, not doing much! Lesson never learnt to this day, ha ha.

But good job done in the end. 

 

I wouldn’t want to go through all that again. It was bad enough helping Catherine renovate her house for 4 years recently, but at least we weren’t living there permanently. (She was, 😂). 
So I truly sympathise with anyone putting up with major building work going on. And as Lulu says, the dust for months afterwards - ugh. 
 

Good luck and hope the weather cheers up for ling days out with the dogs while the house is in disarray. 

[YnysMon]

Takes me back to when we built the extension. Harry and Alec were about 10 and 8 years old. As we were extending 6’ out the back of the property and 8’ out on one side there was a fair amount of upheaval. I can remember sitting on our old sofa watching telly in the midst of all the madness that was our previous lounge/diner, that was in the process of being divided into two and each ‘new bit’ being extended. We ditched that old sofa at the end of the build! At least my kitchen was good though…apart from the process of putting in a door to our new dining room. I don’t think I could have got through without a kitchen.

[addicted]

When Tony retired and we moved from Brookmans Park, N. London to Soham we had so much tut in the loft and garage I banned use of the loft ever after and so it has remained. The only thing allowed in the loft is  left over carpet. The garage on the other hand is my idea of hell! The only positive thing I can say about that is that Tony always knows where to find stuff should it be needed even if it does look like a tip. I'm a chucker outer and nothing pleaess me more than an empty drawer or cupboard. Given the chance I would have a skIp delivered tomorrow and throw the lot out (Or more like, several skips) One can but dream!

Carole

[YnysMon]

The builders have made a good start today. Now that they've taken the plaster off where we had cracking it's clear that the damage was much worse than we thought. They are intending to reinforce the wall with mesh, and in places, steel.

One of the blocks under our bedroom window sill is actually loose!

 

 

[Gracie]

Oh Helen, I didn't know whether to like this post or cry for you, bless you  I'm loving the camping/dining area though 

Good luck with it all x

[MargeandParge]

Looks as though they are digging deep enough for a successful job which is very important. It will be worth it. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[YnysMon]

One very good thing. Both dogs have taken to the two builders very well and seem unfazed by the banging. Harry commented earlier that Seren only barked when one of the builders paused with the banging and coughed. 

[MargeandParge]

Typical collie keep focused 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[kpnut]

Oh Helen, keep your spirits up. Xxx

[YnysMon]

We'll the builders are forging ahead. We don't have gaping holes in our walls any longer.

They are planning to turn their attention to the outside walls tomorrow. Probably to give a chance for their plasterwork to dry. 

[YnysMon]

An update. The builders returned on Tuesday and painted the remaining two rooms. Our furniture and lots and lots of boxes returned today. I'm quite pleased that I've managed to empty 16 boxes this afternoon, all of the ones in the sewing room and a few in the dining room. Alec has sorted out his room too. Onwards and upwards!

A few photos...

[YnysMon]

Finally…managed to empty all the boxes in the dining room. The glass and china boxes took ages to empty as everything had been wrapped so carefully. They had used masses of paper. I folded quite lot of it and have put it in one of the empty boxes for future use, but even so ended up putting three bags of paper out for recycling collection this morning, having compressed said paper by stamping on it a lot. 

Just two boxes left now in our bedroom. 

[SwanR]

It must feel good to have got the work done and to be at the “putting everything back “ stage. Sounds as if everything went ok apart from the disruption. 

[YnysMon]

Yes it has gone more smoothly than I expected. Just waiting for Graham to do a few jobs. We took the opportunity to replace the ensuite mirror and light above it with a new mirror that has the light around the circumference, so that's now in place. We also need to get a new curtain track for our bedroom - but John Lewis online seem to be completely out of the length of track we need in all their ranges. Maybe we need to try IKEA.