Shopping frenzy

An eBay-tastic couple of days. After the success with the basin (got - very nice) and sink unit (not received yet), I guess we got a bit carried away. We have received the tap for the bowl. It is really solid, and from what i can see we got a bargain at £26 delivered, RRP is more like £260! From "the Kitchen and Bathroom Outlet" on eBay. (All suppliers in the links list)



We have also ordered the shower and mixer for the ensuite. Apparently, the control should have been £600, but we got this for £150 - bargain! In theory it can control both a bath and a shower simultaneous with sufficient (1 bar per outlet) pressure. It has preset programs so I can set one temp and the wife can set another. We could even set it to turn on at a certain time. More practically, we can use the second outlet for body jets one day without needing to buy a divertor and shut off valve - they are expensive on their own. The controller came from "bathroomstuff4u" on eBay, the shower itself from HIE Plumbing Direct.
The shower is a neat design. The water comes in through the mounting bracket at the bottom of the rail. Above and below that you can just make out the In-line valves - these mean that you can have one or both of the heads operating at once - so we only really needed to add a thermostatic control as the flow control is built in. The digital controller is overkill, but at £150 it was on a par with any decent concealed thermostatic control.

Finally, we chose this light at Morgans months ago, but it's RRP is £200! So when we got the chance to nab one for £50 we had to take it. From "airmyncc" on eBay.



The single basin came from "i-bathrooms" and the vanity unit from "bathroombits4u".

Transformation...

The outside is really looking the part now. The only thing left here is the porch. We are happy with the doors and especially pleased with the bow window.
Here are the doors in close up. All the glass is Pilkington K-glass.

The inside of the extension is coming on upstairs. The arch is the entrance to the dressing room and the gap at the end is the door to the ensuite.

This will be our main bedroom eventually. The sparky was in today wiring this lot up so we have had to settle on the electrics. Geoff is asking for the rest of the house now! A long evening ahead....

Shower, Plasterboard, Doors....

Well it's been a busy week. The stud walls for the upstairs have gone in, including the shower cubicle in the en-suite. We had a lot of chats about this before we settled on building it ready to be a steam room although it will only have a shower to start. Part of the reason is the cost of shower doors and trays. We originally had a 12x12 cubicle with Mermaid panels on the walls and an Impeydeck pre-formed underfloor which would then be tiled, a small 400mm glass screen at one side of the entrance (leaving 800mm gap) basically like a wetroom.

The simple answer was it was very expensive even with fairly basic sanitary ware.

We have decided to use WEDI style impregnated plasterboard to make the cubicle, which is now the full 1700mm wide, but 1000mm deep. We will build a bench out of it at the opposite end to the shower head and the whole cubicle will be tiled (many hours searching e-Bay for mosaic tiles...). There are 2 stub walls either side leaving an 800mm opening with a small step. If we ever get the steam generator, a door will go in the gap, but for now we'll leave it open.

Revised Layout:
We were going to use built-in furniture to house the cistern and sit the basin on, but we found this on eBay and went for it!
And finally, we bought this for the downstairs toilet:
The big doors are in downstairs as well, and the velux, and the roof is on but I haven't been home in daylight to take photos... hopefully tonight.

Hole int' Wall

Progress inside: This used to be the office and is now the entrance to the first floor of the extension.
All the floorboards are down and the main dividing wall is in place - the door to the ensuite will go in the big gap next to the wall
This will be our main bedroom. It is hard to judge sizes at the moment - the main bedroom is 5m x 4m and the ensuite is 1.7 wide x 2.8m long

Roof and glass

Well, things have really moved on appearance wise in the last week. This was the situation on 29th September
As of today, the main pitch is complete and the ridge tiles are on the extension half - we are re-felting the front of the main roof so the ridge tiles will have to wait there. But the big thing is the glass is going in! The bow window looks great - we didn't have it in the original plan but decided on it when we spoke to the window guy a few weeks back. We had planned on a lead edging on the main panes and the blue pattern in the top panels but the window guy questioned it as being a bit busy and Sarah decided to drop the edging - a good move in the end as the lower panels are not that big in the end.

You can't see it in the photo but there are hinges on the opposite side of the lower windows - they can be turned right round for cleaning - a nice bonus. The windows are Synerjy by Synseal. I had never heard of them (I had been looking at Rehau) but according to the Synseal website they are (one of) the largest uPVC manufacturers in the UK - so I hope they are good!


The en-suite window and the front bedroom are now in and looking good. The rear door frames are waiting at the bottom of the picture. Can't wait!

Also, Martin Hope has left Rehau and setup Walkwarm on 0161 7038343. Email Martin on walkwarm@aol.com for UFH or Anhydride Screed. I'll add his website to the supplier links when I get the URL.