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S1 EP 8 | The £100k Bungalow Renovation - End of week 4
53 Plays2 months ago
The foundations have been poured for the extension, Nick's taken down a structural wall between the living room and kitchen, started the rewire and made a faux par with the electrics too...and Dan does some mocking.
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Transcript
Introduction and Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the DIY Guys, the podcast where home renovations, power tools and mild panic go hand in hand. I'm Nick Morris. And I'm Dan Doher. And each week we'll be chatting with some property pros, some DIY diehards, and hopefully be able to help you with some tips and tricks along the way.
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome back to the DIY Guys podcast. This is episode eight. And as always, it's me and Nick chatting. are you doing, mate? Very well, thank you. How are you? it Yeah, not too bad, thank you.
Project Challenges: Weather and Costs
00:00:27
Speaker
So we're at the end of week four. yeah Has it been a productive week?
00:00:31
Speaker
A productive week, yeah. The builders have been there. Well, they haven't been there every day because we've had the world's worst weather. as So I think the whole of Europe has, by the sounds of it, judging by your trip to Madrid you were just telling me about. mean, they literally had to pull off because it was just poor and they've got gazebos and things like that to cover, but... There's only so much you can do, right? And it's typical British rain, isn't it? Just like you can't get away from it. Yeah, exactly. But the good news is they they dug the foundations last week, which I was speaking about, and they poured the concrete.
00:01:02
Speaker
Amazing. It sounded like it went really well. They... they spend this sort of money with these people all the time. So they literally just look at the day before the guy comes. It sounds like the nicest guy ever who delivered it.
00:01:15
Speaker
Because not only was it cheaper because they decided to like wheelbarrow it in. I thought they would just get one of those straight like long hose and just pour it straight in. especially as it was in four or five different bits because I said last week about there was like a gas pipe and electrical cable.
00:01:33
Speaker
There was like obviously the drainage ones, the foul water and the rainwater and stuff like that. So they had build five or six little pockets where they dug and then they're going to have to lint across all those bits. So I thought they would just literally get the thing and put it in point, but they decided because it was cheaper for them, do it by wheelbarrow. And then the lorry driver just offered to help them.
00:01:51
Speaker
but I was just like, what? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. My Amazon driver won't even like wait until I answer the door. And this guy's getting a little bit around. Yeah. That's the same with our empathy. You just see the back of her walking on with the time. You're like, thanks. She doesn't even look round. Or they drop kick it like your door. I'm like, What, this guy's got wheelbarrow out? Especially, it's not easy work, is it? Like, filling up with concrete and pouring it in everything. Mate, that is tough. Oh, yeah. He said he was just really up for it. Fair play. Shout out to, do we know his name? Oh, no. I'll have to try and find out. I know which company was they always use, every time I speak with Dave, he's like, oh, he's Walker's on this one or Travis on this one. They have no idea who he actually used, but I have to do some digging.
Finding Deals and Customer Service
00:02:33
Speaker
That's it. And I suppose it's similar to DIY, right? I know you have your favorite places you buy stuff from, but it's always worth checking a few to find out because people have special offers or sometimes they just bring their prices down to compete. Yeah, exactly. And I think I said in another episode, I ordered my plasterboard through Champion Timber, who I've never even used before, and I thought they were really expensive. And I just did a Google search and Champion Timber were way cheaper than Selco and all the others I usually use. Wow. So it is definitely worth looking around. Yeah. What tough one, nice. Shout out to the unknown hero who, cement guy. Yeah.
00:03:10
Speaker
I thought I once had the best result on this house. um It was Selkos. probably shouldn't say too much, but Selkos massive and everywhere. yeah The driver turned up and was like, oh, you're my last shift, but there's 20 sheets of plasterboard on here. They must have like loaded it wrong. um Do you want...
00:03:26
Speaker
um and I was like, yes, I want them. It's like 200 quid. I think I used 300 sheets in my house. so I was like, what absolute touch. And he helped me unload them and take them down. And he didn't have a crane or anything. So they're obviously some really nice drivers.
00:03:40
Speaker
To be fair, all the Selco guys are pretty good. We're not sponsored by Selco, obviously, which would be amazing. But all their drivers are A, super friendly. B, I've had some before when...
00:03:50
Speaker
I was living at my parents' house who lived about 20 minutes away. And then sometimes they turn up early and they ring you and you're like, oh, sorry, mate, about 20 minutes away. And they wait and then they help you unload. They are like pretty epic people. Yeah, definitely. They always start early, those guys. don't know if they have to go to the yard early or like skips as well.
Timelines and Permissions
00:04:09
Speaker
yeah i've had skips at like 7 a.m and the rule is you're not supposed to start building work before 8 a.m yeah or is it in the weekends i think it still 8 a.m was it slightly later might be later on weekends yeah think you have to finish by one or something from the weekend and sunday's not like a massive skip reversed into some cold as that like my grand's place in like putting a skip down at 7 a.m i'm always like oh god i hope i don't like ruffle any feathers with this well i feel like before i was a parent you're like oh that's annoying but then you back to sleep but i'm Can you imagine when you've had late night with a little one and then that happens, you would be fuming. I'd be so upset. Lydia basically always goes to bed late because, so then therefore does wake up late, which is good. I'd be so annoyed if she woke up and sits. So yeah, the builders, that's actually all they did this week. I showed up some more money, so I'll talk about spreadsheet a bit later, but I forgot to give you guys a total last week.
00:05:02
Speaker
I'll give you a quick summary. image now it's like in the 17,000 mark at the moment from now starting to pay the builders some serious money. It's one of those things I don't think I paid the builders
00:05:15
Speaker
12 000 looks like something like that yeah i've got it here 13 600 and i definitely don't think they've done 13 600 worth of work but it's one of those things where they've ordered blocks and they've ordered the bricks but they're not arrived yet he's like sorted it yeah um and again they've got such good relationships with their suppliers they just say when they want it so they like buy it for a good price at the time hold it yeah and then deliver it um so yeah they say the garage is down foundations are poured next week as long as the weather's fine and They'll be yeah doing the finishing the drainage and then the block work can go up. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. When that comes up, like it's flying then. Such a nice thing. but I think they can lay block work in the rain. It's when it's really cold, you definitely can't. Yeah. Like the mortar doesn't a set or whatever properly. No. I think in the rain, it's fine. Yeah. We had it on ours.
00:06:04
Speaker
a couple of years ago when it was freezing cold and they were just like it just won't set yeah so that must be so annoying very annoying but i know we keep bringing this up but it so good that you did like shutter your foundations because of how much rain you had like can you imagine like it just collapsing in you would be absolutely if you horrendous and then the neighbor's garage is right there as well so i don't know if that would have maybe pulled that in and caused chaos as well and so i've had no issues with the neighbor and they're right on the boundary But it's interesting to see in the concrete, Paul, can sort of visualize the size that You've got to try and work out whether block work cavity, block work is going and stuff. So yeah I'm definitely looking it. You're like, God, it's not big, but it's a garage. It's a garage conversion, basically. Yeah, exactly. It's not a conversion. We've knocked it down and rebuilt. So it's never going to be big. But at the same time,
00:06:52
Speaker
um' I'm sitting there looking at the front thinking, oh, the bedroom's not going to be like that wide or anything. But the bit that I think is going to be really good is the utility at the back. Yeah. Because I'm looking at that kitchen now and I'm thinking, God, when I take down that wall next week, um so I've taken down one wall, which I'll talk about in a bit, and i'm telling yeah the kitchen's going to be a nice size, but then to have a nice size kitchen and a utility room.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah. That's actually exciting me more than the third bedroom of the ensuite, like bizarrely. How have we got to this point where you're excited about utility room? Come on, mate. I'm such an old man. 40 this month. Utility rooms are the best.
Tile Selection and Home Value
00:07:29
Speaker
so You've just come over here and I've just closed my door and in there it's just like chaos. It's probably like a fire in the corner and stuff. I just don't care. It's just like, it's the messy room. It's like it's like the one in the house that's allowed to be messy, isn't Yeah, it's like your dirty secret. You just shut the door and it just lives in there, right exactly exactly so yeah i'm really excited about utility room and i've like started talking to some companies as well so i can't remember how much detail went into but the tile company did i speak to you about that collaboration my did no not yet okay so i've never heard of them and i haven't actually even accepted a contract or anything yet i'm just saying off the cuff but they're called tile.co.uk wow So they've got, I've literally you never ordered from them, genuinely. um They approached me and said, we want to supply you some tiles for your bathrooms. But again, they've gone into, there's no details yet.
00:08:17
Speaker
yeah And I don't think I can just go on there and pick like £100 a square metre tile or anything. There's no details. But they just said, order some samples, me pay for the samples. like It was £10 delivery.
00:08:28
Speaker
I think I've ordered 13. thirteen okay um And i find it really hard creatively about what to do. So i'm kind of going to copy what Emily, my wife, sort did on our house, I think. Yeah. Which in our bathroom is kind of... um two beige tiles which sounds really awful but with slightly different colors and then you can do them in stripes and stuff and make you look quite nice oh nice yeah and it's like it's because i can't um i'm i'm gonna get your opinion on this but i sort feel can't go too out there because i'm selling it yeah so like what would you do like would you you wouldn't go like massive purple bathroom or anything because you just can't can you no i think you're right on what you're doing like trying to keep it
00:09:06
Speaker
like a plainish sort of color but but nice and kind of upkeeping like you say if you go too out there that can put people especially a bathroom right exactly so expensive to fix yeah that's what i thought and then maybe in the ensuite i can put a splash of color in like a green like i've got in my kitchen behind you there or something like that but again i don't think i can even go for like florally you know like tiles you might get a victorian house yeah and it's not an old property as well so again it doesn't quite work no it's so true and like you say you don't want to push it too far out but you want it to look nice still right yeah i think the quality of the tiles right you'll obviously able to see when they turn up i think that makes a massive difference yeah so even if the colors are quite plain if you've got a really nice quality tile it really just shows through yeah and after when emily was all in those two different beige tiles i think one is white and one is like beige or off-white
00:10:00
Speaker
And they just go next to each other and you can do like all white at the bottom, but then behind the bath, we've got stripes in the different one. um It looks so good. And I just never would have thought of that in a million years.
00:10:10
Speaker
I'm not sure I have like the crazy space in my brain to like start from scratch this bathroom. I just copy ours. Yeah. Yeah. Surely going to be all right. And then isn't light colors better in a small room as well? Yeah. makes it feel bigger, right? Exactly. So ensuite and bathroom will be small because they're in this garage extension.
00:10:28
Speaker
So that's my logic on that. So I'll update you as that goes on. It could be another good like saving. Not that helpful for you guys. I'm just saying you've got to have transparency more than
Renovation Costs and Wall Removal
00:10:37
Speaker
anything. And then obviously I can highlight this company if I think they're any good as well as we move think that's helpful in itself, right? Another company you can go to. Exactly.
00:10:46
Speaker
We had a similar thing where we wanted a certain color of tile in our bathroom and we went around numerous different tile sites and they're all slightly different, right? You know, we all did, I think it was our flooring ones off a website we'd never used before.
00:11:01
Speaker
And like the reviews were good, but you're like still waiting for this to be delivered. yeah could be like It could never turn up or it could be like really cheaply made. yeah So that's helpful in itself, having another place to go to and look for.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, because it's interesting because our floor tiles in our bathroom were actually cheap as chips to want because we were just like, we want a beige floor. And I've ordered like four or five beige samples. I imagine it'll be easy to pick one. Yeah. um And they they look quite low quality. They're quite thin, and they've been good as gold here. Yeah. work for the underfloor heating and everything.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, i've I've taken a punt on a few and I'll let you know, but I feel like I just need to calm down because sometimes I'm just like, of these 13 samples, I'll just say yes, because they're just there. Whereas anyone good who's a bit of like thought process would be like, well, this one's not quite right. I'll try something again, but...
00:11:49
Speaker
Do you normally put them in the room as well to see how they look the lighting? Exactly. And then they'll come quickly and stuff. So I don't need to make any impulsive decisions now, but they just approached me. So I thought I'd get the ball rolling with them. yeah And then I can say to them, I've chosen this tile. It's like 20, 25 pound square meter. Does that work for you? yeah like that But yeah, so the other thing that's related to bathrooms, but not the new bathroom, is I finally ripped out the wall of the old bathroom. Remember I told you it was, it was like studded out, but with um chipboard. Chipboard, yeah, yeah. It was so bits of three to two across the wall and then ah across the middle, I'd expect like a stud hall to look like and then chipboard and oh my God, was it awful. Yeah. so awful. had a jieksaw I I had like a hammer and a bolster and it just took so long. But it's not that it just took so long, it was just so hard. Yeah. Like it was like buried in the ceiling, buried on both walls and then buried under the floor, which is also plywood.
00:12:44
Speaker
And it just doesn't break off nicely either. Even putting a jigsaw whole way from right to left, the whole way from top to bottom, you think, oh, just snap off now. And it's really strong. It's obviously why they use it. yeah But it just doesn't break off in clean bits. It will like tear rather than rip or whatever.
00:13:00
Speaker
So I think I had to cut it into maybe like eight segments with a jigsaw that's one of those cheap jigsaws you get from a screw fix when you just go price low to higher. Yeah, yeah. And this is years ago.
00:13:11
Speaker
It's probably a blunt blade and a bad jigsaw. And I just did it so slow. was like... Well, shout to whoever put that in because it was clearly done properly and well made, right? Yeah, it was the council. So they did it to hide. There's pipes at the bottom that I've discovered that were all dead anyway, but for the radiators in the bathroom and then run into the cupboard that I'm eventually going to take out, the immersion was in as well. Yeah. That's why they did it, just to get realized. I'm amazed they bothered because they weren't, you could have boxed it in in a different way. would it quicker, but yeah. It's proper though, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.
00:13:46
Speaker
Exactly. It's those things that took me like an hour or so just to rip out. Yeah. And it took me like 10 minutes take to skip because it all just came out in like little chunks and it was quite easy to get rid of at least for once. Yeah, that's always good to do that, yeah. So that was really annoying, but like at least it's done. And then the good, good, good thing I did was take out the wall between the living room and the kitchen.
00:14:06
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, really nice. So you stuck the acros up, did you? Yeah. So the builders did it for me. so i just thought with one, I used them just to make sure it's done properly It's not rocket science, but I thought I'd just ask them to do it. So they did it for me.
00:14:20
Speaker
And I've had a few people. So I've put a video on my YouTube channel, Nick Morris renovations. um of it taking down a time lapse of me taking it down. I've had those old ladies message me saying they wish I didn't do it. I didn't know these old people even on YouTube. It would be like Joyce or something or Rita and stuff like that. were you going to say? They wished you did it like shirtless or something. I was like, oh, calm down, old ladies YouTube. No, they're literally like, oh, I prefer all separate. And actually did say to one of them, was like, oh, fair enough. But the good thing about what doing is you just literally just put a bit of stud in there and just balled it up. I actually think it's like appealing to more families and what my house is like in this room we're sitting in now. I actually like it being a bit more open plan. And even when we've had people stay and stuff,
00:15:10
Speaker
I know it's not like nice, but you're like doing the dishwasher or something and you still chat. and So I actually like that. Yeah, definitely. I guess and it's not to everyone if you're cooking and trying to watch TV or something. I don't know. but Yeah, but then that's normally two people, right? So you can still have a conversation. Yeah. yeah I think, yeah, I know an older generation. I know when we did our extension, I think mum and dad were We wouldn't do that because we're used to having stuff shut off, which is fair enough. I suppose you can't cater to everyone, right? And it is quite, you get so much more space by opening that up.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think it looks good. I like seeing him through all the way to like the chimney breasts and everything now, and then it will go even further the other way with the utility room. i think it'd be quite a nice space. And hopefully room, just got work out where that like people might put a table and stuff so i don't put in too much stuff yeah and not actually make it like a usable space.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. um So yeah, that's all that's all out. So it was bricks, which was hard work. Yeah. Like it did come out nicely. i just of i don't know if people would know this, it's so logical, is you just start the top. But what I did was borrow the builder's petrol cutter.
00:16:19
Speaker
because i had to leave like two columns of like minimum 60 centimeters yeah and the lintels going across the top no steel which is good for the finances um and dave was there with his petrol cutter which i've never used before because they're like massive aren't they yeah and i got him to start it for me again it was really demoralizing because i like oh this is quite a manly cool thing to do and i just couldn't do it so he just started it for me and i went in there and then i just grinded both sides with that and what it did was just leave me like a really nice like nub on the side whereas if i had just gone gung-ho with the breaker it just would have been all over the place yeah it's not bad it's left me a pretty good like two rectangles and obviously now the big hole so then i just took it down i said i don't know if it was you but i was taking it down was like oh i'm just taking full bricks out this is so nice and then but when you're tidying up you're like
00:17:07
Speaker
was it just thousands of like little bits. yeah i've All I've done is brick down, brick down. It's taken me forever. Where's this come from? it's It must be the plaster and stuff, wasn't it? yeah And the mortar. yeah and then the odd one breaks or whatever.
00:17:23
Speaker
I'm surprised it was bricks and not like breeze block, right? Yeah, so that one um is a proper wall. It's like holding the house up. It's like pitched, so the beams come across and sit on it. Oh, interesting. So, yeah, so that's why I ah thought a steel would have to go in, but a structure engineer just said a certain size lintel.
00:17:41
Speaker
Oh, nice. I think Dave said the lintel's, he can get 2.4, 2.6 metres. can't remember what the opening I made was, but something like 1.8 or something, so it would just sit on stones or whatever either side.
00:17:53
Speaker
yeah So yeah, it feels good to have that out in proper job, but I think I've said to you before, it just tidying up by yourself is just demoralized yes so I was just filling up a little, this is a good tip I think, as I've said before, the little yellow plastering bucket. Yeah, yeah. Because you can't overfill them so much that I think, ah I think I was putting eight bricks in there yeah and maybe like a handful of like dust and rubbish.
00:18:16
Speaker
And then you take to skip and it's obviously heavy, but you're not like, oh, my back hurts yeah or anything like that. So think it's quite good at not overdoing it and overloading yourself. Yeah, yeah. Because I've used recycling boxes, you know, like you newspapers and stuff the box. Oh, yeah, yeah. But you get too much in there. Yeah. You lift it and you're like, this is a mistake. then you just stop. But luckily, compared to my house, everything's so much easier. Like the walk from the kitchen to the skip must be like 10 meters or something. Okay, nice. Whereas nothing upstairs, everything's downstairs. So can't complain. It's going like, well. Renovated bungalow. Exactly. That's a good tip.
00:18:52
Speaker
It's a good tip. And then so next week, I'm going to take out the other kitchen wall, which is bigger. And then hopefully, long as long it doesn't mess with the plumber's pipes, the um cupboard with the immersion in as well. Okay, cool. The immersion's gone, but there's loads of pipe works there. um But we're going to kill the boiler um because it's kind of warming up. I mean, actually, it's got colder. yeah But it was warmer than it was for like a longer spell. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to kill the boiler.
00:19:18
Speaker
I'm going to get all my pipes out for all of my little scrap video as well that we're making. Yeah, quality. So in the bathroom where you've taken that little bit, sorry to go back to that. No, I'll grab it in on. Now you're saying it, it's like ping in my head. But where you're taking that like boxy now,
00:19:33
Speaker
ah yeah Are more pipes going back in there? or No, so that whole bit. By the end next week, if I've had a good working week, that'll all be completely open. There's no pipes going that way all because it's going go up in the loft. And that hub of where all the pipes were, where the immersion was, will be like...
00:19:51
Speaker
the edge of the kitchen slash the hallway of going through the extension okay a nothing east space yeah so yeah so it'll all be gone nothing going back nice um so yeah it'd be nice to get it i ah can't wait to take that wall out next week yeah and i think i think it's brick in the other side of the kitchen again so that might take that took me about six hours to take that wall out so i think maybe five to six hours take that and then i'm gonna probably in my head
Managing Debris
00:20:18
Speaker
come back and do the little cupboard and then the other bathroom wall, because I think it's that, um, gray blocky stuff. Oh yeah. Yeah. i think it'll come out really quickly, but it'll be messy.
00:20:29
Speaker
It's your face is like black. Yeah. oral yeah yeah But it's, I think that will come out easily. So I'll have to order a new skip because I filled up the skip on that wall. So another one's coming. Uh, I think I'm gonna have to get a seven yarder cause they said, um, I filled up my eight yard or a bit too much. i didn't know that was serving yarder no they was like oh no we do have seven yarder so they said it was 294 or something so i gonna fill up this one properly and then order that for next week as well it's it's funny he's talking about the spreadsheet if um yeah you guys go on our instagram which is obviously the diy guys podcast there's a link to my link tree which has this spreadsheet on all the cost it's mad but
00:21:08
Speaker
I've got builders, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, plastering so far, and then general costs. It's mad how big the general costs are. I think it's actually quite important to tell people. It's just like skips.
00:21:19
Speaker
The builder gave me one skip because he took one of mine, and so you know he owed me one sort of thing. But it's like planning permission, structural calculations, asbestos, three skips, um council for the building regs, Thames Water building over the drains. That's like three and a bit grand now.
00:21:36
Speaker
It's crazy. Whereas like my electrical bit, maybe that's not the best example actually because I got a lot of stuff free where done other rewires and stuff, but like my plasterboard and stuff so far is like £200 for like balding all the ceilings, ripping out stuff. So it's just, it's really important to like try and take into account general how big general costs will be. might be interesting to tally up at the end, might end up being like 10% or something ridiculous. That's the thing, you get this cost from the builder you're like, oh, it'll be that, but it doesn't include these little bits and pieces. So is why you kind of think when you do a budget, you're like, oh, need to add another 10% on for these little extras. Yeah, exactly. Like said, like the build-over agreement with Thames Water, £520. It's like a lot of money I'm sure most people won't think of unless you get like a really good...
00:22:25
Speaker
architect who covers all of that as well but then you're going to be paying for him yeah to deal with that anyway as part of that cost but yeah it's a large sum of money so i've spent 17 000. so brother and i have funding this mostly my brother and i'm doing most of the work yeah um so yeah three thousand on the general cost so far thirteen thousand six hundred on the builder and then electrical 284 pounds but i'm really fortunate because i do rewires for people and you'll just get drums of like 30 meters left and things yeah so i just accumulate this stuff so i'll be very surprised if i spend over like 200 pounds on cable yeah so fortunate but i have bought a fuse board um which i'm going to be putting in next week or i'll say this am i i'm taking down those walls probably right actually maybe the week after but
00:23:10
Speaker
there's room for the new fuse board to go on there and keep the old fuse board and then i can run my new cables and start switching over yeah rather than turn the whole house off i'm just be like oh i've done these two rooms let's liven those up yeah you put like basically a big connection block him and then you can keep the old stuff and start ripping out and where you go in the old stuff sort things or move over yeah yeah and i think i mentioned this before but i've got an electrical i started rewiring the house this week as well and i said in the clip before we spoke to the female plumber last week and god i made such a yeah come on we won't hear it so again i'm talking about because i've got all these scraps of cable so i did a few socket runs and i'll try and say as easy as possible for people that don't know electrical cables but in for sockets you run a cable that's 2.5 mil and it's got three cores it's got a brown a blue and an earth
00:24:01
Speaker
um And the earth was this like coppery wire and they brought up this new special cable where there's no coppery wire on display that you have to sleeve anymore. It's like sleeved. It's awesome. Oh, amazing. So i finished I ran out of one when was doing one socket and I had to take a cable from one socket all the way over to the other side of the room on the new cable.
00:24:19
Speaker
I picked up this new cable, looked down it quickly. I was like, one, two, three. Oh, cool. It's got the three cores. That's it. But it actually was a four core lighting cable. I just didn't realize. So I and then spent...
00:24:30
Speaker
like 20 odd minutes like getting it up that's from that socket because we've got concrete floors so all the way up i was in the loft drilling all the holes across getting it across and then bringing it down i'm really pleased i'm gonna finish on that oh no then i ran it into the living room and just left it in the ceiling just for another day and then i was like oh this doesn't look right and i looked down said that's the wrong it's just a lighting cable And one those things I was like, oh, should just give up and go home and then just come back another day and do first? I was like, I'm going to persevere.
00:25:03
Speaker
And I ripped it out. And actually, was one of those things, it probably only took me 10 minutes to rip it out and put it back in. But mentally, I was just love and i was like, it's the only thing I'm doing that i'm trained in. And I can't even do that. Because it just doesn't bode well for v a like anything to do in this house.
00:25:19
Speaker
And is it easier going in the loft than like, because obviously if you go under the floor, I know sometimes if it runs with the joists, it's easier, but is it easier to wire in the loft than it is under the floor or is it pretty much same?
00:25:33
Speaker
I'd say pretty much the same. I mean, Grands is boarded and nailed down, but really poorly, like spot not critically, but you just literally lift it with your hands and it'll come up. There's tongue groove, which is a pain in the ass. Yeah. but you get one bit up and then you just get loads up but i do something there's a bit frowned upon because i just don't like cables running everywhere and they say you're not a bit tentative where you're supposed to like drill through joists yeah because they say it weakens the joists or whatever but i literally drill like a 13 mil hole yeah and just do lots of runs there's no way every build in the world would say it's not gonna improve like
00:26:09
Speaker
the stuff so i like to do it all nice it does take me time whereas other people might like lash it in and then just clip it yeah so the joists um which is quicker but i just don't think it looks very neat and if you ever go in the loft and do an extension eventually then you have to sort of do something of all those cables yeah so i've done it the former way of a drilling small holes around so it does take time but when you do a rewire of like a normal house upstairs probably is slower than downstairs going in the loft because downstairs, like you say, on a normal house, you just lift the floorboards you can like rod stuff over. yeah. You've got a big cavity. You'll get like retaining walls and things going across, but generally it's pretty good and pretty quick and you can't. You ever see those videos of people like under the floor as well? Yeah, oh yeah. I think I was following, it wasn't our female plumber, but it must be because I posted about Erin
00:26:54
Speaker
who we interviewed last week, another female plumber. She was Scottish and she was literally under there and just like filthy and just like laughing saying, oh, what's my life about? I was like, why am I under there? You must be looking at something above. But she just got in there. was like, Jesus, fair play. Well, when I insulated under my floor to save bringing up all the floorboards, I would just get a hole big enough that I could go in. And I was quite lucky because underneath our floor was quite deep. But even some bits, you're just like on hands and knees and crawling. You're just like, this is horrendous. It's not fun. It's not fun. Did you go full hazmat suit? No, I didn't. No. I did go like mask goggles, though, to be fair. Yeah. And you're just like...
00:27:35
Speaker
crawling along and just getting dirty everywhere. yeah Yeah, running cables is quite easy under the floor at least. But actually that girl, when she was doing the plumbing work, i was like, that's actually hard. I mean, so many bits as youve clean you solder in yeah and And was like, geez, wouldn't fancy that. No, yeah. and as usual, it's raining again. by The builders are just struggling the road. It's so hard, isn't it? like You can't plan for this stuff. It always makes me laugh when we were doing our renovation, people were oh, when are you going to be in? You're like, six months. You're going to in six months. And then like two years later, we managed to go in. It's stuff like this, right? You can't predict the weather. You can't predict any problems. So it's like where you over budget, over timeline as well, right? Yeah, definitely. Probably double the amount of time. I wonder how many people are under budget unless your budget is just like half a mil. Yeah, no. Oh, I'm under budget. Oh yeah, of course you are. But um everyone must just go over budget. that Everything's just mental money. It's crazy. Well, and think when we were doing it as well,
00:28:34
Speaker
like the price of stuff just randomly started going up yeah it's stuff like that you can't predict no like yeah i think they said at the moment timber's quite good again but then something else like plastics or something's really high yeah don't know what this relates to there's something like shipping crisis china or something you just never know do you just seem to fluctuate so much and like steel was another one yeah unfortunately no steel going much
Building a Podcast Studio
00:28:56
Speaker
no exactly so you've massively lucked out there yeah and then the big thing i'm doing which is It's quite going to be either the world's worst idea or amazing for our podcast. Because in my garage, I'm going to build us the world's smallest podcast studio I've decided. Yes, love it, mate. I've obviously got too much free time, even though I only did like one day at my house this week or two days at my house this week. But I've been looking into it. i was like, I wonder if I can do this cheaply because I've got like a bit of space in there. Yeah. And i was like, I wonder if I look into like getting 1.8 meter lengths of everything. So then there's no cut. Everything's 1.8 meters. It'd be 1.8 meters squared, 1.8 meters higher, which is, we probably, don't even know what we are, but we're two meters is massive. yeah yeah So maybe we'll be close to the ceiling, but we'll be fine. And luckily we know each other well, because might be quite small. Yeah, yeah it's going to be coy it's going to be cozy. be cozy.
00:29:49
Speaker
I literally found this company, again, not a promotion, but it kind is a promotion, but being paid for it. It's called D2D Timber, and I bought reclaimed timber. And it was so cheap. in it So it was 1.8 meters for three pounds. So I bought 30 lengths for 90 pounds, which I think is amazing because phoned my brother who builds garden rooms for living. And he said, well, you could buy 3.6 meter lengths and cut them all in half. yeah That would still be like nine something.
00:30:17
Speaker
yeah um so even if you're half price you're like 450 away but the whole point is don't want to be cutting down want to make this like as easy for me as possible so if they're all 1.8 meters or thereabouts i don't have to faff about too much i just have to cut a few for noggins but in my head don't know if someone's going to say you're an idiot i was like i could just build the base couple across the base build the walls couple across the walls and then obviously four times I was like, do we even need a door? I don't need a door, but I keep an opening so we can get in. then just nodding across. And like, this is one of those things probably like I'm going ask you later about your stairs. I was like, I swear I could do it in two days. Yeah. But I don't. No, exactly. Yeah. It is so hard, isn't it? When you're trying to predict timing and like you say, something's going to come up. Yeah, but in my head, I think it's going to be okay. And so I've gone for it. I want to try and do a YouTube video on it because I want to try and keep it under like 250 pounds, I think. it's kind of like, hopefully it will grab people's interest, but it's got to look good. So I bought, and most importantly for the podcast, it's got to sound good because I'm happy with our sound, think we can a bit better.
00:31:26
Speaker
and We're in like a kitchen with a lot of hard things here. And in my house at the moment, literally haven't got the money for like sofas and stuff. la Not much soft furnishing. I don't know where to record this. So I bought acoustic panels as well.
00:31:38
Speaker
and There's been a couple of deals I found from another company called British Homes Direct, They're usually about 26 pounds for these like 120 centimeters centimeters, all panels. And they look like slatted, you know, that nice look. So I was thinking that could be behind us. And then I bought these other ones and not from a different company that are like high performance acoustic panels to go around the edge. yeah um And that's, they look nice, but they're not as nice looking as the slatted things. but the whole way of The whole thing is to keep it small, but with these panels, a sound should hopefully be amazing. Yeah, well, that's the idea, right? You want something some the sound and not reverberate it too Exactly, because we found in the early days of the podcast, we just had that a bit, didn't we? We were recording. So I'm hoping this is A helps us in the future. we ever to have a guest, we might be a bit screwed. I don't know how three people are going to fit in. Yeah, I know, right?
00:32:31
Speaker
it's be a bit crazy but maybe we'll just need one sofa and like the three of us just kind of like squished on there yeah so your job i reckon has got to be doing because you've got a better creative brain than me it's got to work out how it looks at the finish yeah yeah maybe some like posters or some artwork or something yeah i've also like been digging through what i've accumulated over years i've got like a spare led strip no i bought for my well i bought for a client years ago they never used it to like go around the edge in of a patio and go outside. And I was like, I use it on the edge of my a patio.
00:33:01
Speaker
And I was like, oh, I see why that guy didn't use it. It looks cracked. I was like, oh, but you know, around the podcast room, who it to the monkeys? I reckon it could be channel like covered in there quite nicely. yeah And again, it might give us really good life to make everything about the podcast seem better. This is my little project.
00:33:18
Speaker
I'm going to do two hours or three hours a day after this, and then I'm going to try and do some in the next couple of weeks and just do a little bit every day and see how I get on. But I mean, it might be the world's worst idea. I think one of the biggest things as well is anyone that's had wifi in their house will know there's like only certain parts that like doesn't get to sometimes. So maybe we'd need to run quite lovely this. It comes through the garage. Ah, there you go. Emily's office is like the other side of that wall where it comes into, so I think it'll be fine out there. Yeah. Even if it's not, I can easily do something, I'm sure, where it comes into the garage. Like a booster something. Yeah, booster or something. I'm pretty sure it'll be fine. So that's all right. Yeah. I'm just like, God, it's a cold room. It's like a damp room. So I was like, I just need to run an extension lead in there, I think, with like a heater or something for us, and then maybe a plug that will turn the light on. was like, oh, I'm an electrician. I have to put switch in. Yeah, come on. I was like, what am I doing? I'm mad. I just found extension lead in there. I'm going switch that you switch on and then like disco ball just drops That would be epic. So yeah, mean, we're getting more and more listeners listening every week. So I was just like, going to actually just do this. I'm going keep it under 250 quid so I don't feel depressed if, hey, the YouTube video doesn't do very well. No, no. looked on YouTube and I was like,
00:34:32
Speaker
I built a cheap studio. No one's properly done it like that. There's lots of people giving advice about how to turn like a small room of acoustic panels and stuff into into a good sounding one.
00:34:43
Speaker
So I'm hoping it might do well and help us out in the long run. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So stick around for that. Yeah. And we've got a couple of people who want to meet in person with us as well. Yeah. Yeah. We've got electrician coming at one point as well. as So we'll see if we can squeeze him in or just go to another room. Yeah, that's it. I'm excited about these acoustic panels though.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. What difference can, obviously there's something in them, but it's just moving. Yeah, definitely. I suppose. that I don't know, opening up a bit, when we first started doing the podcast, like sound was, we thought about it. Oh, annoying. But we're like, this will be fine. And the amount of hours we spent like researching and trying to change different bits and pieces, like sound is pretty crazy. Yeah. If anyone has any tips for us, by the way, you've any experience, let us know because, yeah. But then I'll like listen like Richard Osman's podcast. like Damn, his sounds better than ours. Then I saw the little name on the mic the other day and I Googled, like four graphs. Oh man. There's like 20 people working on it as well. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I'm doing that. So I think it would be 1.8 by 1.8. I guess that'd be external. It's slightly less internal.
00:35:48
Speaker
I'm just going, oh, I've got insulated as well. So yeah I've got some rock wall sound insulation left over from my house. Nice. And my brother foolishly left some at Gran's house as well. Amazing. For his garden room. So that ended up in my car today. It got borrowed, yeah. I got borrowed without him knowing. And what's good about him is his memory's terrible. I'll never know. um I've been looking on Facebook Marketplace as well to keep it like low down cost as well.
00:36:13
Speaker
I've seen some on there for like a 10 and stuff. So I'm keeping my eyes out for that as well. So it'll be nice and Firmly insulated for you. Nice and cozy. A little heater by your lap. Yeah, I love it, mate. And then can hopefully work. And then you'll say the Wi-Fi won't work. It'll be a massive mistake.
En Suite Bathroom Configurations
00:36:28
Speaker
Well, the sound's going to be terrible.
00:36:29
Speaker
yeah I think the other thing we were going to do is answer. Was it Philippa's question? um Obviously, a a couple of episodes ago, we had Philippa reach out to us and she was asking about uh where she could put her bathroom right or is it a toilet ensuite yeah so she sent us the plans obviously i i won't share like the plans i've got the address and stuff on yeah we've got a thing on instagram of the plans but to so like say it out loud to people that don't want to bother going on my instagram it's Basically a really nice bungalow. think that's why i she messaged because obviously I'm talking about my bungalow every day.
00:37:05
Speaker
Um, that looks like it's being extended out the back four meters, which is really nice size. And what I did in my house, four meters is lovely. Um, and then there's got three bedrooms, all kind of the same size, right? yeah Three ish meters by three ish meters. It seems. Yes, definitely. And we were just talking it through before, like how putting an ensuite in is actually like trickier than you think.
00:37:27
Speaker
Um, The bathroom is on the same side as bedroom one, right? Yeah. And then there's bedroom two and bedroom three over the other side of the bungo. So like you'd think instinctively that's quite difficult to get an en suite over there, wouldn't you? Yes. Yeah, I would say so. And it is a tricky one. I can see why she's sort of reached out because it's not, there's no like, this is exactly how you should do it. is is It took some thinking, didn't it?
00:37:52
Speaker
yeah i think i think possibly in bedroom one the door is in the center of the room at the moment on the architect's plans i think if you shifted that probably to the right and then that wall where the door is on is where the bed would now go and then what that allows you to do is not put the bed on the other wall and instead of that you build a stud wall and have an ensuite in there yeah um ensuite really don't have to be big um trying to remember what mine is out loud i think it was something like 900 wide or so just under a meter.
00:38:22
Speaker
think that sounds right. And that means it feels too deep. And it really doesn't have to be big in en suite, especially if you've got three meters of length. You could do the whole thing so it's quite a long ensuite or even fit in like some wardrobes in the corner and have an ensuite and wardrobes on the same bit of wall.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. If you went over the other side, made one of the bedrooms smaller, you could obviously have an ensuite on the big, make one bedroom big with an ensuite as well and make one bedroom smaller. Then I think I mentioned the last time you'd have to have a macerator, I imagine.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah. and um allul the Stuff over to the drains because I'm assuming, well, we'd go far, the drains are on the other side they must be where the bathroom is and the utility is and the kitchen is there yeah i think yeah if you can if there is the ability to have a drain on the other side you could even take part out of bedroom two and bedroom three and have a sort of is it called a jack and jill yeah that's what we've got yeah yeah it's awesome so you'd have one in between and then each one could get into the same bathroom Yeah. That would mean that you've got en suite to two bathrooms. Yeah. um
00:39:28
Speaker
But it's just, can you get that waste out on that side? Yeah, exactly. So I think speaking your builder, if not, um you need to probably dig with Thames Water or wherever it is where you are. Yeah. Excuse me about where the drainage runs are.
00:39:42
Speaker
A good builder will know or definitely get a couple of opinions just to be sure. But yeah, yes it's certainly doable. Yeah. Kind of where you want to do it. But certainly I imagine the cheapest way is bedroom one on the same side yeah the bathroom. and you could Yeah. You could even have it opposite the window there on that right hand side and move the door the left. There's a few options there. Yeah. um Yeah, definitely doable.
00:40:04
Speaker
And let us know what you decide. Let us know if our advice was completely useless. Exactly. yeah as you found it useful yeah Or if your architect came up with something else. Is there another way doing this? I'm really intrigued to hear what but she goes with. I love seeing the bungalow stuff now. I get a lot of messages about bungalows. yeah and It used to be like a really old people thing, didn't it? Back in the day.
00:40:25
Speaker
It seems like more and more people choose to live in a bungalow and really enjoy it. One of our friends has a bungalow, doesn't he? Yeah. And he's in his 40s and he's standing in. It's lovely. Yeah. It's really nice, actually, that more people go for it. And maybe that's more the people I can target as well when we sell it and you'll call me a shameful developer. I'm really trying to help you. We tried to sell it a year ago and we had no offers, okay?
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. certainly Some people don't want to renovate a house. Yeah, true. Not great for our podcast, but yeah, some people don't want to do it themselves. So, yeah you know, they they get what they want, they've but they have to pay a premium for it, but at least they don't have to live in ah in a renovation, right?
00:41:06
Speaker
yeah i could never work out when i lived in brixton we lived in like a really nice victorian flat but it's one of those ones where freezing windows were rubbish and stuff but they look nice and i could never work out why i was worth less money than the new builds they built the end the road then you realize like people pay more because they know it's not going to go wrong for 10 years or whatever the boiler's done it's like you get pristine insulation pristine windows everything so i totally get that why these things actually are more expensive even though my head is like oh i prefer like a house like yours like an older house yeah but yeah it's just one of those things yeah amazing yeah yeah it's great mate yeah you're doing well you're doing well so next week
00:41:46
Speaker
I think the builders will hopefully have the drainage sorted. Nice. They don't seem to be concerned about think they're used to such bigger jobs. Yeah. It's like, well, there's like foul water here. You've got the rain water here. You've got pipes here. And they're just like, yeah, just do this, blah, blah, blah. exactly that there I'm like, okay, fine.
00:42:04
Speaker
So then hopefully the blocks start going up and um can update you. I'm in the midst of this starting and this rewire, so I don't think I'll be able to do too much. but i'm going to try and take down that wall if I can, even if i have to just take it down, leave it like an absolute mess. Yeah, yeah. which will caught me in the back of my brain. Be constantly thinking about it. But I don't really need to worry about it because no one's in there at the moment. I could even just do that, even have to go after hours or something, just to get things moving. of I was like, nothing's talking.
00:42:33
Speaker
No, exactly, yeah. It'll just be a ah quiet, like an hour of silence. Yeah, we've got a really cool one around here. Yeah, really looking forward to next week. We've got Eve and Ty for the Bramhole, and they are just like...
00:42:50
Speaker
they just live the dream right they're the kings and queens of uh diy they just took on such a massive project yeah and it's just yeah it looks really exciting i know they set an original budget of 125k so yeah be intrigued to see how that's going yeah it's going to be our first chat to a couple as well yes we've got another one booked in later on this year with another couple as well but they're going to be the first ones we chat to so i'm quite excited they've got like seems on instagram stuff really good enthusiasm for it and they've been doing it for a lot of years by the look of their instagram as well yeah so really interesting chat how they're doing how they found that budget and i'm just delve into what they're up to because it looks to me like they started like you say with
00:43:30
Speaker
a massive 125 guys massive yeah actually maybe it's not gone as far but changing things and things like developing but you're really cool to chat to those guys well as you say like it goes quickly right oh it's ridiculous people's hands just start coming out as soon as you start talking about renovation yeah if you are what else i've spent 17 000 i mean it just you look at the bungler you're like wow. Wow.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:43:54
Speaker
Like a bit of walls come down, a bit of wallpaper stripped and the garage has gone and there's 17,000. You're like, Jesus. But it just happens, doesn't it? It does, yeah, and it happens quick. Yeah. Exactly. But anyone else wants to email us anything? There's a couple more questions we didn't get time to do this week that we'll maybe talk about next time, but it's hello at DIYGuysPodcast.com. I literally always have to write it down. Yeah, know. Yeah, exactly. It is so easy to remember, hello at DIYGuysPodcast.com. know. But for you, Or they can DM us. DIYGuysPodcast on Instagram.
00:44:26
Speaker
um We'll obviously try our best to get back to you as quickly as possible. yeah um But yeah, followup follow us, like, subscribe, ask us questions. like There's no stupid questions, is there really? Yeah, so the full length videos with everyone we've begun on my Instagram, and which you can just find Nick Morris. I'm sure now if you type in the DIYGuysPodcast, it will come up because YouTube are really pushing podcasts and they've literally made us like a little podcast section. Oh, nice. I'm not just trying to just selfishly put everyone on to my phone. You can specifically find our videos now. So as I say, Erin was last week the female plumber and we got our first couple with even tie next week. And we can see if they're still married or together. yeah They might not hate each other, but. Might be good for content. Yeah, exactly. Shamelessly, as long as it like makes better, right? That's a nice one, mate. So I'll see you see you next week and hopefully a wall hasn't fallen on my head. Cheers.