All your Homebase are belong to... you! / The House 'n' Home Thread.
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Not sure if we have anything that quite fits the remit. Taking a nod from the only thread I enjoy looking at on NeoGAF - Show us your gaming set-up - which often goes off-piste and is more about general home cinema and lifestyle showboating. As someone who relatively recently bought a house, I'm taking a far greater interest in interior design and garden landscaping nowadays and you're all quite clever and I'd like to thieve ideas and expertise. I imagine others might benefit from this too.
So. It's a thread for discussing furniture, decorating, gardens, home automation, DIY and everything else under that broad remit.
Has anyone done much work with home automation? I bought an Amazon Echo recently and am pretty impressed by it. Tempted to go all in with some Phillips Hue lights and a Harmony hub so I can control the TV & consoles with it as well. Interested in any thoughts on the matter.
I'm also doing up the garden whilst cub-proofing the entire world and looking at fitting a new bathroom. -
Get Hue. Best thing ever. -
Im in the process of moving home, me and latest partner have just had to pay £225 for a credit check and now have an online survey to fill in to proceed.
We are gonna wait till tomorrow and go in and get help with it at the estate agents tomorrow.
Desperately want out of my current situation but its really bad timing with current events in my family life.
Not even sure we can afford to move. -
I'm training my daughter as my home automation appliance. She's nailed turn the TV and lights on and off. -
digi wrote:Im in the process of moving home, me and latest partner have just had to pay £225 for a credit check and now have an online survey to fill in to proceed.
We are gonna wait till tomorrow and go in and get help with it at the estate agents tomorrow.
Desperately want out of my current situation but its really bad timing with current events in my family life.
Not even sure we can afford to move.
Can't you just do a experian credit check and give them that? -
WorKid wrote:Get Hue. Best thing ever.
Do you have the standard white ambience bulbs or colour or...? I'm quite enamoured with the idea if I'm honest.
Biggest fucker is the living room light fitting has 3 candle bulbs and they seem pretty expensive. -
GooberTheHat wrote:digi wrote:Im in the process of moving home, me and latest partner have just had to pay £225 for a credit check and now have an online survey to fill in to proceed.
We are gonna wait till tomorrow and go in and get help with it at the estate agents tomorrow.
Desperately want out of my current situation but its really bad timing with current events in my family life.
Not even sure we can afford to move.
Can't you just do a experian credit check and give them that?
Apparently not!
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My DIY has stalled over the past few months. Annoyingly work came in just as I had pulled up the flooring in the bathroom, hall and kitchen.
So once things get quiet again first job is to lay the flooring I have in the kitchen and bathroom. Im going to get someone in to do the hall as it has a slight curve to it which I can see being a nightmare.
Furniture wise I am aiming to slowly get rid of anything chipboard as I move through rooms decorating. Ideally I want to upcycle stuff where possible.
I bought a Singer sewing table from a charity shop a few months back which I am going to use as a sideboard/plant stand, just need to get some hammerite and paint the metal work a nicer colour.
I love getting stuff like that, I opened up the draw and it was like a time capsule, loads of buttons, thread, coins, bits and bobs, even had the original manual.
Looks like this but with a single drawer, the legs I will paint a brighter colour. The machine spins around to be hidden underneath leaving a flat surface.
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This thread has come about 2 years too late after my significant home improvement project - something we are still getting over despite having a builder who was very good.
I may post a few pics of the house exterior from the same angle showing progress as I took pics at regular intervals.
However I would be interested in seeing/hearing anything about bookshelves.
And mantlepiece clocks. Have a notion for one.Holding the wrong end of the stick since 2009. -
tigerswiftly wrote:WorKid wrote:Get Hue. Best thing ever.
Do you have the standard white ambience bulbs or colour or...? I'm quite enamoured with the idea if I'm honest.
Biggest fucker is the living room light fitting has 3 candle bulbs and they seem pretty expensive.
A handful of colour ones but mostly white. The coloured ones are useful in the bedroom eg red or blue at night and yellow for waking up to but mostly they are a novelty tbh. I've got white ones nearly everywhere except where we needed GU10s. You might be able to use (eg) SES to ES adaptors (cheap as chips), although they can look unsightly depending on what you are doing.
I fully recommend also getting physical switches, at least for your main rooms, and a couple of motion sensors for the hall or landing.
It's a great system and if you haven't already moved to LED (WHY NOT??!!) you'll save money (ish).
Paired with Alexa it's a truly wonderful system. You can also play around with IFTTT although again it's a novelty. I had it so the lights flashed when I left work. Cool, but also kind of annoying for the wife after a while.
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Best things:
Being able to say lights on and have lights come on. Or off. Or dimmed.
Putting lights on for security when we are out of the house at night or on hols. Miles better than timers.
Being able to turn kids lights off at night from the living room.
Being able to turn kids lights on in the morning, and then piss about with them until they get up.
Lights in the hall that come on automatically when you go in the hall.
Lights that come on automatically when it's dark.
Lights that gradually come on in the morning - a very nice way to wake up.
Seriously, best thing ever. -
Hipster.
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Fuck... you're right!LarryDavid wrote:All your Homebase are belong to ... would be a better title. -
Don't you have people you can dictate it to?
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Selectric??
Or proper mechanical job"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
Lord_Griff wrote:I can't see my self writing my novel any other way...
I can dress up as Kathy Bates and break your ankles if it helps. -
Workid, do you just have an Echo or do you have Dots around the house as well?
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It gets more obtuse as your bank balance increases.
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We’ve got a long list of works we want to do to the house and have recently decided to pull our fingers out and get on with it. Interest rates are staying low and our mortgage is up for renegotiation, so instead of saving up to do the place bit by bit, we’re gonna remortgage for a refurb and bash on with everything at once. Might as well be enjoying the house we really want sooner rather than later.
We did a lot to the living room last year:- Lift floor
- Route cables underneath (Internet, TV, etc)
- Install sockets in best places
- Route heating pipes to new locations
- Relay original Georgian floorboards, sand, stain, and polish
- New skirting (it’s high and decorative, had to have the moulding made)
- New radiators (massive Victorian style, but brand new)
Next lot of plans:- Change fireplace
- Assess chimney stack
- If feasible, fit wood-burner. If not, fit gas stove
- Knock half wall through, opening up kitchen to living room
- Build breakfast bar and worktop between the two
- New kitchen
- Hidden cupboard for washing machine (where kitchen door used to be)
- Remove false ceiling in hallway and raise up to original height
- Remove gas and heating pipework from false ceiling space and reroute underfloor
- Move gas meter
- New wooden floors to match living room in hall, kitchen and both bedrooms
- New wooden floor in communal stair to match
- Raise lintel height on all internal doors
- Take doors from press cupboards and use for bedrooms
- New doors for bathroom to match
- Refurb, shelve and paint (now open) press cupboards
- New bathroom fittings & floor (probably tiled & painted)
Fuck, that looks like a lot when you write it down. -
Like you say, best to smash it in one go.
Make one big mess rather than spending every Sunday night trying to get the place back to a livable standard.
Especially with the dog around. -
I'm slowly accumulating power tools and enjoying making bits of wood smaller with them.
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Echo in the kitchen, dot in the living room and now after the Prime Day deals one in the bedroom and each of the kids rooms too.
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tigerswiftly wrote:How much does it cost to have new sockets fitted?
How much you got? -
Pro-tip: do not buy a large house requiring extensive renovation when your wife is seven months pregnant.
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Last weekend I put a new roof on the shed as old one was leaking: took off roof, put on nice new board, new felt over whole thing. Plus strengthened some bits with metal brackets.
Also: put up two picture frames and a mirror in the hallway, and two mirrors in the dining room. Was mostly fine, except half of the dining room wall appears to be solid brick which is great for drilling, and the other half is just chappy old plaster type stuff, which sucks for drilling and makes big holes. And I never knew which one I could get.. So had to deploy Strong Language to get the job done.I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts...
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