r/HomeImprovementUK

Hi,

We are renovating a house in North London and the front and back garden need redoing.

The back garden needs some landscaping (nothing too crazy), new turf and general tidying up as well as a base for a shed and a step. The garden is about 6.5m by 17m.

The front garden is a bit more involved - needs a new driveway, new path to door and new fences.

I got these quotes - are these reasonable? To me they seem a bit steep, but maybe I'm underestimating the amount of work involved (especially the back)

Happy to hear what you think!

I am considering DIY-ing the back garden which is probably doable, but the front is definitely not a DIY job (for me, at least). Not sure where to start if I do the back garden myself, but I imagine a rake, a wheelbarrow, a few bags of top soil and a lot of optimism.

Not strictly home improvement but is part of a wider issue with neighbour getting annoyed at any kind of noise, including home improvement such as roof repairs, garage door replacement etc.

Is he being a knob or is his reaction warranted. This took place at 11:30 am on a Friday in a rural uk setting. I cut up some logs and chopped some for 30mins. Yesterday we had the garage door replaced. They slam doors and make comments whenever do make any kind of noise but today it escalated.

*Note - they don’t work nights. He’s unemployed she works from home. He was out front after and I said if you’ve got an issue don’t shout and swear at me over the hedge come round. I was reasonable with them and they backed down a bit but ultimately don’t want me chopping logs ever. He said he remembers when I did it last summer and it annoyed him.

He tried to tell me to buy pre chopped logs.

Ok, 120/130 year old terrace house. Floor dropped. Couple of damp patches on walls where it’s softer plaster and the damp is settling. Most of the downstairs walls have solid (almost cement like) plaster on the bottom half.

On the attached picture;

- yellow is current airbricks.
- Red is the damp patches (mostly around plug sockets, they’ve been installed post solid concrete plaster then patched with modern plaster and it’s soaking up the moisture).
- Blue is a blocked air brick.
- purple is dropped floor/snapped joists.

My plan, is to pull up the entire floor and repair joists then reboard etc.

This house is incredibly humid. Dehumidifier pulls 5 litres a day. Old lead pipe for mains, potential that it’s leaking somewhere but ROI on changing it, nearly impossible. On road stop tap controls 3 houses, no dedicated feed, solid concrete slab where pipe comes up, no meter to monitor is there’s a leak etc.

Middle wall between dining and living has maybe 1 small opening for airflow, I need to open more up when the floors up.

My question is, how would you improve airflow? Anyone with experience adding mechanical assistance under the floor… how would you do it?

Hi! We're remortgaging our house in 2-months and we're looking to see if we can afford to get a bedroom extension done on the side of our house.

The house is a 3-bed semi-detached, it's already been extended to the rear of the property and on the side of the house is a utility room where the boiler lives, etc. There's also an existing chimney which is no longer in use. We're based in East Yorkshire.

There are 2 bedrooms at the rear, the one we want to extend is what you'd call a box room, it's really small. To extend the bedroom on top of the utility room, what do you think it would cost? I know it's a lot of guesswork, but we don't really have enough money in our savings to get an architect in etc. to do their job only to tell us it'll cost too much for us.

A colleague at work estimated around £25-30k for everything.

I've done some quick measurements, it's basically a 3m x 3m room extension. We'd be happy with a simple flat roof.

If anyone can provide us with some advice and estimates, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Going out 2.5m at the back of the the dining room and incorporating the conservatory into the extension (assume it needs replacing fully)

Any ideas on what that would cost?

The dining room is 5m across and the conservatory is 3.7m x 3.7m

Current kitchen much too small so I'd like to create a kitchen dining social space at the back turn kitchen into a study

Thanks all

considering whether a 1 storey wraparound extension with a whole house reno, to include new kitchen, bathroom, flooring, probably boiler and rewiring and the structural aspects etc would cost in 2026? As a minimum I'm thinking 150k. Any advice on amounts and should I factor a 20% possible surplus of budget for unforeseen works/costs?

Rightmove listing: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/90478089#/?channel=RES\_BUY

Basically I want to put a fence up now so I don’t have to deal with him at the front of the house. This is a photo from my drive looking to the side of the garage where the front of his property is. My question is do I need to notify him if I put a 3ft fence on top of that wall?

Any idea of the wall is mine or shared?

Note - he has a doorbell camera and I’m pretty sure it covers down the side of my garage here. Is this allowed?

Hi,

These cracks were picked up by survey, should I be worried. The one on the window, he said it’s probably missing a lintel. The one inside is by a window and the other one is by the door upstairs. Survey has asked to get a structural engineer to assess. The handyman said the door upstairs is a baldy done plaster job

Has anyone been in similar position, did you get a Structural Engineers opinion?

Im thinking of converting the conservatory into a ‘proper’ room and opening it up into the current dining or living room to make a big kitchen/diner/family room, then having a separate snug and a playroom…. (To the right is an attached annex, so the living room doesn’t have a window) budget £100k

House had old cables in the bedrooms coming in from outside.
Will I need an electrician to come and remove them or is it something a handy man might be able to do?

The brick patio around this pool has sunk just around the pool, the rest is flat and stable (bar the occasional loose one). There isn't the funds to replace the patio, so I'm wondering what we could do to level it out and make it less 'trip-hazard'-y? Could we remove a couple of rows of bricks and level the base with concrete and re-seat them on a more level base? Or could we remove this row of bricks closest to the pool and replace them with something else, to leave a smooth incline to the pool edge? I think it will still be a bit of a bodge and replacing the patio would be ideal, but if it makes the patio safe then that's a win. (Obviously the mortar needs replacing too?)

We paid a local carpenter (literally lives one street over) to fit 2 internal doors on the 26th April. We paid £500 for the doors which were delivered on the 20th May, and £150 for handles, fittings and oil, which were not delivered.

We just can't get this guy back to fit them. He cancels his visits then doesn't book us back in until I chase. I feel like I've been more than patient?

He just seems so wishy washy and he's continuing to post on the local Facebook page his work and how he has availability, whilst our living room has 2 giant doors taking up all the living space.

I need a sanity check, am I being unreasonable? In my final message I said the doors had been sitting in my house for over 2 months, I meant to say we paid over 2 months ago. Doors have been sitting for nearly 6 weeks.

I just want new doors ☹️ also my partner is terminal and clinging on to his limited life expectancy, just to explain the sickness thing

We’ve just exchanged contracts and I’m ridiculously excited to move into our new home soon.

We renovated our previous house, but back then we mostly relied on places like Wickes to mock up kitchens and ideas for us. This time I’ve been using AI to visualise different ideas before we commit to anything.

The new place also comes with two cottages that we’re hoping to turn into nice holiday accommodation, so I’ve been putting together mock-ups of the overall look and feel we’d love to create.

Has anyone else used AI to plan decorating, renovations, kitchens, gardens or exterior changes? Did it actually help, or did the real-life version end up totally different?