London House Renovation Part 3
It seems about time for an update on the house. I would be lying if I said I had any ounce of zest left for this project, but hopefully that will change once I hear the sweet sound of jackhammers and saws.
We FINALLY got planning permission a couple of weeks ago. Hallelujah! They had no objections to anything we submitted. Not a one. I have given them a piece of my mind endlessly in my head, giving them choice words for dragging this out for nearly 6 months for absolutely no reason. But, the words stay trapped in one of those lobes up there because I don't want to tick them off until the project is over in case we need something else.
With planning permission, that means we can move forward with everything. The landscapers came this week and removed the back garden . It still looks like crap, but it will have to remain that way until the build is over I'm afraid. I'll post some pictures below.
We have appointed a building control inspector, which was another cost I didn't have on my extensive spreadsheet (yay). Our builder is ready to start once that gets signed off on, which will hopefully be Monday. I've overused the word hopefully in the last 9 months, and I think it has backfired on me because every time I use it, it actually means add three weeks to whatever timeline I was "hoping" for.
We've been going back and forth and back and forth with the builder to solidify a line itemed contract to sign off on. It's tedious with a lot of using Gemini (don't judge me) to weed through the builder jargon. We're on version 8 of the contract at this point, and we just asked our building control architect to "value engineer" some of the materials to save us money, so there will for sure be a version 9 in the future.
I have gotten some really fun tile samples in the mail recently, and have been narrowing down paint choices to at least get an idea of what palette I want to use. I originally was sold on a green/natural wood kitchen but I think I may have convinced myself to switch to a dusty blue/natural wood combo. Unless something goes awry with the renovation and then we may be going for a "rustic chic" look with pallets and leftover plywood for now. (Kidding. Kind of.)
