My first house!

[currynchips]

Hi all, hope I'm in the right place.
Recently bought first house with other half, in good nick ie it's liveable. We, as a couple, do not have any real DIY experience and probably will keep that minimal with this house - unless we can be shown and persuaded otherwise.

Basically, we want to do the following to it -

Fencing all round the garden - long, narrow, sloped.
French doors - lounge onto the garden
Steps down to garden - with decking/patio
Open plan kitchen/lounge - cover up current kitchen doorway
Double glazing - in 3 rooms
Driveway - front garden, probably need to lower curb

What can I do, what will cost me, and what's probably not worth doing considering we will hopefully only be there about 5 years?

 

[libby lou lou]

Everything you mention is quite simple to do, no one could possibly tell you any prices, too many variables. The only thing you cannot do is lower the kerb, if it is the pavement you are on about, you can pay the council to do it, loads a money!!!

 

[Nige F]

And don`t try your own block paving drive looks easy but it aint

 

[EddieM]

And don`t try your own block paving drive looks easy but it aint

It's not comlicated! Just bl**dy hard work!

 

[currynchips]

Ok, thanks. Thought the major one would be the driveway/curb, hopefully I should be able to knock the front garden wall down though - and perhaps just used an angled approach from the lowered curb a few feet away.
Suspected prices would be impossible to suggest, does anyone have any idea of what might be considered ballpark or is even that impossible to guess at?

 

[Nige F]

And don`t try your own block paving drive looks easy but it aint

It's not comlicated! Just bl**dy hard work!

Indeed...But I paid - A LOT for a beauty @ my last house, slopes ,walls etc. and 2 neighbours did theirs DIY and much smaller ...Bloody awful...puddles everywhere PS I don`t think I`d go for open plan kitchen/lounge .To me it seems like coloured bathroom suites. They come and go , now they`re all white..All goes back to basics in the end

 

[ColJack]

the actual laying of the blocks doesn't look that hard.. it's all the prepwork that makes the job "a good 'un" or not..

 

[Nige F]

3 weeks prep. and walling....1 day laying...gang of 3 guys.

 

[EddieM]

well yes, it does depend on the lay of the driveway, and yes, over 90% of the work is preparation. The blocks on top are merely the decoration for all the graft underneath that you never see. And it is hard manual work.