Changes made to the bespoke "Thomas Chippendale" kitchen to freshen the style and add glamour. Before Our fantastic professional joiners, electricians and decorators hard at work to meet the deadline of completing the work in 7 days. Work in progress.... After What do you think? Walls, floor and ceiling was given special attention. We chose a neutral light colour which is easy on the eye and bought loads of light giving the illusion of more space. New glamorous lighting was added to give a touch of class and create more light. The natural wooden worktops were spruced up to give a fresh new look and the granite worktop was added. We had added more accessories and modern appliances to suit the clients lifestyle and taste.

I'm very conflicted, I look at this kitchen and my immediate response is 'wow!' I love all the moody drama and that would usually be enough to convince me. However for once the practicalities are worrying me, my present home is gloomy enough as it is (not my decor but the amount of light it gets!) and I just don't think it could take a dark kitchen despite all the design advice telling me I should embrace the 'cosiness' and paint everything black. Perhaps if my next home is a bit brighter, which I fully intend it will be, I might be able to 'go over to the dark side' :D

TBH that doesn't really sound very terrible. But as Jonathan pointed out, it can be quite scary if you have no previous experience of house buying. But as he says, it's worth reading up and researching what all these things are. To have a small amount of rising damp in a small room such as a WC, isn't a big deal. A damp company can get that done relatively easily. They would take off the plaster to a height of approx. 3ft (ish) on the affected walls, they then inject the bricks and then re-plaster. There may be an issue with the DPC, which they would also deal with. When we moved in to our house, we had walls in our two sitting rooms, the downstairs loo, hall and in the cupboard under the stairs all with rising damp. It was a bit of a mess, but it got sorted quite quickly and when the plaster was fully dried, we could redecorate. As I said before the other mentions of damp are from external water ingress - which means you just need to identify why and how the water is getting in and get it fixed (incidentally, flat roofs are prone to leaking), that will fix the damp problem and thus any mould. Again a damp specialist will be able to advise you on this, but this type of problem is quite straight forward to deal with. Of the remaining points: Electrics - get clarification from the surveyor about what circuits he's referring to and then get an electrician in to find out roughly much it would be to do. Upgrade fire detection - this means install some smoke detectors - you can do this yourself, buy then from a DIY store. Insulation - get clarification of what the surveyor means by external walls, does he mean get cavity wall insulation or similar? If so that's not an immediate essential and could be done later. Insulating the attic - put in better loft insulation - again another thing you can do yourself get loft insulation from a DIY shop or look at other more eco friendly solutions. Minor repairs to doors and windows - not a great expense and likely a lot you could do yourself - perhaps panes need replacing or blown double glazing need replacing - fairy simple and straight forward. Clarify what the survey means by protect low level glazing. I suspect this means there is some window/s which is/are vulnerable to breakage (rather than a safety hazard) which would mean either getting a protective grille for it or you can get film to go over glass that makes it less like to shatter. Dormer & garage roofs - just check to see if they are water tight and sound - a builder or roofing specialist could advise you. Uneven paving etc - really absolutely nothing to worry about and likely something you could leave for a while - unless it is dangerous. Wasps nest - simple we've had 5 removed from our property THIS YEAR (it been a bad year for us for wasps!) It cost us £66 per nest. Carbon monoxide detectors - same as smoke detectors - do it yourself Fully functioning mechanical ventilation - get an extractor hood for the kitchen when you re-do it and you could just open the bathroom window when required. These are not vital but are good to have in the long run. Installing earth bonding - its a piece of wire! check on Google to see what you need to do, you can do it yourself. (I have a feeling it is no longer considered a necessity, but I could be wrong on that.) Clean down mould - you can get special cleaner to use to clean mould off, so get a some and sponge and do it yourself! Background vents - don't appear to have any in my house. I would say if you regularly open windows, doors don't over fill rooms with furniture, these are not immediately required (if t all) especially if there are trickle vents on the windows. It really isn't that scary when you break it down and understand exactly what it's talking about. Don't get too concerned, damp specialists deals with those types of issues every day, so it's not an enormous insurmountable problem, its quite straight forward. A lot of things on the list are very, very minor and simple, quick & easy to do - for instance it takes 10 minutes to put up a smoke detector. I think if you can get a damp specialist or a competent builder to look at the property, I think you'd feel a lot better about it all.

If you moved the proposed storage built in to the wall between the lounge and the dining room it would keep the room square allowing for the table and chairs to be aligned in both directions. Would work particularly well with a circular table. Also you could have floor to ceiling cupboards with glass doors at the top and solid at the bottom to hide the less lovely items. Narrow cupboards at 30 - 40 cm depth with lights could work well.