MrBen

Flip had a huge store in Edinburgh. And they went bust. Up cycling? Better than hurling it in landfill. Quality lasts. A good example? You can buy a distressed chest of drawers from say Loaf or Made.com for ?600. It will look the part but is made overseas and made of plywood. OR you can buy a decent dovetailed Georgian chest of drawers at auction for not much more. In 10 years time one will be in the skip. The other can be resold for same or more than what you paid for it.

You've lost us.....

It seemed that just after the 2008 recession hit, we entered "austerity", money was evil, bankers were evil, new shiny things were out and we went back to basics vintage stuff came in. The hipster movement in particular fetishises "vintage" and stuff with "provenance". I like good quality stuff too. But just because it's old doesn't mean its good. And vice versa. When will new shiny stuff become fashionable again?

I love mustard Seabag. Colemans is the one thing I'd import if I move to Vancouver (you want logs?). A British cabbie with indian roots once told me he liked "Western food but specced up a bit. Fusion doesn't have to be fancy" and we had a great chat which included a scribbled recipe on the receipt for Indian fish and chips. His other tip was a variation of Seabag's beans: - Chop and gently fry onion on a low heat - Add a desert spoon of Pataks curry paste and gently stir into onion - Add beans, simmer low. - Serve on toast

If they all get their frozen bags of deep fried stuff and pre made overly sweet sauces from the same wholesaler, what makes any of them different? How they fry it? Frequency of oil changes? I'd genuinely like to know.

So who would have known? Seven years of Whats the Best Local Chinese threads and it only turns out now that Yee Wah on Barry road was right up there with the mighty Mr Liu.

I've just replaced a solid oak wood B&Q floor (which was excellent and lasted 8 years until a flood from flat above) with 21mm thick engineered wide oak planks from V4 - see: http://www.v4woodflooring.co.uk/wood-flooring-collection/eiger-collection/. And it looks great. Most solid wood flooring is fine if you just let it acclimatise to your house for 5-7 days before its cut and fitted. If you go engineered its can be just as good - just go thick and get quality. I've laid another floor ( this time a suspended ground floor in a house) with 18mm ply and reclaimed herringbone parquet which looks amazing and will add value. I've used stain treated seagrass recently on stairs and a whole floor of a house and despite what they say about stairs it's fine and gives you more grip than polished wood or carpet if you get the right weave (go for a small "boucle" grid weave). I've also found seagrass looks great and helps with acoustics. But I sense you might be happier with a replacement carpet in which case your range of 1 to 1.8k sounds about right.

Depends what look and feel you want. I'm not a fan of carpet for main rooms (bedrooms perhaps). Good engineered wood flooring is great - if you get something thick enough it feels and looks just the same as solid wood flooring but without the fitting hassles of a solid wood floor. It's also more stable and less prone to warping.

Its good to see the manlove break out between Otta and Ottafan. I miss the small, friendly, affordable club football atmosphere of back home in Scotland. I also find the premiership soulless and after witnessing trouble more than once Millwall wasn't for me. I'm not "Dulwich born and bred". But I'd like to start following a local team and like the sound of Hamlet. Sounds like it's very family friendly and open to all without having to "pay my dues" and "show respect" in the old sense. There are six old men in tracksuits who guard the bar at Skehans in Nunhead who are like this.

When you're boring yourself...there's either a problem with the usual high focus. Or it's the lull of August messing with you. I should really be on holiday like all of our customers.

This was a cheap low brow thread at an easy target. Ditto Vague Celebrity lookalikes. I think I'm on the verge of self deactivation.

Zzzzz.....

This 5 step process is all you need: 1: Dress smart. You are in a much maligned occupation with a low barrier of entry. Compensate with a well fitted suit and a bright tie (red is best) . Carry an iPad even if you will never use it. 2. Flattery. On entering their average terrace start gushing like a fire hydrant. Remember that their terrace is unique and completely unlike the other 85 that surround it. Ask them about their fantastic lives. Make them feel "special". 3. Ramp it up. As you walk round the property INCREASE THE GUSH. Point out mouldings, period features and continue to congratulate the owner on their taste of decor. Ask them if they are an architect or in the design trade for full effect. Ignore the broken stuff and subsidence. 4. Inflate. Midway through you will have gauged the true market value of the place. Add between 7-10% to that and keep this number in mind for The Tie up. Continue to gush. 4. The Tie Up. Post tour, use all of the GUSH you have generated in a drum rolling pre-amble before deploying your nicely gauged inflated price. When queried as to why this is more than any historic transaction on the street use GUSH + pre-prepared and unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence to support it. 5. Having won them over, market at the quoted price. Wait two weeks and blame lack of viewings on external market or seasonal factors that you have no control over. In parallel.... warm up prospective buyers that they'll be prepared to take a 5-10% discount. Manage your way to a sale. REPEAT. Doing this well over and over again whilst getting people to overcome their prejudice and like you is not easy. So it's time to give the good ones some respect. /over

"We have a newly installed condenser boiler (2 years old), the water pressure in the house is great, big hot water tank, plenty of hot water no matter how many taps are running at the same time, all lovely jubbly, so other than the noise of the tank filing up I am wondering if this is really money well spent." What RD & KK said. If you're lucky enough to have this then just move it and box it in allowing for access and should be fine. Like Jeremy I've never understood why large combi's are often deemed not suitable for a house, especially if they work great in a flat. The excuse I got was that you dont have a back up. ie if the combi fails there is no HW storage. But even with storage you'd soon deplete that. We've got the full upgraded wider pipe from the street, big Valliant boiler and megaflow for pressure. It works well but we still run out of water if we have two baths in a row. Our neighbour (same size house) has an old combi that works a treat and still has decent pressure. Same net result but difference is he didn't spend ?6k.

I never had Otta down as a hipster. More the real deal. Byt Jezza on the other hand with his craft beer minutae and street foodie ways.... :-)

Think "landlocked pirates".

And thats just SJ.

Lots of proper grey beards in Lewes. Bobbly jumpers and in summer, various types of brown leather sandals that you've never seen in the shops.

The people behind this charming and low key little place are good people. They have kept it's character and inside you can feel the history. I almost thought I could see dead people. Walking around like regular people. They serve a lovely pint of Dead Pony. And have a bbq in the eves and after 12 on weekends. Such a contrast to the other new refurb down the road which has been well and truly "clockhoused".

I agree with Otta. As a term its as wed to early 2000's as "e-commerce".But in the absence of anyone coming up with a better word which describes it its still widely used. This is a bit radical, but what about "Pub & Restaurant"? :-)

And proudly on their twitter account: Could this be the best example of reverse marketing on the EDF ever? Either way it looks well worth a go. Plenty pent up demand in Honor Oak now for years?..

Very timely thread Seabag. I like Deal in Kent in a polystyrene cup of builders tea on a shingle beach kind of way. Definitely moving onto the Londoner second home map with a a few F&B'd up fisherman's cottages but still with plenty old world charm and salty fresh air. And nowhere near as twee as Whitstable or Rye. Lots of good walks, friendly pubs in various states of repair and an interesting mid century pier where there is a big local sea fishing thing happening.

Actually this place definitely IS somewhere I'm going to try. I've just read they have a Whisky Room and pies. Surely worth a visit and good luck to them etc. http://brockleycentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/coming-soon-honor-oak.html?m=1

Again in the bank today my ugly distinctly un-celeb chops were mistaken by a star struck fifty-something woman. Urg. Weird how people draw totally random connections, some with no pattern. In a lifetime I've been asked if I'm: - David Tenant after hitting the burgers (this happens mainly in Lloyd's bank branches) - Dougie Freedman (Ex Crystal Palace boss) - Pee Wee Herman - Damian from Home and Away - Ricky Martin (possibly a compliment but it was back in 1998 and I had a tan) Yours?

Thats what everyones been saying Miga. I used to shovel cow shit in the summer hols aged 16 in my trusty Hunter wellies (?25). But the transience of fickle trending falls on deaf ears.