rendelharris

"For ?2000, you could probably do the ground floor (600sqft?) in laminate flooring. But for nicer engineered wood flooring you'll probably spend ?5K-?6K inc installation." If you shop around online it's perfectly possible to buy very decent engineered wood flooring for around ?30 per square metre, so about ?1650 for this job. A skilled fitter at ?200 a day shouldn't take more than two days to lay a small ground floor. "For your doors at the back - if you can keep it the same width as the existing window and keep the lintel in place, you will save money. Otherwise you will need a larger lintel (or if you're going for a very large bi-fold door, maybe some steelwork) and it will get expensive." As the OP says, it's a small kitchen window, so will obviously need a larger lintel for French doors. The previous owners of our flat had exactly this job done last year for ?2500. "IMO fitting a cheap kitchen will be a false economy in the long run, and you will probably regret it." The way some people are talking on here one would think budget kitchens were all 1970s peeling chipboard jobs. There are extremely good kitchens available without spending ?20,000 - IKEA kitchens, for example, are practical, attractive, easy to fit and come with a free 25 year guarantee. It would be lovely if we could all afford top end fixtures and fittings, but as the OP made it quite clear that they are on a budget there's not much point in telling them that if they spent more than this budget they could get XYZ.

goldilocks Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Also - whilst I'm sure its possible to do the > house for the quotes noted above - you really need > to be realistic about the type of finish you're > going to want - eg ?2000 is possible for flooring > - but lots of engineered flooring is over ?60 pqm > (incidentally if you don't have underfloor heating > you may not need engineered boards). Kitchens are > also a huge potential spend - 5-10k would be more > at the howdens / Ikea end of the market so depends > if that's what you would chose? French doors > quote is reasonable - but would be more than > double if you wanted a wall of bifolds Yes of course, refitting costs are very much how long is a piece of string and one could easily spend ?50K on a kitchen, but as Poppet27 is clearly on a tightish budget (otherwise the question would be redundant) I quoted the lowest price possible for what most people would regard as a decent finish. Nothing wrong with an IKEA kitchen! Poppet27 - one thing you might want to look at kitchen wise is eBay - you see quite a lot of whole kitchens including appliances on there, sometimes just a year or two old, and they go really cheap - ?500 for a whole kitchen sometimes. It happens when people move into a newly decorated house and don't like the kitchen for whatever reason - get a couple of strong mates, hire a van to collect and you can save a fortune.

Both replies above are sound, do as much yourself as possible and get a builder to give you a free estimate. But if it's any help, at a rough estimate: Remove stud wall and making good ?200 French windows ?2500 Fitted kitchen and appliances ?5000-?10,000 Flooring ?2000 Lawn ?400 Removing spine wall and installing supporting beam ?2500 So somewhere between ?10-15K assuming there are no structural issues which would require more work to install the French windows or remove the wall. A bit of DIY, such as installing your own kitchen units and laying your own lawn, could knock a grand or so off that. Good luck!

The only thing I'd say against that end of Melbourne Grove is that as it's made very narrow with parking on both sides so it's frequently crammed with stationary traffic, so if noise and pollution bother you that could be a problem. Otherwise, great area and safer than most, in my experience.

No, though probably in need of one. Cognitive dissonance describes the ability to retain two contradictary concepts in your mind simultaneously, as you seem to be doing by saying you're not the sort of person who wants to drive teachers and healthcare workers away while at the same time saying how lovely it is that they've been driven away.

These are great, lots accessible locally or take a short train ride and walk home. Highly recommended. http://www.greenchain.com/site/index.php

JamesRixon Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Whilst the duty of the building control is to > approve particular aspects of a development, it is > difficult to hold them to account if they have > been lied to or misled. You are clearly far more knowledgable about these matters than I, but as a lay person I would have thought one of the prerequisites of a building control department is to have the necessary knowledge, skills and rigour to ensure that they are not lied to or misled?

buddug I think you've got your Jameses mixed up - Rixon, not Barber, who replied to you.

Minder May 9th: "It's so lovely that I'm able to park my car after the North Dulwich CPZ came into effect. The road is more or less empty for most of the day as railway station parkers and King's College hospital workers, school workers, have had to go elsewhere!" Minder May 12th: "I'm not a person who wants to drive healthcare/teachers away." Are you aware of the concept of cognitive dissonance?

Excellent, good work!

I don't know enough about the situation to do it myself, but if someone on the inside contacts Private Eye ([email protected]) I'm sure the "Rotten Boroughs" column would eat this.

singalto Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I suspect the school gets money for being a > polling station which, in turns, benefits the > children. Sadly not, as far as my experience goes (though I have been wrong, see above!) schools can only ask for reasonable expenses entailed in keeping the school open when pupils are absent - heating, light, caretaker fees etc.

redjam - you know what, you're right and I was wrong, it's up to the governors whether they pull that day back elsewhere, it's not compulsory. My bad. On your other points, no school governors don't have a choice, if the returning officer decides a school will be a polling station s/he has that statutory right, the school cannot refuse under any circumstances. More generally, parents having to arrange childcare or take holiday, as I said above, schools are there for education, not as a babysitting service, so although I appreciate it may be inconvenient it's not a strong argument against. After all, nearly every pupil has a few sick days per year which are unpredictable and cause far more disruption - the dates of elections are known far in advance. It's odd that (I say this generally as I know you weren't saying it) the same parents who complain about not being allowed to take children out of school for holidays also complain about them losing a day's education for elections, is it OK if a parent decides a child can miss a week's education for a holiday but not if the government makes them lose one for an election? Final point and I'll shut up, but one as a former teacher and current teacher's spouse I feel needs making: teachers don't get the day off, they're expected to work for the day as if it were an INSET.

minder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's so lovely that I'm able to park my car after > the North Dulwich CPZ came into effect. > > The road is more or less empty for most of the day > as railway station parkers and King's College > hospital workers, school workers, have had to go > elsewhere! Railway station parkers, fair enough, they can go elsewhere I agree. Not sure how driving away health workers and school teachers and assistants is a real big plus for your local community though?

jacks09 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Does anyone have an idea of a good safe route to > Canary Wharf? Jacks, the routes aren't quite finished yet (though usuable in nearly all areas), but if you don't mind going the long way round (more exercise!) you can take the backroute through Burgess Park to Elephant, get on the segregated superhighway all the way to Tower Hill, join the Aldgate to Bow segregated highway, join the Regent's Canal towpath at the top of Mile End Park, ride down to Limehouse Basin and then round to Canary Wharf via the Thames towpath. According to Gmaps pedometer that's 9 miles as opposed to 6.5 by the quickest route - say an extra ten minutes at a reasonable pace - but after Elephant you'd be almost exclusively separated from traffic.

Just a little empirical observation on this issue: I just popped out for a breath of air and walked up Ondine Road and back via Oglander. On Ondine at 2PM there were fourteen empty spaces all large enough for a large saloon, and on Oglander there were twenty-nine similar spaces. Nowhere was the gap between spaces further than forty yards (except right at the top of Oglander by E.Dulwich Grove, which may be some evidence of commuter parking, but even there a space was available sixty yards or so down). So unless today is entirely atypical, "Parking in Ondine, Oglander and thereabouts is now almost impossible" should really read "Parking directly outside one's house in Ondine, Oglander and thereabouts is now almost impossible." Having to walk, at most, twenty yards from car to door seems to me, in the grand scheme of things, very little to grumble about.

fizzmoll Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmm you sure you got the right reg no? > > http://rate-driver.co.uk/CK04UGT > http://www.ukvehicle.com/CK04UGT > > Seems to be a Ford Focus in Cardiff.... If it's 2004 might have changed a few hands across the UK in the last twelve years - also cars are generally registered at their port of entry to the UK then shipped to dealerships across the country.

DulwichFox Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Whilst I support your concern about speeding > motorists I question your ability to judge their > speed. > > ... and your ability to take down their > registration plate at that speed.. > > DulwichFox It's actually quite easy to tell if someone's doing twice the speed limit - it's pretty obvious, and as for taking down the plate maybe the car had to slow for a corner, or perhaps twinsmom's feller has a helmet/handlebar cam?

dirac Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm on danby st and the cars fly up it like it's a > race course. The fact there's a school at the > bottom now seems to not affect it; and the speed > bumps are useless because you can probably > straddle them in a smartcar. I have no sympathy > for people caught speeding, even if the camera is > in a 'sneaky' place. Well said - the limits are there for a reason and if you don't break them you don't have to worry. People bitching about "sneaky" speed cameras (and I've been caught twice being silly on a motorcycle, most notably doing 50mph down the Mall, of course there are never many coppers in that area! Bloody well served me right) seem to me akin to shoplifters complaining that if the supermarket hadn't got CCTV they wouldn't have been caught.

pork chop Wrote: > I don?t buy the argument that teaching days are > made up. It does not seem sensible to disrupt > education at key times, to then add on a bit in > the summer when the education process may not be > focused in the same way. Firstly, the teaching day doesn't have to be added in the summer, it can be added any time during the year - in advance if desired. Secondly, every kid has the odd day off for illness, we get the occasional royal bank holiday etc - one day out of the year, especially at primary level (that's no disrespect to primary teachers - I did a little when training and I have utmost respect for them but it's not the same as a GCSE student having to miss the last revision lessons), will have no discernible effect on a child's education. I'm sure many parents organised museum visits etc which probasbly enhanced their education if anything.

Reg, firstly as I said above the children aren't losing a day of school, the governing body will have to make up the day missed elsewhere in the school year, so even if your assumptions are correct (I'm sure even in this day and age one can keep a child entertained for a day for less than ?30 - the parks are still free) the parents will save your projected ?25K on another day in the year when the children would have been on holiday. Secondly, and this is a wider issue, but the date of the election has been known for some months if not years past, it's not as though this was a snap general election. Parents have had plenty of notice to plan a holiday day or arrange care and ultimately schools are there to provide the statutory number of days of education, not be a babysitting service so that parents never have to take a day off. That said it would be preferable if other venues could be found, so may I be the first to second rahrahrah's suggestion of putting the polling stations in the pubs.

Edit - sorry just realised you said another part of Zone 2, not another part of Southwark! Well as far as I can see now (http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200220/on-street_parking_permits/477/resident_parking_permits) only hybrids and electric cars get a discount (to ?31.25) - all other vehicles appear to be ?125p.a. Be interested to hear if there are variations.

I agree that it would be best if alternative venues were sought, but that's up to the council - schools are specifically not allowed to refuse if asked. I know it will be little consolation for those who have to organise alternative provision for their children, but it should be noted that the school governors have a duty to make up the extra day to ensure they deliver the statutory 380 half days per annum, so children are not missing a day's school, it's just being moved elsewhere in the year.

Well, we live one road over and the street parking is surprisingly quiet - never once had to park more than ten yards from our gate in the four months since we moved here. I'd suggest problems in Oglander and Ondine may be to do with their position leading into the Peckham Rye CPZ? Sorry if it's selfish but we don't want to pay Southwark ?125 to ease our parking problems when we don't actually have any! I see Southwark's extant CPZs are massive - for example one stretches from Elephant to Burgess Park - and so any introduction would clearly cover areas which don't have a problem as well as those that do. Obviously this is inevitable as a street by street imposition would just mean everyone migrating to surrounding streets. Still, really not keen to pay more than a ton a year to solve a problem which, for us, doesn't exist. If a CPZ were to be introduced I don't see why a 5 metre 4x4 should pay the same as our 2.5 metre Smart, but I expect that's just the green eyed monster - that's what 4x4 owners always accuse one of, anyway!

Calm down Penguin old chap, I'm just spending an idle moment chatting on a local forum, not presenting evidence to the high court! There's no need to lecture - "You have not established this, indeed you have quoted..." I'm simply quoting an article which I read on the subject, if that's wrong then so be it, but I really don't see the need to come over all Rumpole about it!