The house that Tractor built....a diary of sorts

[Graham C]

Looks great Tractor!

[madasahatstand]

Great job Tractor, your house looks great.

[The_nun]

Great job Tractor, your house looks great.

[biscuit898]

it looks amazing, I especially liked this bit:

Ive also added a few photos of one of the showers we are fitting, its a Grohe and its wireless! So you can set temperature, timer etc from your bed and it beeps when its ready, no more dodging cold showers

[rex008]

Wow. Looks amazing. I've been on avforums for far longer than blonde, and I'm rather envious of the AV room.

Are you going to have a hard floor in the AV room? I know carpet is old fashioned these days, but it gives by far the best sound, IMHO, esp with a downfiring sub (not sure what the 2005.3 comes with).

To answer a question asked on the other side, we've got Kahrs engineered birch in a conservatory, and it's good stuff. They do oak - can get samples from lots of places online.

And yes, that shower sounds very impressive.

[EvilPie]

[ ] Building in Winter was a good idea

[ ] Moved in by Februaury

[ ] Thread delivered

[ ] We have kept to budget

[ X ] FML


New deadline June 1st

Lol at this familiarity.

Only difference is that I started in July so I'm even further behind.

I genuinely feel your pain Mr Tractor.

I wish I'd seen this thread when you first posted it. We could've had a building progress joint diary and shared each other's woes.

[X] Should be finished in about 6 weeks.

[X] 25% over budget.

[ ] I could afford my original budget.

GL with the final stages.

Arrrggghhhhh,,,, What stage are you at now? We are plastering at the moment and just about to start the final fix.

Hi tractor.

Yeah I'm plastering too. Looks like we're both in the same hell!!

Your extension looks similar in size to mine.

I started with a 3 bed detached. I knocked down the garage, utilty and one of the external walls. The whole house has then been extended across to turn it in to a four bedroomed detached. It's basically doubled the size of the house.

Internally the only wall that has survived is the downstairs supporting wall. Everything else has gone and been rebuilt.

Upstairs is now plastered and the skirtings and architraves are fitted. Just needs painting then final fix.

I've also been installing an AV system. I've gone for a multiroom system by Cambridge Audio. Everything is housed in the under stairs cupboard and every room has access to each source. (If it works!!) There's cat 6 cabling everywhere!

Living room has a cinema sound system but no projection screen. I think it's big enough for a 50" plasma but a screen might be a bit much.

I'll keep you informed on the Cambridge system as you said on the other forum that you weren't sure what you were doing with your multiroom yet.

[EvilPie]

Hey Tractor

Have you been claiming back the VAT for your building work?

Thought I'd check because a lot of people don't realise that they can.

[cia260895]

Tractor if you are having mirrrors in the shower/bathroom have a  look at these de mista pads they stop the mirrors from misting up.

http://www.demista.co.uk/products.asp?ProductType=1

[rex008]

Living room has a cinema sound system but no projection screen. I think it's big enough for a 50" plasma but a screen might be a bit much.

No room is too small for a 50" plasma . Our AV room is about 13' square, with a viewing distance of about 10', and after 5 years with a 42" plasma it actually started to look small. 50" now. What's your viewing distance? If it's anything over 10' I reckon a screen is doable.
[X] blatant I've got an AV room with a 50" plasma brag post, obv.

My Avforums sig (for the other AV junkies out there) goes:
Panasonic 50PF10, Onkyo NR905, Toshiba EP-30, Pioneer DVD757Ai, Sky+, B&W 805Matrix/601S3/LCR60S3, Rel Stentor II, Wii, PS2, PS3, BFD, Harmony 885, HTPC, Stressless chairs

[EvilPie]

Living room has a cinema sound system but no projection screen. I think it's big enough for a 50" plasma but a screen might be a bit much.

No room is too small for a 50" plasma . Our AV room is about 13' square, with a viewing distance of about 10', and after 5 years with a 42" plasma it actually started to look small. 50" now. What's your viewing distance? If it's anything over 10' I reckon a screen is doable.
[X] blatant I've got an AV room with a 50" plasma brag post, obv.

My Avforums sig (for the other AV junkies out there) goes:
Panasonic 50PF10, Onkyo NR905, Toshiba EP-30, Pioneer DVD757Ai, Sky+, B&W 805Matrix/601S3/LCR60S3, Rel Stentor II, Wii, PS2, PS3, BFD, Harmony 885, HTPC, Stressless chairs

Viewing distance is 4m so just over 13'. To be honest I'll be happy with a big plasma anyway. Think I'll be getting the Pioneer PDPLX5090 to match my existing system.

Looks like a nice system you've got there from that sig.

Just trying to work out what everything is. Mine's something like:

Pioneer PDPLX5090 (hopefully), Pioneer AX5Ai, Pioneer DVD868Ai, Mordaunt Short 906/905/903, REL Q50i

Then there's the Cambridge Audio Incognito system to get the sound to all the other rooms in the house. (If I can figure out how to get it all to work)

[rex008]

50" at that distance should be pretty decent. I'd love to get a projector/screen, but will have to try and plan that when I move (imminent, with any luck).

And in my sig, respectively,
plasma, amp, HD-DVD player, DVD player, Sky+, Front speakers/rears/center, subwoofer, Wii, PS2, PS3, Behringer Feedback Destroyer (parametric equaliser for subwoofer), programmable remote, Home Theatre PC, chairs

I got a HD-DVD player after they threw in the towel in the format wars. £60 for the player and got about 40 HD films for between £3 and £5 each. Nice.

The system looks very good. What's that costing, if you don't mind me asking? There seems to be a few multi-room systems around these days with a vast range of prices.

[Tractor]

Thanks for all your kind comments, its been a lot of work to get this far.
Rex, very nice set up you have there
I have looked at the incognito, but to be honest that multi room sound system will be the last thing fitted and it wont be this year !
Im looking more down the Sonos or Squeezebox route at the moment.

Matt: Ive sent you a pm.

Cheers

[EvilPie]

50" at that distance should be pretty decent. I'd love to get a projector/screen, but will have to try and plan that when I move (imminent, with any luck).

And in my sig, respectively,
plasma, amp, HD-DVD player, DVD player, Sky+, Front speakers/rears/center, subwoofer, Wii, PS2, PS3, Behringer Feedback Destroyer (parametric equaliser for subwoofer), programmable remote, Home Theatre PC, chairs

I got a HD-DVD player after they threw in the towel in the format wars. £60 for the player and got about 40 HD films for between £3 and £5 each. Nice.

The system looks very good. What's that costing, if you don't mind me asking? There seems to be a few multi-room systems around these days with a vast range of prices.

Total cost is about £3.5k for the system.

That includes:

6 input / 8 output (4 zones + 4 sub zones) audio distributor
Video distributor (6 input, 8 output)
Dual speakers for 3 rooms
Single stereo speakers for the 2 bathrooms
Outdoor speakers for the garden
8 things that you point your remote at to make it work (whatever they're called)
Power supplies

Cabling is all on top of that.

4 x cat 5e to each TV
1 x cat 5e to each remote thingy
speaker cables come from the remote thingy which has it's own amp built in.
2 x cat 5e to anywhere else you might want to add in future
Coax to each TV just in case you want to watch normal TV through the aerial.

Don't know the cost of that lot to be honest. At a guess I'd say £1k + installation cost but I got that for free.

Hopefully it'll all be up and running in about a month so I'll be able to let you guys know if it actually works.

Shoudl keep everything nice and neat. Basically all of the sources are in a cupboard under the stairs and everything shares the sources. No DVD players or amps or anything on display, just plasmas on the walls.

[TheChipPrince]

WOW, its a right geek fest this thread aint it! 

[EvilPie]

WOW, its a right geek fest this thread aint it! 

And you've read every word.