new house

[iris]

well.

i've been away from this board for quite some time now cause -

TA-DAAA-MMMM - we're buying a house. in ireland!

now, buying a house is a big deal for us, as people who always lived in flats. we know nothing about houses. nothing at all.

also, we know nothing about living with a fireplace, wooden floors, radiators (i.e. no places for things near the walls - and we have lots of those to place there) and two separate taps for cold and hot water... also, we heard a rumour that having a garden means having to work in it....

so here i am asking you, kind people of the forum, for practical advice. anything you can possibly think of, especially you, the older and wiser house owners. i know that things in the ire and the uk may be slightly different, but they are much more similar than what we experience in israel.

thank you!
love
xxx
i

[Katrina]

congrats Iris! not sure i'll be able to offer any advice though.

one thing though - i don't quite get what you said about radiators

radiators (i.e. no places for things near the walls - and we have lots of those to place there)

[Meggzie]

Lovely news Iris..it will be quite a change for you...as to radiators..mostly they are situated under the window...best not to put anything in front of it..it will stop the heat...saying that we have a big sofa in front of ours in the lounge(no where else for it to go)& it does stop the heat a bit..but we do have a gas fire as well which comes in handy when it is very cold..but we only had it on about 6 times this last winter.

Wooden floors sound nice..but they can be a bit noisy if upstairs as you can hear someone walking about quite plainly..I would love to have real woodblock floors downstairs with mats to make it seem warmer.

A fire place sounds nice as well...open fires sound so romantic...I personaly would have a stove...my daughter has one of those & it looks so nice.

Anyway good luck with your purchase.

[iris]

thanks, friends.

see, even from my question you could tell i'm clueless...
when i spoke about radiators, kat, i meant that the fact they are attached to a wall and that are so long and take so much space, this fact prevents me from having my furniture near the walls. i spoke about storage space loss, about no where to put my sofas and cupboards, let alone my 4000 cd's shelves, the dj's specially made unit (tapes, vcr's, records, two phono's and an adjustable table + the whole stereo unit as well...) or the piano... i wasn't even thinking about the heat that will be blocked by my furniture as daisy suggested. i was more concerned that the heat will damage my stuff... not that my stuff will prevent from heat to come to the room.... see... we're used to airconditioning here. i'm not even aware of the need of these radiators. all i can think of is how i manage to disconnect them to make me more space and less damage..

so, daisy, you think that putting a sofa in front of a radiator does not damage the sofa? how close can i put my stuff in order to place it as close to the walls as possible without burning it? or maybe it's a silly question and radiators can't burn anything, or melt it? do radiators need a certain distance from so they won't be damaged themselves? if i use radiators cover, will i be able to lean my stuff on it? will this be the reasonable solution? (so the heat will come from above and not from the side?)

fireplaces:
up til last week we had no idea about the difference between a stove and an open fire. we thought it was the same thing. we want open fire, for it's more romantic. any advice about that? we do not want to use gas (or maybe gas is only for stoves?) and there aren't any gas pipes where we'll live anyway. we think about burning wood, but there are also brickettes(?) from turf(?) and we were told that we can buy a machine that makes solid fuel of paper waste- home recycling of a sort... anybody knows what's best? what are the advantages or disadvantages of that?

noises of wooden floor? never thought of that. well, the house is already floored (except the dining area and the wet rooms, which will be tiled) and it's a nice oak floor. don't know anything about mats to seem warmer. the oak looks warm and friendly to me. it looks, well, for me, the foreigner, it looks like THE thing. is noise the reason why so many houses have so many carpets everywhere? even on the stairs? never understood that.
we will put a carpet in only one room - the studio, so it won't eco when we play the accustic instruments.
daisy, if all bedrooms are on the second floor, will the noise be that noticable in your opinion? can noise come up from the first floor to the second or is it only from the second to the first?

any advice about gardening will be highly appreciated as well.

thanks again
love
xxx
i

p.s. too tired to run a spell ceck. bear with me, please

[Katrina]

hm i think i get what you meant about radiators now. one question though you have four thousand shelves? or am i reading that wrong - I wouldn't surprised if i'm reading it wrong as my mind is filled with Xs Ys and equations.

I think because i've lived with radiators since as long as i can remember, most of the problems you've mentioned don't make much sense to me although I can understand it, if that makes any sense what so ever. I don't think the heat would cause much, if any, damage to you furniture, in fact on cold nights it's quite nice to sit close to one. I, currently, have a wooden chest of drawers in front of the radiator in my bedroom, and it hasn't caused any damage, in fact it's quite good in that it does block some of the heat, for which i am grateful, as i have the airing cupboard and water heater in my room which keeps the room toasty.

as for a fireplace, how nice. we don't have one but my nan does in her kitchen and my neighbour has a really cool fake fireplace. I'm not to sure what advice i can give about one though.

I'm not to sure about the gas or recycling thing. the only sort of recycling I do is putting carboard and plastics in to the brown (or is it black) bins.

carpets, i think, are mostly to quieten noise. As for noise on floors, I think it would be worst from second to first. As anyone in my house, downstairs can hear what is going on up but I can't hear what's going on downstairs (unless you count movement of the dog, doorbell and the kettle ) Also I should point out, we have carpet (in all rooms bar bathroom + kitchen)

and as for gardening, something that isn't my best subject. I have more talent at killing plants than keeping them alive (even cactuses die under my care) just do what you like with it. and as a side note - if my mum were to offer advice it would be to keep grass cut low but that is only because that is how she likes it.

good luck with everything

[michali]

I think she actually meant shelves for her 4000 cd's... but yes, that's a lot!

[smoggy]

iris, first a comment on radiators, you may not think a lot of them at the moment, taking up space etc, but come the winter, you will find them a godsend.

Most people who do not have radiators for central heating, get them put in. ! ( In winter it is a good idea to tuck your curtains behind them........it stops the heat being lost behind them. )

Air conditioning is not something we have a lot of use for in this country. ;D ;D There are not many occasions when it get that hot.

Wooden floors are very popular at the moment, the reason I prefer carpet is for warmth. ( As someone who walks around in bare feet, an uncarpeted floor is somewhat cold. )
The only places I would never recommend a carpet is bathroom and kitchen. ( Because of water spillage. )

A fireplace is wonderful, a lot of boarded up fireplaces are now being opened up to what they used to be. And there is a big choice of how you use them, coal, putting in a gas or electric fire etc, the possibilities go on.

As for gardens, where do you start, patios, decking, and good old grass. There maybe already plants and bulbs there, which you won't know anything about, until the various seasons come around.

[iris]

thank you, smoggy.

you say put the curtains behind the radiators...well this means we've got to have curtains, i assume. is it necessary? in israel there are very few curtains if any, i thought it was only for decoration?

the thing with air condition in israel is that it is used for both heating and cooling. it's not that we don't have cold times and even snow in some areas. but we heat with the same system, this aircondition thing. some have it on selected rooms, other have cenral air conditioning with vents in every room.
anyway, our house has already got the oil radiators system and we'll, of course, use it. it's just new to me and i'm not aware of the benefits (at the moment - can't see any but will be happy to see i'm wrong).

thanks for the carpets comment. i think we'll have to wait and see how the wood feels under our feet. we walk barefoot winter and summer in israel and our floors are concrete and marble. i believe that if we don't find that cold, the oak will surely be warm enough, but, yet again, i haven't lived in the european countryside winter... i love those oak floors. they are so romantic imo.

fireplace: which type of fuel would you recommend?

thanks again everybody for all the helpful advice. please write more. things that you may see as trivial might make the difference for us!

cheers!
love
xxx
i

[PamA]

Seem to recall having had a curtain conversation with you once before! Yes, Iris, they are decorative but they also serve to give you privacy, to shut out light (street lights outside a bedroom window can be very intrusive) and, to a certain extent, stop heat loss in the Winter. We sometimes keep our bedroom curtains closed during the day if we have a heatwave (yes, it does happen occasionally) to keep the room cool.
Fire - well, we have an open fire and burn logs. Log fires are definitely the most romantic and most of our logs are from tree chopping in our own garden. Expensive, though, if you have to keep buying them. I've never tried the bricks made from paper but they certainly sound to be environmentally friendly. We have burnt peat but I wouldn't recommend that as the peat bogs in Ireland take thousands of years to reform.
Hope that helps a little. Congrats on becoming a home owner!!

[Katrina]

curtains in my house are used to keep light out, mostly streetlights and car headlights and to stop people from being able to look in (the house opposite can see directly in to my bedroom).

as for the other stuff, it's also a little helpful to me as i guess i'll have to deal with it when i'm older (ok that is a really scary thought)