Discuss Are you sure these walls are true? in the British & UK Tiling Forum area at TilersForums.com.

R

roylec

Hello Snippers and Grouters,

Basically, I develop property. I have been doing it on and off since the late 80's, and nearly stopped bothering when I was crushed by the 90's recession, but I'm happily back on track these days. I usually do about one a year if I can, for three months in the early summer if I can, and this is not my full-time job.

My personal skills are painting/decorating, light joinery, tiling and some plasterwork (if you like the authentic ancient celtic look ;-). I use local sparks, plumbers and other trades for all the 'difficult' stuff.

I never trained in tiling, but I've done a few hundred metres in my time, all kitchens and bathroom wall-tiling and a few floors since they've been popular. I've a good hand for it, and good attention to detail. I was originally taught by a bloke on my estate called Arthur, who at the time was over 70 years old. This was the same bloke that regularly kicked my arse when I was growing up for breaking his windows with my casey football, or sapping apples from his crab-apple tree - still it led to a nice relationship, and my first start helping him on odd jobs around South Manchester while I was at school.

After school I went into a carpentry apprenticeship, but being too stupid for my own boots, I only did 2 of the four years, which means that I can build a folding step-ladder, a basic cabinet with doors, a door frame and a hardwood toast rack, but at least I can mitre skirting boards and architraving properly, and knock up any frame on a ceiling, or for a floor, or for studded walls quicker than you can say... <insert something that will last a good few hours>

Then 6 years doing Paint&Dec, initially for a firm, then for myself, and just about every second job required some spin-off work: tile a wall, fit a cabinet, you know how it goes...

Anyway, I earned good money during this time, and that's how I started in property development. You weren't allowed to have more than one mortgage at the time, so I had to lie to get more than one going. ...and you weren't allowed to rent your property out either. Still they never checked, and why would they? Can you imagine your building society knocking on your door one day and saying "...just checking you are not letting the place out?..." Not in Manchester anyway.

When the recession took me into huge debt, I did a computer programming course, and it turned out I am quite good at it. So that went onto a degree and 6 years later I had paid off my debts and was looking to buy my first new property for development. I am currently working on my 5th since then. I also do sub work for a local contracting firm because they allow me to use their account for materials, and to make it easier to find specialists when I need them. "You can never find a spark when your lights are out"

OK - Hope that's good by way of an introduction. I live in Bromley, Kent these days - the weather's nice down here, as is my wife and 18mth old daughter. I'm not rich by any stretch, but I reckon three projects from now will be an unmortgaged £1million house, and that will be me done and dusted. I'll sell up and move to a terrace in Stranraer.
 
R

roylec

A few odd things I just noticed:

1) Dan is the site admin, so he knows my email address and therefore my name, and yet he's shortening my username to "Roy". Very familiar! But.. my name is Chris Royle. "Royle" + "C", See? Royle as in 'The Family', get it? Got it? Good :-D

2) I mis-quoted myself - it should have been "You can never find a spark when you need a light", although that's going to be meaningless after July 2nd.

3) What *is* a batten anyway?
 

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Are you sure these walls are true?
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