A Victorian House Renovation

What Happens When You go Away for 2 Weeks.....

2011-08-14T15:48:00.003+01:00

You go off to Spain for a couple of weeks, spending much of your time open water swimming on the beautiful lake Negratin, and you come home.....

....to find your self buried under a mountain of beans.....

....and with a new addition to the family, Daisy.

A Milestone

2011-06-28T14:11:00.003+01:00

Anyone who has seen this blog before may well recall that one of the major issues with this house has been low pressure on the hot water. We had to fit a noisy pump to the shower to achieve adequate flow. But now, Coleman Plumbing and Heating in Taunton are about to change our lives.

Unfortunately, this does involve some demolition in the bathroom to gain access to the hot water cylinder. I spent half of Saturday ripping out the stud walls Richard built around it.

Then yesterday, Stuart came to work and we drained all the water from the house including the central heating, before removing the old vented hot water cylinder.

This is the new stainless steel unvented, pressurized cylinder that will take its place.

Before installing the new cylinder, almost all of the old pipework was cut out and replaced. I particularly like this bit here with all the curves and angles.

It fits, just.

Hole in the Wall

2011-05-26T11:37:00.003+01:00

The wall before I started. It might look solid at first glance, but the cap is completely falling to pieces and once you start poking a bit, so is much of the rest of it.

Here's a prime example. A bit of poking and the next thing you know there's a hole big enough to conceal a gang of outlaws. Here I've dug out the bit between the wall and the slabs I laid last year and pummeled some hardcore down as I'm going to fill the gap with render and stones.

Even with Richard's cement mixer this is chuffig hard work, without it I think I'd be dead by now.
Thanks Rich.

The render is 1:1:6 cement: lime: sand which makes a lovely sticky render that you can flick into all the corners and it just stays there. Working with stones you get through an amazing amount of render filling all the gaps.

Before and After

2011-05-24T13:23:00.004+01:00

This shows the difference in flow before and after the cold main was replaced. Fantastic. Of course now, having never solved our issues with the pressure on the hot, that looks even more pathetic by comparison. Plans are, appropriately, in the pipeline.

For now, back to the wall.

The Big Reveal

2011-05-22T15:47:00.004+01:00

After another major drill bit stickage which took several more hours to extract, this blue pipe which is connected via a copper pipe to the plastic pipe upstairs, which in turn is connected to the cold water system in the airing cupboard, was inserted into the hole that took so much time, sweat and destroyed masonary bits to create...

emerging into this trench just outside the house (after another half hour of me smashing a large steel spike into the hole to yet further enlarge it)...

...which was dug this morning by these men, thus explaining the road closure! Our cold water main has today been replaced, ending almost a decade for us of low water pressure. Finally, I think we have found a plumber who knows his business. The old main was partly lead, partly very corroded galvanized steel. And best of all, the council had to pay for all this.

Stuck

2011-05-20T09:24:00.001+01:00

The hole needs to be at least 60cm deep, but Dan's drill bit got stuck at about 30cm and remained stuck for most of the day until after Dan had gone home, at which point I had a go at it and got it out in about 5 minutes. Dan is here now completing the hole, hopefully without further stuckages.

The Plot Thickens

2011-05-19T11:12:00.003+01:00

Today, Dan made a hole in the floor through the concrete in the corner of the lounge.

Yesterday, he had all the carpets up on the landing upstairs and put in a plastic pipe (as well as some copper ones). Yes, these two things are related, and may also be linked to the road closure scheduled for this Sunday. The first correct guess (from anyone who I haven't already told what's going on) as to what's happening will receive no prizes at all.

Wall

2011-05-19T11:01:00.004+01:00

The wall at the back of the garden is falling down in places and needs to be fixed.

It has much wildlife and vegetation within its structure which will be either gently relocated (slow worms, spiders etc) or chucked in the garden waste recycling bin (ivy, dandelions, snails, bind weed etc). This has nothing whatever to do with the previous post.

Road Closure

2011-05-16T13:29:00.003+01:00

All will be revealed....

Asparagus

2011-04-26T10:19:00.004+01:00

I can hear the clattering of people falling off chairs across the globe at the shock of seeing a new post on this blog, the first since November. If we had planted asparagus three years ago, we'd be scoffing tons of it by now, but since I only planted it a week ago, we're not allowed to eat any at all this year.

The crowns went in thus, with lots of fresh home made compost which is extra lush due to the amount of chicken poo it contains!

Although we can't eat it, seeing the first spear emerge from mother earth was a great moment. We can eat one from each plant next year (according to Paula who is pretty hot on such things), but in 2013 we'll be feasting until we smell of it. Yummy!

A View From the Shower

2010-11-19T11:15:00.004Z

Standing in the shower, this is what you see. I was going to strip the door (which is the original one from the old bathroom) but I got half way through before realizing that its condition was extremely poor with lots of holes full of Polyfilla, so I filled, smoothed and painted it thus. A splash of colour is just the job. This room is now a whisker away from being finished, although I will have to refinish the top of the wash stand once the other bathroom is back in commission.

Three Floors

2010-11-16T11:38:00.002Z

Please don't be shy about sharing your opinions. These ideas are for the undressing room floor.

Backwards and Forwards

2010-11-16T10:03:00.003Z

Having now finished the wardrobes, my priorities suddenly switched back to the en-suite (having originally planned to do the floor in the undressing room).

The reason for this was that I discovered a pesky leak in the corner of the shower. This shower door cost a fortune and has been nothing but trouble. Its design is so unnecessarily complex that no matter how hard I try, water always seems to manage to find a way through eventually. Here, it was getting behind the door pivot and leaking through a crack in the grout behind, so I had to rip out the whole side. That's the second time I've had to do that, and I bally well intend not to have to bally well do it again. I also scraped out all the grout all the way around the bottom and started again with the best quality sanitary silicone money can buy.

I also got on with finishing all the skirting, one of those jobs which I always seem to take forever to get around to. That results in a particularly warm glow of satisfaction when I finally do. I had to pull the khazi out to get at it, and I've thoughtfully blotted out the end of the soil pipe in case you are just having your breakfast.

The end piece was carefully cut by hand and glued together.

I cut a small piece of stone tile to fit between the skirting and the shower tray. When all the gaps were variously siliconed, grouted and caulked, it looked pretty tidy. I also had a small fillet to do on the other side to finish off that corner. Every possible gap is now permanently sealed. Now there's a bold statement if ever there was one.

The War (drobe) is Over...

2010-10-26T11:07:00.002+01:00

...and I won!

Because the room is so titchy, I couldn't get a photo of the whole thing, so I assembled this from multiple images. What next? Wait and see.....

Tri-Fold Doors

2010-10-19T15:16:00.002+01:00

As usual its taking ages, but I'm nearly there now. I have installed a three panel folding door on the main wardrobe, and made the side panel. More soon....

Class 4 Shelves

2010-10-11T14:32:00.006+01:00

Of course I don't mean that these shelves aren't first class in every way, just that they were salvaged from Class 4 when they got new furniture up at the school where Janine works. They used to be for crayons and books and general school paraphernalia. Now, they look forward to a whole new life full of stylish knitwear and will probably provide support for some of the clobber visible here. That's recycling at its best.

Anyone who noticed that I've also put up architrave around the door gets a sweet.

Coming Along

2010-10-09T13:41:00.002+01:00

This bit took several hours of patient whittling to match the profile of the ceiling.

There it is at the top. It fits almost perfectly. Some more framework is also visible.

And I made another shelf at the bottom, out of a left over bit of ply I found hanging about in the shed from when we did the kitchen nearly 8 years ago (still not finished). As luck would have it, it was almost exactly the right size.

A Man With a Plan

2010-10-08T15:31:00.004+01:00

Loyal followers, I have come up with a plan for the construction of this wardrobe. I'm making the internal shelves and dividing piece into an integral part of the structure, instead of just assembling them inside it like I did on the other wardrobe.

First, I cut the dividing wall (after wisely measuring it twice) and checked that it fitted.

Then, with some help from my glamorous assistant J9 and a piece of batten, I got the divider and shelf together and firmly attached to the wall.

Now, the rest of the structure and framework can be attached to the divider. It should be good and strong and not move.

The Other Side

2010-09-24T08:53:00.003+01:00

Starting work on the opposite wardrobe. As before, I need to build a frame from which to hang the doors. This one is much more complicated as it has a step in it where the door to the en-suite opens, and I also have a sloping ceiling to contend with which, as expected, does not slope evenly and is not level in any direction.

More joinery is required too, this bit is where the whole thing steps in to allow the en-suite door to open. Right now, I am clueless as to the best way to go about this.

Undressing Room

2010-09-23T11:36:00.004+01:00

A big thanks to Lou for coming up with yet another clever, witty and a little risque title for a part of our house. We like risque. The Love Shack, and now the Undressing Room. I knew we could rely on Lou, who comes up with stuff like the Cattic (an attic where her cats hang out). There's no stopping her.

I have installed rails in both halves, and stashed most of our camping stuff on the top shelf. That's about it for this side for the moment. I'm still using these as tool cupboards while I build the wardrobes on the opposite side, so J9 will have to wait a little longer before she can put all her ball gowns and big girls' blouses away.

A Wardrobe of Two Halves

2010-09-10T09:26:00.004+01:00

I made a bottom for the right half out of bits of T&G I had left over. Originally, I made it out of a piece of ply I had left over, but managed to cut it too small, and then there wasn't enough left to make it again. I must have forgotten to remember my brother Niels's wise words: "Measure twice, cut once."

The major internal parts have been measured (twice) and cut (all fitted just right) and installed.

On the left, a tall hanging area for ball gowns, wedding dresses etc. On the right, hanging for big girls' blouses (like Lewis Hamilton) with shelf space underneath. The large shelf at the top has no central divider so we can keep a small canoe on it (if we want to).

Doors

2010-09-09T08:51:00.002+01:00

Once the frame was in place, it was time for the first trial fit of the doors. I got open louvre doors to allow air to circulate so our clothes don't go musty. I bought bi-fold track kits with totally incomprehensible instructions, but in spite of this, the first pair is up (although not fitting very well at this stage)

Both pairs of doors are now fitted, and it is gratifying to see that my measuring for the gap was spot on. Wise words from my brother Niels: "Measure twice, cut once."

This is how they will open, in two pairs folding flat against each other, taking up as little space as possible in what is a very small room.

Frame Up

2010-09-08T16:55:00.005+01:00

Back inside the house, we're on the case with the fitted wardrobes in the bit between the master bedroom and the en-suite, which for want of something better to call it, I will refer to as the dressing room. (Please feel free to come up with something better, like Lou's now famous "Love Shack," which has been officially adopted.)

First job is to bung in a bit of skirting and build the frame for the wardrobe doors to fix on to.

Seen within the frame is one of the doors, and some other materials whose destiny will become clear later.

Being as neither my joinery skills nor my toolbox was up to making really strong and tidy corner joints (which would inevitably get broken anyway during the fitting) some crude but effective engineering was employed.

The main difficulty with all this was the fact that none of the walls was exactly flat or vertical, and the ceiling and floor were neither flat nor horizontal thus requiring much incremental shaving of all parts. In a length of a mere 1.6m, the floor drops over 40mm, and it curves like a banana too. The wood is level, the floor is not. Very not.

Chicken Run (it's done)

2010-09-07T13:17:00.003+01:00

Let's drag you up to date with the chicken run.

After putting in all the poles and planks along the bottom to prevent the chickens from chucking mud all over the paths, I wrapped the electric fence around, with some netting from an old trampoline around the top. I cleared the path all the way round, laid weed barriers and covered with gravel.

A chicken's eye view: Looks like a palace to me.
Thanks to Rich for the use of his post shovel.

Arne's first Day

2010-09-03T10:00:00.005+01:00

Nothing to do with the house, but here's Arne ready for his first day at secondary school. More on the house soon, I promise.

Chicken Run

2010-07-09T22:13:00.003+01:00

Greetings! Much time has gone west lately with one thing and another, but lots of progress has also been made on the chicken run.

These blighters lay lovely eggs, but will also trash the greenhouse given half a chance, and make dust baths in the flower beds, as above.

We need somewhere to lock them away when it suits our purposes, and it has been the plan for some considerable time to turn about a third of the top end of the garden where the vegetable beds are into a chicken run, fit for free-range pampered birds like ours.

Its really starting to take shape now, with the surrounding paths dug out giving access all the way around, and covered with old carpet and cut-up dumpy bags as weed barriers. We have a ton of gravel coming on Monday to make the path. Planks have been screwed onto the posts to lessen the amount of soil the chickens chuck out onto our nice gravel paths.

Happy Saturday

2010-06-14T09:41:00.003+01:00

This weekend Arne was away at cub camp. J9 and I got going in the garden. On Saturday, the weather was perfect for lying in a hamock, reading a good book and sipping something long and cool, or if that sounds a bit lazy, perhaps a bit of gardening in a bikini. As for me, I was digging and sweating, mostly.

J9 was happy planting all her brassicas. Sorry about the rubbish picture, but the sun was so bright I couldn't see the screen on the camera.

This bee was happy gathering pollen.

And this Moth was particularly exuberant, performing aerobatics right over the garden!

J9's Good Books

2010-06-06T16:37:00.005+01:00

That's what I hope to be in when she sees this. Bet she can't wait to get planting when she gets home tomorrow.

Despite my late night, I was up and at it early this morning, after my porridge and a quick fix of Thunderbirds on the plasma.

Got the last dividing path finished, laid the last few slabs along the back, and made the final raised bed. Now for the chicken run.....

Led Astray

2010-06-06T16:30:00.005+01:00

Last night round at Naughty Richard's house. That's Jock in the foreground, he knows every song by AC/DC. I managed, somehow, to escape without a hangover.

Sweat and Dust

2010-06-05T18:06:00.002+01:00

Today was just about as sweaty and dusty as days come. I've got dust in my teeth and everywhere else.

Got the fourth veg bed done though, and lots more bricks cleaned. I am now heading for the shower, and then off to be led astray by that naughty Richard.

Outdoors Again

2010-06-04T16:23:00.008+01:00

Bit behind with my blogging again. I was working for a while on a Star Wars calendar, but have also been busy in the garden. I built a new compost bin because the old one was in the way of the chicken run I'm going to build.

It is made partly from bits salvaged from the old one, and partly from mesh that I've been meaning to take down for ages, as it was both in the way and an eyesore. I was busy with my angle grinder lots. It just needs a lid now.

In order to build the chicken run, I first needed to widen the path. For this, I had to clean up loads more bricks. I hate cleaning bricks.

Here's the first fence post for the chicken run. Also, you can see I'm edging the path with some nice stones properly set into mortar. One day I'll think of a less labour-intensive way to do something.

Mixing enough mortar to do this bit made me just about the dustiest, hottest, sweatiest dude this side of the Orion Nebula.

All the dog could do was bask in the sunshine. J9 and AJ are away for a few days so I thought I'd better post my progress each day so they can see I'm not slacking and being led astray by that naughty Richard.

This is he.

Huffing and Puffing

2010-05-06T13:13:00.005+01:00

We have an enormous cheese plant which has lived in our bedroom since we moved here.

Obviously, it would have been in the way while all the work was going on, such as plastering, carpeting and the like, so with much huffing and puffing (after Janine and I had an argument which I lost), we managed somehow to cram it into the bathroom where it stayed for several weeks while we worked on the bedroom.

Despite me specifically telling it not to grow while it was in there, it gained two leaves and about a foot in height. Consequently, the huffing and puffing on the outward journey was as nothing compared to that which took place when we dragged it back to the bedroom this morning.

Three Chests of Drawers, a Bed and a Mirror.

2010-04-28T09:22:00.004+01:00

The furniture I ordered back in January came with uncannily good timing last Friday. It was some weeks late, but so was I. It's all solid oak with no self-assembly flat pack nonsense, so the last thing we wanted was for this lot to be hanging around for weeks with no place to stash it. There are no wardrobes, because the next thing on the jobs list is building some in the dressing room which is the bit beyond Tubs's handrails that you can just see through the gap. These will be built in and made to measure by me, so stand by for some swearing and such.

Revelation 2: The Steps Down to the Dressing Room/EnSuite

2010-04-27T09:42:00.010+01:00

Dear DIY fans. Remember this? I posted that almost exactly a year ago. I've been hard at work lately finishing it all off and doing some neat woodwork (borrowed Richard's router, thanks Rich) if I do say so myself.

I spent a lot of time thinking about exactly how the hell I was going to make this tidy and finish it off.

Our pal Tubs (real name Bartholomew, nicknamed Bathtubs, shortened to Tubs) made us a set of beautiful bespoke handrails to stop any drunkards falling down the steps late at night coming home from the pub. I had to work around them as we had them made long before the steps were finished. Here I made some pieces with curved ends for mounting the rails on, glued and clamped them to the steps and screwed to the floor. The skirting is fitted with a bevel cut at the end to fit a piece which will finish it off neatly.

Another piece of wood is cut and moulded with Richard's router which will stick on top. The skirting this side is finished now.

More bits of wood are moulded with the router and cut to trim the sides against the reveal, and some more trim is glued and clamped on to finish the bottom ends.

We decided to paint it to match the skirting, as the wood had joins and bits of filler and grain going in funny directions because of the way the steps are made so it wouldn't have looked so great if we'd left the wood exposed.

The carpet is down and the handrails are finally on. I fixed the wall where it broke up with some very strong render, and it seems to be holding.

Here they are in all their glory. He's brilliant, is Tubs. He bent the twirly bits with his teeth.

Yeah, Baby!

2010-04-20T14:53:00.002+01:00

Nice.

Bang Up To Date

2010-04-20T12:23:00.003+01:00

All the fuss with the oak was to do with the hearth surround I eventually managed to make. I simply Araldited the corners together and stuck it to the floor with Gripfill. The tiles are oiled and grouted but still without their final beeswax polish.

The stripped and sealed chimney breast and fireplace won't function, but makes a great looking feature. As you can see I've got all the skirting boards back on and painted. The walls are also painted in a shade called "Barley."

The floor is clear and clean ready for the carpet fitters who should be here within an hour or two.

More Woe

2010-04-20T12:02:00.006+01:00

Just when triumph seemed within my grasp, when I was finally ready to do the immensely rewarding task of attaching the beautiful bespoke handrails Tubs made for us, the wall decided to disintegrate instead.

Revelation: Mantlepiece

2010-04-15T16:36:00.004+01:00

Time to reveal what I did with the scrap oak. After the disaster of cutting the first piece too short, I had a long bit left over, for which I had to find a use. This is it. I guess it looks good, but I still feel like I only just managed to rescue something from the stupid cock-up I made. Hardly a triumph. I have a new bit of oak on order for the purpose which I originally had in mind when I got this bit. I will reveal that in good time....

Nice Bit of Skirt

2010-04-13T08:57:00.005+01:00

Before I reveal the use to which that piece of scrap oak has been put, I'll show you what I was up to yesterday. Cleaning up and sanding all the skirting board which is to go back on the bedroom walls. Much of the skirting board which came off all the various walls in the house is a bit knackered, so many rooms will have to have new skirting board. But there's enough reasonably good stuff left for this room.

Air of Despair...

2010-04-12T11:44:00.009+01:00

See this piece of wood? Well, being too short for it's purpose by around 20mm, it is an expensive piece of firewood. Planed, dry oak. Only really posh people can afford to burn this stuff.... Of course, you have guessed that (being as I'm not posh) this sad situation came about through incompetence with a tape measure on my part, resulting in a number of things:

1. I was in a strop for most of the day, wanting only to sit and carve the word "IDIOT" across my forehead with a rusty Stanley knife.

2. We got a couple of bits of expensive firewood, as I've already mentioned.

3. I have to contact Hugh who sourced the wood for me and admit what I did, because I now need another piece.

4. I have to find a use for the long bit of leftover scrap oak from which I cut the short piece in the photo, as it is too good to burn.

Painting

2010-04-12T11:38:00.005+01:00

A coat of white on the ceiling and walls to seal and prime the new plaster.

We've gone for a bold colour on the back wall which I hope....

.....will give the boudoir a mood for lovin'.....

The Hearth of the Matter

2010-04-07T08:22:00.003+01:00

In front of the chimney breast, there was once a stone hearth, now long gone and replaced with some old planks (not proper floor boards) crudely nailed down, making the floor here very uneven.

We decided the best thing to do was to bung down a slab of chipboard and tile it with some nice old looking stone tiles.

Actually, the tiles don't look very old yet, but you wait until they've been grouted, had 2 coats of antique stone oil and a beeswax polish....

Turning the Corner

2010-04-01T19:32:00.005+01:00

I'm back! 3 weeks off working, but we're going to see lots of action in the bedroom now. No! Not that kind, you smutty lot....

Always good to go from demolition to rebuilding. I bashed all the damaged bricks out of the chimney breast so here it is all cleaned up and ready to start fixing it up.

Here we go, using bricks reclaimed from other bits of the house we've knocked down....

....Lovely job. Even used lime in the mortar to make that consistent with the rest, since we're going to leave the bricks exposed. Thanks Rich!

The Unexpected

2010-02-26T15:21:00.004Z

Just when you think your chimney has stopped messing about with unexplained and seemingly unexplainable leaks, the flipping render starts falling off in large chunks. I think when Richard sees this he'll suddenly disappear off the face of the planet, as he likes chimneys even less than plastering. But he can't hide, wherever he is, I'll find him.

Working

2010-02-23T17:38:00.002Z

Well folks, I just got the go-ahead on some work that's been floating around for a while, so no more house for a few weeks. If you're bored in the meantime, you can check out my other blog (which is also to do with work) by clicking here.

That Ceiling Feeling Again

2010-02-14T17:04:00.003Z

Using the plaster board hoist Richard left here from Arne's room....

......I could get the whole ceiling plasterboared single-handed. Lucky I remembered to measure where all the light holes needed to go, although I still managed to drill one in completely the wrong place. See if you can spot it.

Goodbye Francis and Phyllis

2010-02-13T11:51:00.005Z

Unfortunately the plaster where Francis and Phyllis had signed their names all those years ago (just by the light switch in the picture) was in such a bad state it was beyond saving and I stripped it all off. I'm sure they would have been amazed to have seen their names on this blog!

More History

2010-02-12T15:23:00.005Z

When I stripped the wallpaper off in the main bedroom, I found more fascinating dates and signatures on the wall underneath. On 28 March 1967 I was living in Tunbridge Wells, aged 6 and 8 days. Francis and Phyllis Milton lived in our house, as they had done since the early 1940's. Francis signed in the same place again some 9 years later. Until recently, both were still living in the village.

Detour Into the Past

2010-02-10T14:00:00.003Z

This was the scene in summer 2002 at the south-east corner of the house. A rotting, leaking, corrugated plastic-roofed porch leading into what was then a small annex (now my studio)

One winter was enough. We knocked it down the following spring and Richard built a new one. It was the beginning of an ugly friendship. Timber frame construction, with a pitched tiled roof and 4" Celotex insulation right through.

Double glazed window and door, guttering, render and a few coats of paint later, and no more -8 in that corner.

Eyesore in the Bedroom

2010-02-09T20:42:00.006Z

Take a look at the old fireplace from the bedroom. It ain't actually that old, it certainly ain't Victorian, it ain't functional, beautiful or good quality. Interestingly the person who installed it chopped chunks out of the surround (which doesn't match) to fit the top of the metal part in, and chopped chunks out of the metal part to fit that stupid little shelf in at the bottom. I mean, when you're committing DIY crimes of this magnitude, at least be consistent!

2010-02-09T20:22:00.005Z

Until quite recently our (that's mine and Janine's) bedroom has been the major upstairs repository for all the furniture and other rubbish that's been cleared out of everywhere else. It is now substantially empty again. Much of the stuff went back into Arne's room, but as for the rest.... Don't ask me, I've lost track.

First of all, just painting it a different colour would be far too simple. We have to go making a blooming great mess again by stripping all the plaster off the chimney breast to expose the bricks which we think will look nice.

The fireplace was bricked up and full of rubble.

Clearing that lot out was no fun.....

As you can see, the dust mask which was my first and only line of defense against the clouds of black filth which spewed out every time I so much as poked a cotton bud into the mess, did not stop all of it from reaching the parts I would have preferred it not to.

Furnished

2010-02-08T09:58:00.004Z

Arne got a pucker football table for Christmas from his wonderful parents. It makes quite a feature in the room.

The least he could do really is to let us win occasionally....

.....But the fact that he almost always beats me 10-9 or 10-8 leads me to conclude that he's just toying with me.

Finished! (And that's not a word I use lightly)

2010-01-13T08:59:00.004Z

After all the painting was done, the carpet men came two days before Christmas.

As well as the painting, I put up some fitted shelves (using recycled mahogany from the old window surrounds we ripped out) to replace a cheap and nasty bookshelf from Argos, and made a door (painted to match the bedroom door) to turn some shelves into a slimline wardrobe.

Turning clockwise.... If you refer to the plan a couple of posts ago you'll see just how close the reality is to the computer simulation.

The door looks rather cool if I say so myself...

Finally the bed was reconstructed and AJ spent his first night back in his room. I think Arne's design works fabulously, and I know he'd love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to comment!

Turning it into Reality

2010-01-12T12:20:00.006Z

After the skirting boards were replaced and painted black, the fireplace needed attention.

We used spray paint to turn it from white to black.

Lots of work was done restoring the door. It was sanded down, all the cracks and woodworm holes were filled and a nice neat wooden bead was added around all the panels. It was then primed with grey acrylic primer.

We could then paint it with gloss according to Arne's design. The walls are being painted in the background.

Here's Arne doing a fine job with the yellow.

Arne's Vision

2009-12-22T16:16:00.005Z

Poor old Arne was ill the day we were going out to choose a carpet. This was the weekend before last. So I went and came home with a few samples of carpets I thought he'd like. He chose one with orange and terracotta type colours.

I scanned the sample he chose and did a very quick bird's eye representation of his room on the computer, and Arne proceeded to pick his colours for the room. He was very clear from the start that he wanted a different colour on each wall. This was the final design he came up with.

Oops....

2009-12-11T14:05:00.005Z

Since we are going to put down a carpet in Arne's room, it seemed like a good idea to take this unique opportunity to treat the floor timbers for woodworm.

I pulled up every fourth floorboard and sprayed the timbers with woodworm killer wile Arne was at school, partly to spare him the worst of the fumes, and partly because I didn't fancy another lecture on woodworm rights.

I found out just how easy it is to take a step back and find there's no floor under your foot. Lucky all the ceilings are in such a bad state they all need replacing anyway, really.

The mess will take a bit of clearing up though.... Better get on with it now before Janine comes home. Maybe she won't notice the ceiling or take the p*ss out of me for the next three years. Maybe pigs will fly....

Back to it

2009-12-09T16:45:00.005Z

After getting sucked into the loft for nearly two weeks, I'm back in Arne's room. I've spent 2 days cleaning up and filling cracks and holes (of which there were many) to get to this stage....

....and today I got a coat of white emulsion on the whole room to prime the bare walls, so the Kerslake signature from October 1940 has been hidden again for someone to rediscover in the future. Arne has yet to choose what colour he wants the finished walls to be, so stay tuned!

Stripe 2009

2009-12-06T17:23:00.006Z

Its that time of year again! If you don't know what the big Stripe night is all about, you can check early December posts for previous years.

Me and J9 went as Reg and the Missis. J9 made a scary dirty old man.

Hello magazine could have scooped Reg dancing with Susan Boyle and having a pint with Rod Stewart, if they'd been there.

Matt came as the Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters.

Veggie Richard always comes up with something brilliant.

The Mister men were there too. Richard (our Richard) is Mr Messy on the left, Sally is Miss Bossy and Paula looks all tickled out as Mr Tickle on the right. Paula designed the costumes.

More for the celeb spotters, Rod Hull and Emu came back from the grave!

And the man himself,

Stripe.

Done and Dusted.

2009-12-03T09:49:00.003Z

Ten days ago, I thought it would take me about 2-3 days to sort the loft. Considering that the loft was just going off at a tangent in the first place (our plumbing problems was what got me up there initially, and things kind of spiraled from there) that's quite a lot of time spent inhaling black dust, contorting myself into the most confined spaces, itching all over from the rockwool and abusing my knees, back, neck and.... oooh! I don't know where I don't ache. Thank Zaruqarn that's done.

Laying Insulation: Unpleasant Occupation.

2009-11-28T09:40:00.005Z

I've made boxes out of old plasterboard to cover and protect the downlighters for the bedrooms below and put down the first bag of new insulation over the top of the old. That makes it about 300mm thick. I would rather have been Henry the Eighth's Royal Stool Inspector than have this as a regular job.

Off the Floor

2009-11-26T14:15:00.003Z

Yesterday I built more staging out of salvaged wood to get things off the floor so that we can put down more insulation, and took a ton of empty boxes to the recycling centre....

....and this morning I made a narrow insulated walkway to the southern end of the house. I thought I'd be up in the loft for a couple of days, but its looking like more than a week...

Staging

2009-11-24T09:29:00.004Z

There's no point spending a fortune on insulating walls if the loft isn't done properly, which you'll be amazed to learn, it isn't. That's partly because of all the rubbish we've chucked up there which is compressing much of the insulation, and partly because there wasn't enough insulation in the first place.

What to do? Build staging and get all the boxes and stuff off the floor so that we can put down more insulation. You can't have too much insulation, you know. There you go, I said the other day there might be some more words of wisdom soon.

All of the materials used have been salvaged from other parts of the house and reused. Never chuck out old bits of wood!

Tank Battle

2009-11-23T21:04:00.005Z

Had to knock off a few more courses of bricks off the chimney breast for the much larger tank to fit, and chop out one of the uprights holding the roof up. There was another nearby so the roof didn't fall down.

Here the strong wooden base is in position on the chimney breast leveled with some old slates.

A lot of huffing and puffing and rejigging all the plumbing we only did about a week ago, and the new tank is in position and filled with water.

Mystifyingly, this did not make any discernable difference to the pressure on the hot water system. The shower has improved though. The rest of the plumbing needs to be looked at carefully as something isn't right. Stay tuned.....

Plan B

2009-11-18T15:28:00.005Z

In fact this is probably Plan C or D. Remember a few days ago I mentioned we had inadequate pressure on our hot water system? (Check back to Tuesday 10 Nov). We tried moving the header tank in the attic to a loftier position. The effect was minimal.

This should make a difference. Upgrading from a 40 gallon tank to a 100 gallon tank.

It went through the loft hatch. I had a Plan B for that too, which involved making a big hole in the bedroom ceiling. I was pleased it went through the hatch. Just. Shame there was nobody about to either witness or record the miracle I performed in achieving this feat.

That was yesterday. Today I made a base for it to stand on atop the old chimney breast. Two old door jams salvaged from the studio renovation, and some chopped up shelves the school was chucking out. Reckon that saved me thirty quid, so never chuck away old bits of wood. More words of wisdom soon. Maybe.

Happy Very Belated Halloween

2009-11-17T20:15:00.004Z

I just downloaded this pic from the camera. Arne grew the pumpkin from a seed, and carved it himself. A fabulous effort I'm sure you'll agree.

En-suite Progress

2009-11-16T09:41:00.004Z

A couple of recent shots to start the day of the en-suite which has taken some steps forward.

I got this corner cabinet in Homebase for half price when I went in for some insulation which they didn't have. It's 45 degree angle means you can have lots of fun peering into all corners of the room simultaneously while sitting on the loo.

Got a shelf, towel rail and soap/cupholders up too.

Yesterday was a good day!

2009-11-13T11:41:00.005Z

Nothing went wrong and we made lots of progress. Those kind of days don't come along every day you know! Richard is spreading his misery and germs elsewhere at the moment so a strange, eerie sense of joy and wellbeing swept though the house. Its as if this whole project has suddenly gone bipolar....

We started off with this box of multi-coloured spaghetti. Ratty turned up early before Arne had gone to school, and he just had time to give Ratty a hand and tell him what to do.

By the end of the day, it looked like this. All the new sockets and many of the lights are now live.

Meanwhile, I painted the ceiling in Arne's room, the leftover paint being enough to also paint half a wall.

After lunch, I set about some plastering. I fixed up this small hole in Arne's wall...

...but I was really chuffed with how this turned out. Lots of trial and error, but I got it looking smooth and flat with a nice sharp edge. I'll not be attempting any ceilings just yet though....

Kerslake

2009-11-10T17:31:00.004Z

We found out a little more about who is likely to have written "Kerslake Oct 23 1940" on the wall. As I said, the Kerslakes are a big family around here, and there are still a couple of brothers around who are around 70+. It was probably their father, who was a painter and decorator. Pure history, man!

A Lofty Experience

2009-11-10T17:17:00.005Z

We've been below the floors downstairs, and now were up in the rafters. We have a bit of a problem with inadequate pressure on our hot water system. That's why we have a pump to power the shower. One way to increase the pressure is to raise the header tank to as high as it will go so that the water has further to drop.

The tank was sat on the ceiling joists above Arne's room. When we put plasterboard up a couple of days ago, the boards were massively distorted under where the tank was. Behind the tank is the old chimney breast which was capped off sometime between the early sixties and the '80's.

I bashed off some more of the chimney breast and we sited the tank as high as it would go, and extended all the pipes as simply as we could. Unfortunately, and as I expected, it has only made a marginal difference to the hot water pressure. We will have to come up with a plan B, of which more later. But fortunately, the severe bow in Arne's ceiling has completely disappeared. That's what you get when you don't spread the load properly. Was NOTHING in this house ever done correctly in the first place?

Archaeology

2009-11-09T11:52:00.010Z

Here's a fascinating little aside. I spent much of my weekend stripping the wallpaper and paint off the walls in Arne's room. Under the paper written on a layer of paint, I found this. The Dua family owned the house from about 1981-1999 I think, and many of them still live locally.

When I stripped all the paint away, I found this on another wall. "Kerslake Oct 23 1940." The Kerslakes are a big family around these here parts. If I manage to find out anything about who might have written this, I'll let you know!

More AJ's room

2009-11-09T11:36:00.007Z

Back to Arne's room. The ceiling in here was 9mm plasterboard (should be 12mm). The joins were full of some sort of filler which hadn't been smoothed down (should have been taped prior to skimming with plaster). It hadn't been skimmed, but had been painted with textured paint which had almost completely failed to disguise the crimes just outlined.

What's this "Heath Robinson" style contraption?

A plaster board hoist! That's what!

Going up......

We're screwing new 12mm boards up over the old ceiling. We drew lines first where all the joists run, so we'd know where to put the screws. Rich looks like he's amazed they haven't fallen down. Or maybe he's just had an idea?

The whole ceiling is up. The holes are where the downlighters will go. Rich was meant to be skimming it today but he's not very well. Unusually, his ailment is not a hangover. Get well soon.

Plumbing catchup!

2009-11-05T21:12:00.009Z

Since we had to take off many of the radiators in order to insulate the walls, it seemed completely nuts not to replace all but the only two newish radiators in the house. Most of them were very old, inefficient and in some cases ridiculously enormous. Several rooms were inadequately heated by small single panel radiators. The lounge had a double one 3m long which two of us could barely lift. The people who fitted this system wanted a warm lounge but weren't fussed about anywhere else.

So, replace them we did. Giant for compact, inadequate for appropriate, old for new. Want to see pictures of all the nice new shiny radiators? Thought not, boring as hell. Some rejigging of the pipework was necessary to fit the new ones, which were all different sizes to the old. One thing led to another, and much investigating was done to discover just how the system worked. Part of it was the crazy arrangement of pipes which you saw in the lounge a couple of days ago. This entire loop was removed and replaced with two neat pipes in the hall connecting upstairs with downstairs. Lots of pipes were buried under the floor. Originally they would have been under a suspended wooden floor but this was long gone and they had just had concrete poured over them.

Here's Rich digging some of them up just to try to find out how they are arranged under the concrete.

Part of phase 2 which will hopefully happen next year, will be to put a layer of insulation on top of the concrete floors downstairs and place a suspended timber floor on top of that. With that in mind, we decided to run all new pipes above the present floor downstairs. The only place this would have been a problem was running them past the front door which then wouldn't be able to open, so a temporary loop over it was envisioned.

However, when we pulled up the carpet, we found there was a channel of damp rotten wood through which the old pipes ran, so we could run our new ones the same way (having first removed the wood), creating for the first time an actual lowest point from which the whole system could be drained. This picture shows where Rich drilled through the wall and ran two 15mm pipes directly outside with valves to drain the system. Brilliant!

Meanwhile, other tasks included putting insulation on these pipes which supply the radiator in the kitchen. They had a very long run and lost much of their heat before they even reachd the radiator.

We also thought of a genius use of the pipes which crossed the floor upstairs and used to come through the lounge ceiling. We reconnected them to the upstairs loop, dropped them discreetly down at the back of the lounge, through the wall and used them to supply this new radiator in the kitchen. The kitchen was always inadequately heated as there was no room for a radiator big enough to heat the space, but now we have two.

And a little one in the laundry room where there used to be none! I did all the pipework and soldering myself on this and none of it leaked.

And through it all, I made frequent visits to the dump. We're on first name terms now, me and Stig (of the dump)

Nothing for 3 weeks, then two come along at once....

2009-11-03T20:58:00.005Z

This is our bedroom. Looks like we won't be sleeping in it for a while...

Pipes in the lounge

2009-11-03T18:25:00.004Z

The day we moved into this house 7 1/2 years ago, we were simply too excited to be bugged by anything. It wasn't until the next day that the true horribleness of these fitted shelves made of MDF hit home.

Ripping those babies out was one of the most fun things I've done in a long time. Can you guess what ornaments were on them before they went?

Once they were out, they revealed some quirky plumbing. the pipes came across under the floor upstairs, through the ceiling in this alcove, crossed over each other twice before disappearing under the concrete floor and recrossing the house back to the front again. They got ripped out too.

Did they really think painting them chamaelion style would stop anyone noticing?

More Ratty

2009-10-07T09:30:00.003+01:00

All those cables and Ratty knows exactly what they all do.

Not only that, but he thinks he can fit them neatly into this small box!

AJ's room

2009-10-06T11:08:00.004+01:00

First, we move the furniture out of the way.

Then we strip all the wallpaper, pull out the window surrounds, knock off the loose plaster, foam in the window, making loads of mess and dust creating large amounts of black bogeys.

The insulation board goes up.

Wall is plastered and the new radiator is hung. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

Ratty

2009-09-28T20:46:00.004+01:00

This is Ratty, drilling some more holes in our nice violently green wall to run another cable. He's a brilliant electrician, and much more beautiful than Sparky was. I expect he's called Ratty because when he's been in your house it ends up looking badly gnawed. He'll be here on Wednesday moving some cables he's already routed because his clients changed their minds about where they are going to put their bed. The blighters....

Mess

2009-09-27T21:19:00.006+01:00

I thought I should share our chaos and discomfort with the wider world. Why should we have to suffer alone? We are doing all six rooms in the main part of the house (3 bedrooms upstairs and 3 reception rooms downstairs) so we're having to keep moving from one to another, and most of them have a pile of furniture in the middle, and all of them are covered in dust, and none of them are remotely nice to be in yet.... This mess is like no other mess we've ever experienced. It is the uber-mess, the mess to end all messes.

The mess in the spare room...

The mess in our bedroom....

The mess in the study.... That's another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into.

Expanding foam and Kryptonite

2009-09-25T20:33:00.004+01:00

When we ripped out all the gaudy tropical hardwood window surrounds, we found that the wondow frames fitted by Country Window Systems in Dunkeswell, Devon, were actually only held in by silicone and thin air. Great job guys, I thought you did it quickly. So we've splurged in about ten quids worth of expanding foam into each window surround to hold the blighters in.

Now the expaded foam will hold it tight, and insulate the gap. RIchard would prefer if it was fixed in with eight inch titanium bolts anchored into Kryptonite, but he's a belt and braces kind of guy.

Here's Richard plastering away again in Miles's room (long story), which as previously mentioned, is not his favourite job. But its Friday, and he's off camping for the weekend with some of the boys from Culmstock, so I expect to see him here at about eleven on Monday morning, with large gaps in his memory.

Plastering

2009-09-24T22:01:00.003+01:00

Rich doing what he hates. Plastering. As opposed to getting plastered, which he loves.

Lounge

2009-09-23T19:41:00.006+01:00

Apart from having the entire house rewired by Ratty (who is coming to run some more cables tomorrow so I'll try to get a snap) we are also applying extra insulation to all the exterior walls, of which we have many, and although they are cavity walls, the extra insulation will cut the heat loss by more than half.

We were able to simply peel the paint off the wall in the lounge as it was the kind of vinyl paint that was popular in the '70's. After seven years, it was about time we redecorated anyway.

Once the paint was stripped, Richard, yes, he of studio and bathroom fame, could get to sticking up insulated plasterboard. This has 50mm of extruded polystyrene stuck to the back of it and its £30 a sheet.

The wooden window surrounds have been consigned to history, and we now have nice wooden cills and plastered reveals.

But going to Spain wasn't the only reason this blog hasn't been updated for months....

2009-09-22T14:28:00.005+01:00

Life has been very complicated on many fronts lately. But while we were away, Ratty came and ripped up all the floorboards, drilled loads of holes everywhere and left cables dangling out of them. Ratty is our new sparky, he's not nearly as ugly as the old one.

Here's the fuse box with lots of new wiring ready to connect once a new consumer unit is fitted.

And a couple of examples of cables sticking out of holes.

We've been in Spain.

2009-09-22T14:19:00.004+01:00

We saw some spectacular rocks.

We stayed at a nice campsite where we upset some Germans and made friends with some other Germans. We might have mentioned the war once, but we think we got away with it.

And we buried Arne.

Making the bed

2009-06-03T09:08:00.008+01:00

I've been getting through some sun screen this week I can tell you. Its been glorious weather for sipping Pimms by the pool and reading a good book, but not so great for what I'm doing.

I should come up with a new index of pints of sweat per 100 bricks cleaned. Don't know what I'd score, but it would be a lot. Here is the historic moment when the corners of the path were joined up thus enclosing the area of the bed and enabling me to.....

...install the planks which will make the bed raised. These are old joists which we saved when we demolished what was in our opinion a ghastly pergola.

Sorry, it had to go. Here J9 admires it with its architect and builder when we first looked at the house in 2002. Actually, it looks surprisingly good here! The stone slabs you can see on the ground are also being recycled and will make up part of the paths surrounding our vegetable beds.

But the pergola was of no practical use whatsoever, unlike this lovely bed. You could snuggle down for the night in that no problem.

Its too hot for this....

2009-06-01T14:36:00.005+01:00

As you saw from J9's skimpy attire in the last post, its been warm around here. Very warm. Too warm for digging soil and rubble, cleaning bricks, barrowing sand, mud and hardcore from here to there and especially too warm for compacting down the hardcore by bashing it with a sledgehammer. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I've been doing for several days at a stretch.

Here, the paths made of the old brick we lifted from the original floor in the studio are beginning to take shape. These will run all the way around five raised beds.

Phew! This is hard work. The first bed is taking shape.

J9's battle

2009-05-30T16:59:00.004+01:00

J9 also got in on the action. She decided to tackle the corner by the greenhouse, which had become a tangle of weeds and brambles.

We've grown a fine crop of the afore-mentioned weeds and brambles under the lean-to, and the mini greenhouse, which won us a gold at Chelsea in the couch grass section.

The couch grass was coming up from under a load of slabs which some idiot had laid without a weed barrier. J9 lifted all the slabs (she's so strong!) and then got stuck in ripping up the carpet of roots. The weather was better than the day before.

I love to see someone enjoying themselves.

J9 1-0 Couch grass

Tha path to glory

2009-05-29T15:29:00.006+01:00

Up at the top of our garden, we have a vegetable plot. This has been covered in old carpet and plastic for 2 years to kill off what the previous occupants euphemistically called their "wild flower meadow," which was actually a tangled mass of couch grass and weeds which proved impossible to defeat by mere digging. We have now designated half of that area for the chickens, and are in the process of laying paths and when that's done we'll make some raised beds for the veg. Now....

...this has been the scene outside our back gate since November/December 2007 when I dug out the floor for the new studio. I would have sent it all off in Somon's trailer but for the fact that various people have asked if they could have all the hardcore for building, and promised to take it all away, and then not done so.

So, while one half of my brain was thinking what the heck am I going to do with all the hardcore, the other half was thinking where the heck am I going to get enough topsoil for the raised beds.... Genius! Dig out the topsoil from the paths....

....barrow up all the rubble....

.....and fill the trenches with rubble, providing the ideal foundation for the brick and slab paths we're going to lay!! I told you it was genius.

Eggscellent!

2009-05-28T15:15:00.005+01:00

Hello loyal followers! At last, another entry in what has become a sadly erratic blog, but I'm afraid this is the nature of things these days. I've been busy, partly with work and partly with other things that have demanded my attention. Four of which are poultry. Although in themselves they have nothing to do with the renovation of the house, they have galvanized us into a frenzy of activity in shaping their environment and what with the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, one thing has led to another and another etc and some serious butt is being kicked out in the garden. And since the garden is kind of part of the house, I've decided to blog!

Here's AJ feeding our new hens. Their names are Princess Layer, Hen Solo, The Bantam Menace and Hen Kenobie. Can you spot the theme?

They are very tame and will happily eat from your hand. We know a geezer in the pub who works at a chicken farm, and we rescued these when they were about to become pet food.

We bought them a house, and I built them a storm shelter. It is temporarily situated where we'll soon have raised vegetable beds. We feed them on organic pellets, and they also eat worms and slugs, which they fight over.

A little heavy on the rouge this morning....

Our reward is some great big lovely organic free range eggs every day, usually 2 or 3, but we've just had 4 eggs two days running! Clever girls!

Shower room latest

2009-04-30T14:47:00.005+01:00

A couple of shots of the latest from the shower room.

After I fixed the disaster which was the vertically inadequate tiles, I got on with installing the shower taps, hand set and other accessories. Looks fantastic, water pressure still too low even with a pump, shower tray leaks in the corner. Still some work to be done then....

At least I won some battles with the wash stand. Sink waste leaked persistently, took some time to work out that there were two leaks, not just one. Now there are none. Door frame, skirting and low energy illuminated mirror all fixed and doing what they are supposed to.

Radiator is up too, although not yet connected. You may place your bets on whether there will be any leaks. What are the odds?

Bath panel

2009-04-29T12:21:00.005+01:00

It was easiest to make the panel lying down flat on the floor, but with hindsight, that wasn't too clever....

It weighs a ton, with the stone tiles, and when raising it to the vertical position, it flexed enough for half of the long tile strips along the bottom to pop off, and some broke. Bum. Fixed now though.

Several heating pipes run under the bath, so when the radiators are connected and live and we have checked for leaks, we will grout the whole bath panel in making it look rather splosh.

7 week break!

2009-04-28T12:20:00.007+01:00

I've been busy, that's the only excuse I'll offer. Most of the time I was otherwise engaged, but some progress has been made, not least of which was that both toilets were replaced due to their contents having a habit of leaking on the floor. Not ideal.

Well, I'm not about to go blasting you with half a million pictures of what's been happening, I'm going to feed it to you in tantalizingly small dribs and drabs. Starting off with a little series on the hole in the wall from the bedroom to the en-suite.

Going way back, you haven't seen the start of the en-suite yet. The opening through to the bedroom began with a few bricks knocked out and concrete lintels installed to support the wall. Sensibly, Richard had made some important notes and diagrams on exactly the bit of wall he was going to knock down.

This was the opening into the bedroom before Jack came and plastered the walls and ceiling.

The floor in the bedroom is a lot higher than the floor in the dressing room, which meant cutting a hole in the ceiling downstairs to make way for some steps.

Tricky Al made the steps. I left his money in an envelope behind the bar at the pub, so I hope he didn't drink it all. It was a squeeze making them fit, but fit they did.

Pat & Bri's

2009-03-04T17:28:00.002Z

Going back a couple of weeks, we were in Kent doing some preparatory work on relocating my dear old mum, and we took some time out to visit my old pal Steve who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and who's blog I follow religiously. He was over visiting his folks Pat & Bri who have a beautiful old house near Canterbury, which as far as I could see needs just about no work doing to it. The lucky lucky....... This was the gathering of Steve's lovely family and lovely friends that evening.

Making Repairs

2009-03-04T11:44:00.006Z

Well here I am, back at almost exactly the same stage (bathroomically speaking) that I was at this time last week, specifically being ready or thereabouts to start installing the shower door. Here's how I achieved this epic feat:

I cut out the damaged sections of plasterboard which had come away with the tiles, and bashed in some noggins which aren't in this picture, but trust me, I did. (Noggins are bits of wood that go horizontally between the vertical struts where you join bits of plasterboard so the joins can't move.)

Then I cut some bits of plasterboard to fill the holes, and fixed the damaged insulated boards at the back with some drywall adhesive.

Once that was all dry and hard I cut the tiles to the correct height (I quadruple-checked this time) and stuck them on.

And finally the tiles are grouted. When that is dry I can seal them and start work installing the door. In between doing all this I managed to relocate my dear mother 200 miles from Kent to Devon. I think I'll just pop off to Milliways for lunch now.

Triumph and Disaster

2009-02-27T10:50:00.004Z

Having toiled away for most of the week tiling and grouting the shower and shower room floor, I had reached the point yesterday morning where the shower enclosure was all ready for the door to be fitted. Rather than steaming ahead with that which was the temptation, I decided to paint the walls first so that I didn't get paint all over the door and stuff.

So this morning I set about fitting the door. The first thing I discovered was that due to a mis-measurement of about 15mm, I had cut all the top row of tiles about 15mm too low.

So I had to smash off the top row of tiles....

Which of course took half the plasterboard off with them. I really can't think of anything funny to say about this.

Bang up to date

2009-02-13T13:55:00.004Z

This very morn was I tiling the shower.

Look at my passage

2009-02-12T19:16:00.003Z

The last couple of days I've spent clearing all the tools and dust and rubbish out of the airing cupboard and repositioning some electrics. Janine can start putting towels and fluffy things in it now!

The old...

The new. The plastering was done a couple of days ago by Jack, now it just needs a lick of paint, some floor tiles and a few bits of skirting and architrave. Job done.

Hole in the wall

2009-02-12T18:01:00.006Z

The last thing Rich did before he left on his away mission was make a large rectangular hole in our bedroom wall. The day before, Janine had asked me where the hole was going to be, so I drew it on the wall in pen. In completely the wrong place. And the next day (when I wasn't around) Richard came and for some strange reason thought I'd marked it accurately, and made a hole in the wrong place. You've got to laugh...

This was after he'd filled the wrong hole and made the right one.

Through the hole, this is what you can see. A view through the dressing/wardrobe room into the en-suite shower room. As Rich was away we had Jack in for several days doing the plastering. He's very good. He helped lay the floor in the studio after I hurt my back.

Compact and bijou...

2009-02-12T17:46:00.005Z

I know, I know already! I haven't updated the blog for weeks. Well, I've got lots of excuses, not least of which is that I sent Richard on a mission 200 miles away which has taken precedent over things here. Won't bore you with the details.

However, I have some pictures in reserve of what Richard was doing before he left. Here he's just starting on the third wall of the shower enclosure in the en-suite.

And here he's finished and plastered it. The bit that's not plastered will be tiled.

Then he put in the shower tray. A real neat little low-profile job.

Sewers

2009-01-21T11:27:00.003Z

The Master Plaster Blaster has been troweling two-handed like a demented one of those blokes on an aircraft carrier waving two bats around to show the planes how to land. When Richard and I were speaking on the phone about how pink and wet the walls were, Paula, his lovely partner, thought we were being rude. Cuh, womens' minds are like sewers.

En-Suite

2009-01-15T14:06:00.004Z

For the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on completing the en-suite shower room. When this is done, we can use it while we partly dismantle the bathroom in order to finish that off.

Yesterday, Richard installed a shower pump in the airing cupboard, and we pressure tested all the plumbing joints on the shower system. Then we charged up the pump and ran water through it. Don't want to tempt fate, but it all seemed to work.

So today Rich set about boarding up the wall inside which all the pipes and wiring run. The shower has a deluge head, shown here without its head.

A wider view.

The loo will be snug behind the yet to be built stud wall which will form the third side of the shower enclosure.