Huffing and Puffing

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.

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

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!

Nice.

Bang Up To Date

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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!

That Ceiling Feeling Again

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

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

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.

Eyesore in the Bedroom

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!

Next

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.

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

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

Hole in the wall

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.