Plumbing

I forgot to tell you... The plumbers were in last week installing pipework, manifold, pump, thermostat and such in order to connect the under-floor heating in the new studio to the main central heating system. So I will be warm and snuggly all winter. At least I will be when the plumbers have been back and made some more improvements to the system... Something about needing a sealed system to stop the under-floor nicking the heat from the rest of the house. It will cost a bomb, no doubt, so I ask myself: Is it really such a bad thing if those who dwell in the rest of the house need to don an extra jumper or two?

About Time!

Dear Blogfans,
A thousand apologies for the lack of recent posts! At first, I dismissed the trickle of complaints as being from cranky individuals who really should go and do something more useful with their time. But the trickle became a stream, and the stream became a torrent, and I now have a special folder for any emails I get which contain certain keywords like "death" and "kill" "pleaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!" But for my own safety, I must yield to the demands of my adoring and psychotic fans. So below you will see a couple of views of the studio I took this morning.

I put up the vertical blind yesterday, just in time to start painting the latest artwork for the UTC advertising campaign http://www.utc.com/curious It casts a completely neutral shade across the board in the mornings when direct sunlight pours in through the windows making it impossible to work in colour otherwise.

Red alert! Starting to get messy in here, darn! I knew that would happen....

Clear out

Some finishing: Lacquering the skirting and door frames, bung a bit of architrave up around the Love Shack hatch, all washed down with a great big clear out ready for some furniture. This is the tidiest it will ever look.

Say goodbye to unsightly pipes in 3 easy stages

The pipes for the underfloor heating stuck out of the floor in the corner of the room. The heating boiler is just the other side of the wall, so that's where we'll put the manifold to connect to the boiler.

So I drilled holes and ran the pipes through.

Connected them with elbow joints

And boxed in the whole unsightly mess. Which is, according to the beautiful Janine, what I look like. An unsightly mess that is, not a box.

Hurdles

This wall was so unflat that I had to cut a sliver of wood and clamp it to the back of the skirting board to fill a gap. I had to use a lot of clamps because my cutting was also unflat.

After what we call a "Wiggy moment," a successful jam of skirting to wall was achieved. More tomorrow (hopefully)

Details

If it wasn't for the fact that I'm going on holiday next week and will be working again as soon as I get back, I might even think I'll get this studio finished sometime before the next millennium!!

Jammin' again

Its going to be a bit of a slog getting all the skirting stuck flat to all the walls, as none of the walls are exactly flat, or parallel, or perpendicular to each other. Need lots of custom made props to jam them into position.

I've got wood up!

Enough sniggering, all you with filthy minds! I mean the door frames of course!

Neat and tidy

The detailing is starting to come together. I am pleased with the join between the tiled bathroom floor and the bamboo, looks lovely. If I do say so myself.

Wood is good

Lots of fiddly bits were done today, all the bamboo boards that needed cutting and planing to fit in those awkward little places, but add nothing to what you've already seen. I did pop off to Wellingon Timber where I bought lots of skirting, architrave and various other bits of timber which will soon be fitted around the place making it look awfully smart.

More floor

Really coming along now. Just some tedious cutting to shape and size of the
pieces to fit into the awkward gaps by the walls and shower room
doorway and we're done with this section. Next, the MLS.

Thought I'd throw in this one I took of the same bit last October.

Coming on...

Didn't get as much done today as I'd hoped because I was interrupted by the annual Culmstock Duck Race which happened today. Unfortunately, my duck was lame.

Starting to look mighty fine though, if I say so myself. Hoping to get all the rest down tomorrow.

Just thought I'd throw in this snap of the same area taken last November just after the patio doors were fitted. The ramp is for wheelbarrow traffic.

Laying the floor

Serious business. Down goes the underlay.

The first few bits are stuck together with glue. It will be a floating floor, which means its not attached to anything. Just a big slab of stuck-together boards.

Arne helped me before he went off to water polo. This floor will be so beautiful you just want to snog it. By the way, did I mention it is made of bamboo? Apart from the long distance transport, it is very eco-friendly as the bamboo only takes a few years to grow. Mighty sustainable. Hope there are no pandas around here who will want to take a bite out of it.

The floor has arrived!

It came on a truck driven by a very nice man.

Here's the floor on the floor. Once again, bulging muscles and glistening perspiration were in abundance while the transfer took place, and once again, nobody there to capture it.

Slurry applied, worry denied!

Hello Blogfans! I must confess, I was worried. I'd bought seven bags of very expensive latex floor leveling compound to lay on the rough concrete to make it worthy of the beautiful bamboo floor which should arrive on Friday. I read the instructions, scratched my chin, read them again. Worry gave way to fear. All sorts of stuff about smoothing with a trowel, doing things IMMEDIATELY, maximum 20 minutes working time at 10 degrees... Zoiks, scraping up £16 worth of compound and binning it due to incompetence with a trowel or slowness with the mixing bucket, not a comfortable thought. Phone Richard! That's what to do. Some time later, I felt much more confident, and yesterday morning, Rich came over for a cup of coffee and to further brief me on the behavior of the grey gloop. So after lunch, I was ready to go.

The floor was clean, free of dust, sealed with PVA and dry. Trowel at the ready.

Tools ready too. A mixing bucket, a drill with a mixing bit, a
spare fully charged battery on stand-by.

Mixing half a bag at a time, I started. So far, so good...

There's never anyone around to take pictures of me when I'm in action, all glistening with perspiration, bulging muscles, but this is the best I could do myself. The adrenalin and afore mentioned perspiration were pumping at this point. The temperature was more like 20 degrees and working time was about 10 minutes. As soon as one lot was spread out with the trowel, i was back mixing the next at top speed. I'd watched Richard mixing plaster and copied his technique: Bag of powder between the knees, drill in one hand mixing the slop and rapid pelvic thrusts shaking the powder from the 25KG bag into the bucket. That'll get anyone sweating.

Finally, I made my exit via the patio doors and did the last bit from outside. I had it planned this way so as not to leave myself stranded on a little concrete island somewhere in the middle of the floor surrounded by an ocean of wet slop. Clever eh?

Cor! A floor!

A thousand apologies for being so intermittent lately. Too bally much to do around here. Presently we are working towards putting the new floor down, which should arrive next week.
First, a jolly good clear out. Then a seemingly endless round of damping down with water to supress the dust, and sweeping. Finally, I even hoovered the concrete.

Then, the condrete floor is sealed with PVA sealant prior to applying some fancy latex leveling compound. The first section is done. More soon!

25 Litres in a day...

...of white emulsion went up on the walls and ceilings. The pictures say it all.

Painting

The reason for the big clear out on Monday? So we could all paint like crazy on Tuesday!

Niels did the ceilings because he is the tallest, and also the only one apart from Sal who doesn't have some physical ceiling painting impairment.

The lovely Sal (Niels's partner) wearing my old Dexy's Midnight Runners style dungarees.

The lovely J9 hard at it.

AJ was at it too!

Niels and AJ found a highly efficient way of spinning the washed up paint rollers dry!

Paint boy

He ain't heavy...

...he's a poo-head, is what I might have said about my younger brother Niels in my younger days for a laugh, but when your brother comes hundreds of miles to see you with his lovely partner and you rope him into helping you clean out three tons of dust and crap from a building site, that's hardly polite, not to mention ungrateful.

Here he is. He's in a brilliant band called Birdafraider based up north near Hull.
http://www.birdafraider.co.uk/

And this is the result of some hours of dust/crap removal.

Breakthrough!

Hello again everyone! I've been flogging away at the drawing board for about six weeks, and today, whilst awaiting approval and feedback on a pencil drawing of a geared turbofan engine, my frustration finally got the better of me and I felt I had to go and smash down a wall somewhere. Ooh, that felt good....