Oops....

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....

Floored.... with chip board

I've been busy on my own today, finishing laying the chipboard floor on top of the old floor, which was made rather interestingly from bits and pieces of all kinds of materials, of varying sizes and thickness. Large gaps had been filled with... ummm.... white stuff. Don't know what.

A layer of tongue and groove chipboard on top makes it all nice and even, although the word "level" could only be used truthfully in the kind of sentence which goes "It's not level."

Here's the drain for the shower that Richard put in on Friday.

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.

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!

I'm Back!

Hello fans! This is the moment you've been waiting for..... I'm back! (in case you hadn't already gathered that from the title of this post) You better believe it baby, and boy have I got some stuff to show you over the next couple of weeks.

I've been working like crazy on a pesky job which filled four times the amount of time it should have, and now I have just over two weeks until my brother Niels and his lovely partner Sal are coming to stay, so I've got to sort out the Love Shack and the bathroom for them.



First, we must tile the floor. I'm actually posting this while waiting for the tile adhesive to dry so that I can go back in and do the tiles around the edges, which necessitates standing on the tiles I've laid already.

I think the shiny grey floor will look very nice.

Just for a bit of fun, I shall not publicize the fact that I'm posting again, and I'll just see who is the first person to post a comment. That person will get a prize, possibly a sweetie. Who will the lucky winner be?

Monday morning

Nothing much to report over the weekend as Richard was busy spending leisure time the scurvy swab (although to be fair he did come in on Sunday to mark the position of the shower room and the height of the floor). The state of my back was improving, helped by the sheer amount of sleep my body was demanding, so I really didn't see much of the weekend at all. But today, I'm actually back on my feet, albeit rather wobbly. But Richard and Jack aren't wobbly, look what they did this morning:
That's the final layer of concrete going in to bring the floor level up to where it should be. With hot water being piped through it, it will act as a giant storage heater and give the room a kind of fundamental, primeval glow.... Uh-oh, when I get poetic it usually means I've had too many pain killers....

Floor level rising again

Rich's mate Jack came to help yesterday after I became incapacitated, although here it looks to me like they are just messing about.....

.....hmmmm, maybe they did do some work after all. Perhaps I'll let them off.

Slaughter house floor

Another shot of the original floor. These lovely old bricks were beautifully laid, and I managed to save most of them. We'll make a path out of them outside somewhere so they will at least be on display. Just visible on the left of the image is the blocked in central drain, down which stuff went which I'd rather not think about. May the piggies rest in peace knowing that this house is now inhabited by veggies and fish eaters.

First post

There's lots going on here at Pleamore House (also known as Stately Wig Manor). And I'm keeping so many people abreast of developments I have settled on the really bright idea of posting a blog. Wow, what a brainwave!

Anyway, in case anyone should visit who doesn't know, I'm an illustrator working from home. I don't have enough space in the room containing my "studio" or "mess" as my partner Janine calls it, and some time ago we decided that I could spread into the back part of the house which has the space I need and a nice view of the garden (I look at a wall now). This was formerly our guest quarters and had a large but aesthetically offensive bathroom, and was in any case in need of total floor to ceiling renovation. The floor and walls suffered from damp, and due to a layout of monumental stupidity, about 80% of the space was simply wasted. So about a month ago, I began demolition work. After ripping out all the fixtures and fittings, work started on taking down the stud walls and removing all the plaster, most of which fell off with minimal persuasion. My son Arne had a "once in a childhood" opportunity to swing a club hammer and smash a big hole through a stud wall, which he accepted with relish! The fact that he was laughing so much he could hardly swing the hammer didn't stop him making a darn fine hole in the end. Everything had to be stripped, including taking down the ceilings with the insulation and three tons of dust. You have a choice when doing this: Wear protective goggles which steam up instantly because you're sweating like a pig in a marathon and not be able to see a thing, or get three tons of dust in your eyes. Perhaps surprisingly for someone whose living depends on his eyesight, I chose the latter. The concrete floor also suffered from damp, so that had to come up too, which of course has the added benefit of being able to install under-floor heating later on. This was all a few weeks ago, and much has gone on since. Under the floor we found the original brick floor laid by Victorian craftsmen. In what was the guest bedroom the floor was much lower and sloped down towards a central drain, which we know was used when pigs were slaughtered on the premises years ago when the house owned land and was a pig farm. History? We got it!
There will be more soon, and I'll try and update every day once we are up to date.