I haven't done one of my "lucky finds" posts in a while so here you have a new one... Remember my Carlton Ware guards money boxes from last year? Well, I did manage to find the other two ... See Mr Policeman and Mr Scotsguard. They look really great all together the four of them.
I had planned to display them in Little Wind's nursery when he arrived - but it was not to be. They still live temporarily on a window sill - but hopefully with all the house re-decorating going on, they will find a good spot to be admired from.
In the foreground amassive load of flowers from the Dommake's wedding, in a vintage ceramic jug (the jug is actually from Sunshine's side of the family); a lush bouquet of sunflowers sent to me by the lovely Vicky who I'll be doing an illustration commission for very soon, in my Stig Lindberg designed Bersa jug; more random flowers in one of the vintage clear glass jugs I collected for our wedding at the back; peaking through is my retro Norwegian Cathrineholm enamel bowl filled with fruit; some of the left over apple crumble we made last night using cooking apples from my friend and gym teacher Wendy's tree; "Steve and Rachel", our two potted some-kind-of-mini-palm-that-looks-like-spider-plants-on-sticks (Dragon plants?), inherited from our friends Steve and Rachel when they emigrated to New Zealand (we miss you guys ...); an orchid on the far left that we also inherited from them but that we then managed to get to flower(!) - they never did; a Marks and Spencer's Scottish Shortbread tin I picked up recently - full of delicious shortbread AND with the most lovely vintagey illustrations - can't find who its been illustrated by; and last but not least my super favourite gift from the lovely Lapworths, an Alexander Girard "Mother and Child" tray by Vitra that is so super special that it still lives in its plastic sleeve; ALL on our vintage Ercol dining table set ....LOVE :)
Freshly baked apple crumble with custard as starter (why wait till dessert???)
I'm not sure whats going on with the mash pointy-boobie towers there ...
Wall painting in our house is a surgical operation!!! Hahaha ... actually, I look this ridiculous because we went to the Scrapstore the other day and found lots of rejected medical supplies for sale. Got ourselves latex gloves, some operating sheets (those things you put over the patient when you operate on them... has a hole in the middle which you position over the operation site - they're massive, and are seen here as the big blue sheet on the floor doubling as dust sheet), and some surgical gowns that work fab at keeping the paint off your clothes ...
And while Sunshine was downstairs doing the front lounge, I was upstairs 'caulking' any gaps/unfinished edges in the upstairs half of the hall. Caulk is a silicone based sealant - much like the Mastic that you would use in the bathroom. Nicely covers small gaps between walls and skirting boards; walls and door frames; and bits of wallpaper that haven't quite come togther flush. Some of the skirting board and door frame gaps were a bit bigger than the caulk could manage so I had to fill with plaster first, and then caulk over when the plaster was dry...
Not a lot has happened over the week house-wise, but today Sunshine sanded the edges on and put down the rest of the available floorboards and nailed them in. This is what it looks like - notice that a full sand-back and re-stain will be required on the floor; and because we had broken boards and used the ones from the far side (bottom right of picture) of the room to fill in the gaps on the other side of the room, we now have missing boards on this side. We've put a few chipboard widths to cover the major holes but the plan is now to leave this room as is and come back to it at the end.
7. Remember yesterday's netting? Well then, you cut your insulation (recycled glass bottles) to the desired width (scissors and/or bread knives work best), and suspend them in your netting "hammocks".
And this is what it looks like - all the layers: joist; with netting; with suspended insulation; semi-permeable membrane; floorboard; and foot (as can be seen peeking in on the bottom right).
Our floorboards had shrunk and got quite 'gappy' over the years so we tried to get them as close together as possible. Useful to have a spare piece of 'tounge' board to use to bang all the boards together. We've nailed them down with some oval lost-head nails (that Sunshine's folks seem to have left over - a whole massive tin-full - from a previous house building project!).
We've done the room in two halfs (so we had a solid platform to stand on whilst doing the second half of the room - SO precarious walking on joists and trying to avoid stepping into the insulation/netting as its suspended about 10cm off the concrete subfloor. As you can see we have the insulation down on the other half of the room. By the end of the day we had the membrane and floorboards down too. Just got too late to nail them down (don't want to annoy the neighbours at all hours!). Sunshine took the day off work today - that's why we managed such a lot. Think the last of this will have to wait till the weekend when he's about again.
5. Secure loose pipes to joists with gaffer tape.
3. Check all floorboards are OK - glue broken tongues/grooves/bits-of-board as necessary; and sand down where needed. Notice blue tape and clamps - that's floorboard-repair for you.
1. Check joists are level. Even more fun with a Laser leveler.
2. Insulate radiator plumbing.
So now we've now lining-papered the bulk of the hall - only a few bits left (where the exposed wires need re-plastering into the wall; where we have yet to box in the utility meters; and a bit of downstairs ceiling). Still have to cleanup all the skirting boards and other woodwork - doorframes etc.; caulk (don't know what this is about but apparently its like using mastic in the bathroom); change all the old light switches/plug sockets; and PAINT!
