Lead Pipe Woes Part4

This is SO slow going ... more digging today ... you see that pipe in the middle of the trench? No, that's not the lead water pipe. That's the GAS pipe ... so we can't even stick a big shovel in there - having to manually scoop earth out with a little spade so as to not accidentally damage the gas pipe ...

If we ever need to do this again, SO going to pay professionals to do it!

Lead Pipe Woes Part 3 and Hallway Part 11

MCP here again today doing more manual labour ...

And sometime during the last couple of weeks (I can't remember when - forgot to take photos), I primer painted up all the skirting boards for the hallway, so today Sunhine went round measuring and cutting them to size.

Lead Pipe Woes Part 2

So, our lead pipe woes continue - this digging up the front path is looking to be harder than expected. Our friend MCP has been round today to help - and this included some rolling round on the kitchen floor with torches and phone cameras under the kitchen units to try and work out what pipes connected to where...

Play Festival 2012

Sunshine and I (and a lot of our friends) go out to the Welsh contryside every summer to a little festival known as Play Festival, and this year, despite the rain, we went again . Not a lot of photos as we were too busy just hanging out ... but the one sunny and dry day, we and the Domakkes walked up to the top of the hill overlooking the site (the site is the slightly dense and colourful bit at the bottom of the first picture). We're back now after 5 days of camping and hanging out and dancing and signing and shows and enjoying ourselves ... here's to Play 2013!

Loft Island Part 2 and Lead Pipe Woes Part 1

Remember those "C-beams" we made yesterday? Well, if you space them out perpendicularly over the old joists (with the beams being as high as the height of excess insulation you have); then screw them into the joists from either side at an angle; you can make sturdy uprights, good enough to hold your weight.

Then put all the insulation back in , being careful to not step in between the joists and fall through the ceiling!

Lastly place down some large mdf loft sheets; mark them off; and screw them down to the tops of your C-beams; and TA-DA! A loft island to store ALL your household crap useful storage things... (don't you just love those power screwdrivers with their own inbuilt torches?!? Still didn't prevent Sunshine from screwing into his own thumb - ouch! Thats what he's trying to show in the last picture ...)

Again, the day wouldn't be right without some demolition ... as you may (or may not) know, when we were going round the house replacing the radiators, we found in our hallway a lead pipe - our drinking water. After some investigating we found that the water board would replace the bit in the road, but we had to deal with whatever lead we have within our own boundries ... so here is Sunshine beginning to dig up our front path to try and get the lead water pipe out...

Loft Island Part 1 and Understairs Demolition

So, when we insulated our loft when we first bought the house, the insulation ended up much higher than the joists, and as such, we've not really managed to use the loft as storage space (the effectiveness of the insulation is due to its thickness/height - if you squeeze it down, you effectively loose insulation). Sunshine has spent a long time working out a solution for a "floating island" above the insulation, and today we started making the first elements - some "I-beams"... well actually, come "C-beams". Gluing and screwing battons to OSB (oriented strand board) gives us some beams that will help lift our floating platform above the current joists.

And in other news, all that building had to be balanced by some amount of demolition - Sunshine bashed down the wall under the stairs today - wow, does it look spacious now! I've spent most of the last week clearing out everying that used to live under there, and today clearing out the rubble thats been generated. We have a long-term plan to build pull-out cupboards for under the stairs, but for now its nice to just see the space :)

Front Lounge Part 19

OOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo... White room is WHITE! 

So Sunhine has been painting the skirting boards and picture rails in "antique white" (I've stayed out of there as the gloss paint is pretty fume-y...) and now that everything is dry, we've re-installed all the electrics and we have a had a good cleaning session in there including cleaning out the windows ... Oh my! How art-gallery like does it all look! It is so uplifting in there and the room catches the evening light beautifully. So looking forward to setting up our office/workshop in there ... bring it on I say!

As it happens, apart from a small snagging list, all the four main rooms are DONE! Hallway and the kitchen etc left to do ... but that's quite separate. We can now move on to sourcing furniture, getting shelves made, making curtains and general beautifying... oh so exciting!

Phew, I need a holiday ....

Front Lounge Part 18

Man, what an annoying last couple of days ... So all that varnishing Sunshine did on the floor? It pulled out the old dark stain even more... And considering how white the rest of the room is, it looked dreadful! We sat around on the floor dejectedly wondering if we could put up with it and maybe think about re-painting in a few years time ... and I thought, actually, no. It would just annoy us every day. It was better to just bite the bullet and buy white floor paint. The sort that is paint and varnish in one. Ok so we are not going to get the whitewashed look we wanted, but its much better than having a floor that looks mouldy green and yellow ...*

So we took the weekend off DIY (we so needed it) and wondered around the Bristol Harbour Festival instead; and then yesterday went and got ourselves white floor paint - and I am so glad that we did! We sanded the floor lightly first (interesting how much leg hair Sunshine sheds!), vacuumed, and then painted a coat on. You're meant to do two coats but one was enough as we already had several coats of paint and varnish underneath.

Today Sunshine has been fitting skirting boards while I have been filling around plug sockets and bits of wall that we had hoped would be behind the skirting board but were peeking out. So a bit more wall paint touching up to do as well when all the plaster dries.

*In hindsight, we should have used some kind of latex paint initially rather than emulsion paint - it would have probably stopped the stain coming through ... but hey ho, its a learning process I guess ...

Front Lounge Part 17

Much has happened in the last few days. We whitewashed the floor - 50/50 emulsion and water, which I applied with a roller and then Sunshine wiped into the boards and wiped the excess off. It was looking fine till we let it dry and looked at it in the daylight the next day and saw that a lot of the dark stain from how the boards had been before had started too come up (I guess the water in the dilute emulsion mix did it? I don't know ...). We had done a test board first but that board didn't have a lot of stains left ... so anyways, the stain was coming through as a greeny yellow and looked like mould so we put a bit more of this dilute paint down on bits that were looking a bit rubbish. The floor was no longer as whitewashed as we wanted, but we could live with it. Sunshine then went and got some polyurethane floor varnish to seal it all off.

We also in the meantime (while waiting for the varnish to dry) managed to fill and sand wherever the skirting boards needed and give them a couple of coats of base coat. Fortunately the weather had also got better so we are now able to do some stuff out in the back garden.

Front Lounge Part 16

Mmmmm... all major wall and ceiling painting done ....