Hallway Part 18

In the evenings in the last week, and over this weekend, we have been ploughing on with the painting in the hallway. So lots of caulking happened; we have added the second coat of paint on all the walls, and the bulk of the woodwork has been done too. Phew!

Apart from a snagging list of little bits of painting and tidying up (don't buy B&Q's own masking tape - its dreadful, and pulls the paint with it when you take it off!)...



And here, how the hallway is looking (L-R), looking in from the front door; looking down from the stairs; looking up at the upstairs. All tidy and nice!

I also just realised that nowhere in all the hallway updates have I mentioned that we bought ourselves a length of coir matting to put down by the front door to act as a large door mat. So happy that we did - infact wish we'd bought a bigger piece that went all the way to the inner front door. Edging the mat is on our snagging list, but its perfectly functional as is.

Hallway Part 17

Another weekend's push on the hallway... MCP came round again and we masked, sanded and painted. Can't quite see it here (got too dark to take any decent photos by the end), but by the end of Sunday we had most of the hallway, upstairs (done ages ago) and downstairs with their first coat of paint... its coming together now and I need to start thinking about lamshades and picture frames :)

Hallway Part 16

So, after a few weekends off (term has started and Sunshine has been REALLY busy with lecturing and stuff), we had another go this weekend at tidying up the bits of the hallway that needed doing like sanding and prepping all the skirting boards, including making ready all the little bits of wood that need screwing into the walls for the skirting boards to attach to; fixing the door frames that got damaged when we pulled the old floorboards up (you can just about see the trip-hazard we've put up for ourselves on the inside front door frame - its to hold in place the glued and screwed door frame that had been splaying outwards and making us not be able to close the door properly).

Sunshine's dad came to help again and by the end of the weekend we had the bulk of the stuff down and ready for PAINTING :)

*erm, yes, the front garden path is still not totally filled and covered yet ... seems to have dropped off our priority list at the moment ...

Lead Pipes Woes Part 8

Water board contractors came today and dug up the street and took out the bit of lead pipe in the road and replaced with blue plastic. I must say it was fascinating to watch them dig up the concrete on the footpath ... we could have done our own garden path MUCH better ... but, hey ho - you watch and learn. One of the annoying things though was that they dug no-where nearly as deep as we had been told we had to, (neither did they add a trace wire to their pipe as we had been instructed to). They are not following their own advice! You can see our blue pipe being connected to their new blue pipe on the photo at the bottom left. They were also very efficient in filling the whole up again ... I think it will take us a little while yet ...

And here's Sunshine pulling out the left-over lead pipe from under our hallway floor - my was it heavy! And on the other end of the hallway, under the stairs, blue pipe waiting to be connected to a connecter that leads into the kitchen (which Sunshine promtly connected after I took this photo). So apart from what (we believe) is a small amount of lead in the kitchen*, we are now a lead-free household :)

*Kitchen overhaul is planned for next spring/summer so we will deal with all the lead at some point.

Hallway Part 15

The new floor boards are going down today! How exciting! Sunshine is doing the nailing mostly by hand this time - he used an angled nailer the last time - but actually its quite difficult to use an angled nailer in a narrow corridoor. Also, our walls are not the straightest in the world so there was a lot of pre-laying thinking involved in working out what the best "straight line" to align the boards up to would be ... you can just see the bit of brown string to the right of Sunshine's mallet that is being used as a guide - which runs all the way to the front door.

I'm so pleased though - it feels like we've turned a corner in the hallway (considering this was the "room" we first started with last summer...

Hallway Part 14

Another busy weekend on the hallway front. Over the last week Sunshine has been doing things like levelling out the joists so they all sit flat and don't creak). Then early today, Sunshine and I spent a big chunk of time clearing out under the floors (wish I'd taken a photo of how much "dust-of-ages" was down there in the first place!). The bulk of the houses where we live are Victorian, so under the floorboards is often bare earth. Luckily for us (unlucky for some!), ours was one of a stretch of about 7 houses bombed out in WW2 and then re-bulit in the 50s in the same Victorian style as the rest of the houses in the neigbourhood. Means we have a much better quality of construction, electrics and plumbing; including concrete under the floors ... so we cleaned and insulated the water and central heating pipes in preparation for ...

... laying down more insulation... Our lovely neighbour and friend, David P came round and helped Sunshine staple in netting; lay down insulation and the vapour barrier membrane. Sunshine has had to then put down some boards temporarily so we can walk along the hallway (much easier when you can see the joists...). Current exclamation to all guests walking in the door is "Don't step in the lava!"

Lead Pipe Woes Part 7 and Hallway Part 13

Sunshine's dad came round again today to help fill up some of the pathway ditch-making. He even inscribed our names in the concrete! How sweet...

The Water Board man also came to inspect our work and he was very happy (He gave us a 9/10 considering we did it all ourselves) - so we should be getting our supply changed within the next couple of weeks.

In other news we tidied up the hallway a bit and Sunshine managed to give the stairs a bit more support by wedging in a longer piece of floorboard under the stair post and some extra wood underneath.Things are on the move again ...

Hallway Part 12

So here we go again with the hallway - finally ready to get all the old floorboards up - only to realise that the staircase main post seems to only be supported by a bit of floorboard ... yikes!

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.

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 :)

Stair-be-gone!

Went out to teach a dance workshop today, only to come back to this ... Sunshine had decided to have a go at the staircase ... no more side panels! Its really nice and really opens up the hallway and allows so much more light to bounce around. Now just to work out what actually we want to do to for bannisters ...

Kev Day

Kev was visiting again today to give us a bit of a push with the DIY ... So, you have:

Front Bedroom Part 11

I was shown how to mask off the wood from the carpet neatly, then Kev proceeded to paint the skirting boards at super-fast speed.

Hallway Part 10

This mess of wires really needed to get sorted - Sunshine was going to do it, but decided that Kev would be far better and faster at it ...

And while he was in the hall, he finished off papering the bulk of the left over walls and ceilings.

Bathroom Part 5

Unfortunately, even with all this moving forward, we had one room where things went backward ... there were two spots in the bathroom where the paint was not sticking properly. Kev pulled it all back and the reality is those two bits of plaster are not drying. He thinks he's dealt with one issue but, but we still need to look into what the issue is by the window. Anyways, it just means our lovely white bathroom has two blotchy patches again ... it needs to dry out before we can refill and re-paint.

At least everything has moved on a bit ...

Hallway Part 9

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 ...

We've done the first coat of white paint on the upstairs bit of the hall, and also caulk and first coat of paint in the porch bit of the downstairs bit of the hall. The rest of the day we spend tidying the upstairs front room by packing up a lot of the office stuff and moving it downstairs; moving the sofa bed up into there (this room is going to eventually be a guestroom / chilling room); and tyding the DIY stuff out of the rest of the house and into the front lounge. Its so nice to have the house back to being in a bit more of a livable state!

Hallway Part 8

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...

Picture above is the bathroom doorway - left, with gap - right, caulked. Tommorow ... paint!

Hallway Part 7

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!

Leaving the hallway for a bit to get back to the front room floor.

Hallway Part 6

Finally! PROOF! That we do do wallpaper (lining paper actually - its all going to get painted) pasting, hanging and associated tasks.

Hallway Part 5

Having taken most of the weekend off, we thought we should get back into it. We got so into wallpapering that we actually forgot to take photos of me pasting up wallpaper downstairs, whilst Sunshine pasted the paper to the walls upstairs. We had a neat little production line going. You can see here though that most of the upstairs hallway is done. As are some small sections downstairs. Those long drops to the left of the stairs are going to have to wait till we have a better ladder system.

Hallway Part 4 DevKev Day!

Early start today - Kev came ... and proceeded to dismantle one of our walls!

Then he and Sunshine filled in any dents/holes/cracks etc with plaster filler. You can see the white plaster all over the walls in patches. These then all required sanding down - for which I shut myself in the bedroom as it was too dusty - hence no pictures.

Then he helped wallpaper our ceilings (with lining paper) with Sunshine as his able assistant ... I just took photos and looked scared.... Aaaawww lots of photos of Kev's bottom - and doesn't Sunshine look smashing with his lining paper headgear???

Kev finally also did a bit of wall-papering so that we could learn how to do it. Sunshine and I are going to do the rest ourselves (although we might leave the ceilings for Kev for when we can have him back ...)

Hallway Part 3

More peeling/steaming progress on the hall today. Including the ceilings (or whichever bits of them we could reach!)

*Found painted on the stair walls - "BR. CITY O.K." - Bristol City ... just OK ... not great or anything .... just OK ...

Hallway Part 2

The last few days have been pretty much wallpaper removing. The bulk of the hallways (upstairs and downstairs) are done - my goodnees does the hall have a lot of walls!

The physical peeling though always seems to leave a thin layer of backing paper - or in some instances an even older paper; and for that - out comes the steamer. Thank you the Peskimos for loan of wallpaper steamer.