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Biscuits
It’s been a busy couple of weeks – but we managed to squeeze in a few jobs along the way.
With our first fully van-based week long holiday looming, we wanted to get a few small jobs done in the campervan.
Chris cut out some spare pieces of plywood to create a top for the sink and draw bottoms. The sink top would allow us extra cooking space when the sink wasn’t in use, while the draw bottoms would stop smaller items dropping through.
He also fed the gas pipe through the worktop and created a holder for the camping stove, so it could be easily packed away when not in use.
For my part I lined a small cubby hole above the driving seats with carpet, so we could use it to store our clothes.
With these small adjustments we headed up to the Cairngorms for a week in the campervan.
On our return Chris finally put our bathroom blinds back up. He’d taken them down as a slight twist in the wood they were attached to meant they looked a little crumpled. After putting it off for a few months he finally made some blocks to straighten up the attachment so the blinds hung a little straighter.
Having previously made a door for our study, Chris cut it to size and added some biscuits to secure a small crack in one of the planks.
It just needs hanging now before being painted.
I used my time to start on the spare bedroom windowsills. We don’t have enough elm left for all the windowsills but we’re trying to make it stretch as far as possible.
I made new cardboard templates, before deciding how best to cut up the wood. One plank wouldn’t be wide enough so I would need to join two planks with biscuits.
For the larger sill I cut the biggest piece of wood to size and then straightened both edges, before measuring up a second piece to join on. For now both are clamped together in an attempt to straighten them, I can then plane the joining edge before using the biscuits to join them.
The smaller Windowsill was a little more complicated. I cut out the back piece but wanted to avoid cutting the joining front edge from one of the larger, more useful pieces of wood. We had one scrappy, small piece of wood, but it had a bad crack through it. Chris suggested using biscuits to stabilise the crack before cutting it to size.
I glued and clamped the wood to close the crack, before cutting a series of biscuit holes along it. I then glued the biscuits in place. Once the glue dries I can cut off the protruding half of the biscuits and cut the piece to size.
We probably only have enough elm left for one more small windowsill. We’ve decided to make the final two windowsills from the larch cladding we have left from the shed, a little rougher wood but should still be a nice feature.
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Sleepy Jobs
Being 15 weeks pregnant I must admit my energy level for DIY is significantly lower than pre-pregnancy. While I can do the same jobs as usual, they leave me exhausted within half a day, or for a few days after. This has meant a slow in progress.
One job I was keen to do was cutting back the mini-meadow and the road verge outside the house. Since laying the hedge, the extra light has made the verge grow rampant, with fast growing grasses and ground elder taking over. We want to give the more interesting native plants a chance, so will cut and rake for a few years to try and drop the soil nutrient levels, which will encourage wildflowers.
The mini-meadow has been developing well, from a patch almost entirely filled with ground elder, it now contains a range of grasses, ox-eyed daisy, bird’s-foot-trefoil, yarrow, selfheal and cow parsley. With the help of a strimmer from our neighbour, and my visiting friend Becky’s muscle to remove some tree saplings, we cut and raked it. There’s few more bigger stumps to tackle, and Japanese knotweed to treat, but it’s getting there. I planted a few more species I had collected as seeds or cuttings from local hedgerows; crosswort, creeping cinquefoil, autumn hawkbit and red clover. Hopefully next year will see the meadow being more diverse and interesting.
Meanwhile, Chris has been working his way through the massive pile of firewood we made after cutting down a few trees in the garden. We’ll have to get the fireplaces in the house sorted for the winter to take advantage of it.
He also took down a ash and holly in the front hedge. It was a shame to lose these trees, though neither was that nice to look at, but they had fallen sideways as the soil in the sinkhole had settled, and their root plates pushed out the wall lining the drive. With the trees cut back we can now fix the wall. The ash should resprout in time but sadly a big cut will probably finish off the holly.
As well as preparing for indoor fires, Chris also cannibalised our old washing machine and some left over garden poles to make a firepit. I was just glad I could finally take the rest of the washing machine to the recycling center, after it’s lived in the garden for a few months.
My painful weekend job was sanding, refilling, sanding again and painting the downstairs toilet. Despite being a small space, the various crevices and awkward corners, made it an absolute pain to do. After three coats it’s good enough until we tile, and then it can have a coloured coat of paint. Next we need to finish the boxing and paint the wood. For such a tiny room, it seems to have endless jobs.
Chris continued with his TV unit, sanding the filler and painting on an undercoat.
He also sanded the kitchen step and treated the wood. It still needs one side attached but unfortunately Chris has missed placed a small piece of wood to finish off the edge. It’s highly likely it was left on the floor and disposed of during cleaning.
With the baby due to arrive in March, this winter will see a big push to finish up the inside of the house. There’s not such a big list of jobs left – I just need to find the energy to do them.
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A little Carpentry
With the long weekend we thought we’d get a decent amount of work done. Of course things never go as quickly or as smoothly as we’d like but a few jobs got moved forwards despite a number of delays.
We decided not to bother trying to straighten the lounge windowsill, and just stuck it down as flat as we could. Chris also rounded the edge of the kitchen windowsill and stuck that in place, before treating both.
The kitchen step has been a puzzle for a long time. Because of the outflow pipe for the washing machine, we weren’t able to lay the utility slabs over the top at the same level as the rest of the floor.
Chris was keen just to lay them at a raised level, however, I was worried they would fade in with the rest and people wouldn’t notice the step up and trip at the threshold.
Having avoided the problem for a few years, we finally agreed to create a wooden step, which would at least be more obviously different. Chris used some spare planks of wood and bought some trim to create a rounded edge. Hopefully we won’t have too many people pancaking on our kitchen floor.
Having taped and PVAed the downstairs toilet walls, I set to work on plastering. I knew it would be a horrible job as it’s a small, awkward space, with lots of odd angles. What I didn’t realise when I started, was that the plaster was too old and had gone off. This meant that it went hard far too quickly, and was difficult to smooth out on the walls. I made do, making tiny batches at a time, not ideal.
Taking a lot longer than it should have, it also left a terrible finish. To fix things I then sanded it down as best I could and used filler to smooth things out. Annoyingly I also forgot to add the trim around the windows, so I attach this and used filler to cover the error. Very much a bodge-job, but once it’s painted no one will ever notice.
Chris worked on a rather more satisfying job, installing his TV table below the bookshelf. I’d told him a while back that we could only have as many books as would fit on the bookshelf, so of course he reshuffled the shelves to fit another one in.
He added a trim to the bookshelf and table, as well as doors. Inside the table he installed the plugs that had temporarily been attached to the bookshelf.
There’s still some finishing touches left, but it’s certainly getting there.
We’d installed and treated most of the floor, but the company that delivered the floor had accidently left out one packet. While it wasn’t a big area, it took quite a while as every piece bar one needed cutting to fit into the wall. Once installed, it got three treatments to match in with the rest of the floor.
We had hoped to have a day off on the long weekend, but in the end we got too involved in our projects to step away. So not much rest, but worth being tired at the end of it to have moved things along.
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Cork
We’d ummed and ahhed about the lounge floor for a long time. My preference would have been carpet, but Chris wanted hard flooring. While I’m happy with wood or tiles in other rooms, the lounge is a room where I like to lie on the floor and I wanted something warm. In the end we compromised on cork, which is very insulating material, and therefore warmer than wood. It’s also very sustainable, and I’d been keen to try it out somewhere if possible.
The cork comes in retangular tiles. To prep them they needed to be painted with adhesive and left to dry for 30min, with the same adhesive also being painted on the floor. We found the most efficient thing was to have one person preping tiles, while the other laid a previous batch.
The nice thing about cork is it’s flexible, allowing a little give and take on our very wonky floor.
The biggest challenge was keeping the dog out of the room, as he naturally headed straight for the glue.
We started in the center of the room, and cut the tiles to shape once we reached the walls.
It was a very late night by the time the last tile was laid, however, the floor needed three coats of hardener, with four hours to dry between each coat, so we were keen to get one coat on before bed.
In the morning, Chris got up early for a second coat, and I lightly sanded the floor before applying a third coat at lunchtime. It will be nice to move the furniture back in from the crowded kitchen, but the advice is the let the floor bed in for a while before heavy use begins again.
I quite like the finished look, though we need the furniture back in to really see how the room will feel. We chose quite a large grained cork, which I think looks quite like wood.
While the furniture was out of the way we tried to get a few more jobs done, including filling, sanding and painting where the radiator used to be, and painting the water pipes with primer ready to be painted the same colour as the walls.
Very boringly I took the sockets off the walls to clean them and run caulke along the outside edges.
Chris opted for a more interesting job of building the TV unit he decided long ago would sit at the base of the bookcase.
These more interesting jobs can feel like a time drain when we have lots of boring little jobs we could quickly tick off, but with the list getting shorter by the day it’s OK to have a few detours.
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Doors and Drawers
Chris was full of energy the other night, and cracked on with building the study door. Having accidentally sold too many doors, we didn’t have a door to fit this doorway. We wanted to match the other doors, but couldn’t find anything suitable second-hand or new for less than £70. The wood to make one wasn’t much cheaper so Chris ummed and ahhed before going for the build your own option.
I, unfortunately, didn’t get many photos of the door coming together as I was curled up on the sofa, however, I think Chris rather regretted opting for the traditional technique of using long nails and bending them back round into the wood to pull everything tight. Traditional but a pain.
During his burst of enthusiasm, he also glued and clamped the boards for the Windowsill. These then dried, ready for further work at the weekend.
Finally, with some energy back myself, I took over on the Windowsill at the weekend. Cutting it to size using my template and then spending an age sanding it. Chris was keen to keep the wavy natural edge.
Sanding all done, the remaining issue is that boards are a little warped. Chris suggested I try steaming the wood over a boiling pan and then weight it down. Although things seemed hopeful when I used my own body weight to press it down, I don’t think it’s done the job. We might try again with a wallpaper steamer, and if that doesn’t work just go for screws.
My other job was putting the door jam on the spare bedroom door, a small job, but satisfying to sort out. We’d brought enough wood to do another three doors, but realised we still didn’t have latches on any of them, so the door jams will have to wait.
After his very successful evening, Chris spent a frustrating day trying to sort out the sliding draws under the bookshelf. While everything seems to come together fine, the draws keep sticking or pulling away from their runners. Chris assumes it’s something to do with the runners not being completely straight, but after hours of fiddling he’s at a loss and very frustrated. Worst comes to worst I keep telling him we can put in shelves, but he’s determined to get there in the end.
Out in the garden it’s nearly time to cut back our mini-meadow, so I spent some time chopping down the ragwort. Ragwort has a terrible reputation, which is entirely undeserved, and is brilliant for a wide range of invertebrates. But, it does like to spread, so while I’m very happy to have it flowering in the meadow, I’m cutting it back before it seeds to prevent it crowding out the other plants. The good news is some new wildflowers have appeared, including self-heal, bird’s-foot-trefoil, cut-leaved cranesbill and yarrow, so hopefully this is a sign the meadow will continue to improve with management. There’s also a lot of young scrub, which I’ll have to get on top of in the winter.
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Working it out
While in theory building the windowsills shouldn’t be too complicated, we’ve been delayed by lack of the right tools. Having held off on buying a biscuit cutter (which cuts holes for the small wooden biscuits that help join the wood together) in the hopes of borrowing one, we finally gave up and purchased one second-hand.
The first job was to plane the two edges that would join together to make sure they meet properly. Next Chris used the biscuit cutter to cut the holes. The final step to join them will be inserting the biscuits and gluing the edges, then clamping them till the glue sets. Unfortunately, it turns out the clamps we have aren’t big enough for this step, so another order needs to be made. However, at least having gone through most of the process once, we know a little better what we’re doing.
We’ve both been avoiding plastering the downstairs bathroom, as though it’s small, the tight space and odd angles will make it a pain to do. Still getting near the end of your list means working on the more annoying jobs.
To prep the walls I taped the joins, and filled any screw holes. Because of the uneven wall I also tried to smooth out the edges between the boards with filler, which will make things a little easier when it comes time to plaster.
Having marked where the door needed trimming down I planed and cut a few key areas before attaching it to the frame. We can now close the door on the mess that is the showerroom/tool store, but unfortunately it also means a little less light in the stairwell, reinforcing the idea of putting in a sun tunnel. The next step will be to strip the door to match the others.
In the kitchen, Chris attached the top to the cupboard, and decided to cut a panel to fill the side, which is a reservoir for dust and spiderwebs. Once painted with the matching paint it should disappear.
Having put in a big order of wood for a number of remaining jobs, I’m hoping we can tick off a few more bits soon, including finishing off the windowsill.
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Small but Essential
There are a few big jobs on our list still, but there are a lot of smaller finishing jobs. Despite being small, however, they usually require taking everything apart to get to them, adding a significant amount of hassle.
Chris has been keen to treat the kitchen island. While the actual treatment doesn’t take too long, we then can’t use the surface for around a week as it dries. Finally dry, he attached the side properly and sealed the sides.
Alongside the worktops, Chris shaped and treated a top for one of our cupboards from a leftover piece of worktop.
Sanding and treating the study desk was simplier, as we used a more basic varnish. Chris then sealed the edges.
Under the breakfast bar, Chris fixed the final few boards in place and added a trim along the bottom. He then gave it two coats of primer and sealed the edges. Once dry we’ll use the paint we had mixed to match the kitchen cabinets.
Chris ordered a blind for the study to keep the sun out of his eyes. It was a struggle to get in, with the wonky walls making it a tight fit. He then filled along the edges.
Having spent time cleaning the expandy foam marks off the PVC windows, I had to tackle the wooden windows. The foam stripper didn’t work well on the wood, just taking off the paint. Eventually, by trial and error, I worked out a light sand followed by two coats of paint did the job. It was a fiddly and slow job, buy good to get done.
In the bedroom I drilled and chiseled out a section of the frame to put in the catch for the lock. Unfortunately, it turned out where Chris had put the lock meant the catch couldn’t be properly attached. So I moved the lock down and refilled the areas I’d previously cut out.
To get ready to install our cork flooring, we needed to clip off the old lumps of plaster, and fill in and holes in the floor leveller. To avoid clearing the room, I shifted furniture to one side and then the other, scrapping and filling. Luckily most of the floor was in fairly good condition, with only a few bad areas. Idris helpfully left his pawprint in some of my concrete filler, which luckily sanded out.
In the utility Chris emptied the room so he could clean the floor and treat it with stone sealant. A quick job, but one we’d been putting off.
We aren’t planning to do the shower room any time soon, so it would be nice to be able to close the door on it. We have a door ready to go, so I pulled it out and cleaned it up, before offering it up to see if it fit. It only needs a few millimeter off to fit, so that will be another small job for another day.
A lovely view from the hills close to our house.
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Slowly….slowly
It’s been a busy time, these last few months, with lots of travel, lots of visits, and very little DIY. Sitting down to work out what we have left to do inside the house, the list looks tantalisingly short, yet since writing it we’ve not ticked much off.
A few week ago we took our van for its first proper trip. In order to make it a little more comfortable we had to knuckle down to get a few jobs done.
First we installed a carpet…on the ceiling. This ‘van carpet’, is often used to line vans, and is a kind of felted material that you attach with a sprayable glue. Having decided the ceiling was a little messy, with all the gaps and joins, this seemed like an easy solution. It was wonderfully easy to install, so I’m not surprised it’s an option many people go for.
As well as the ceiling, there were some other bits to finish, like joining up the batteries to the car motor so they could recharge, and connecting the pump, tap and tank. Chris handled these electrical and pumbing bits of pieces, while I sanded filling and screwed a few remaining boards in place.
In the end we left with a van with running water, electrics, a bed and a camping stove. All functional, though a little rough around the edges.
Inside the house, there was some little bits of plastering to do, including behind the piano where we’d moved the radiator, and at the base of the landing wall. Nothing exciting but making things ready to paint.
For a while mice have been letting themselves in and hanging out under our kitchen cupboards. Luckily they can’t get in to eat the food, but they leave their droppings for us to clean up. We’ve been puzzled as to how they were getting in, till Chris discovered all the insulation around our heat pump pipes had been nibbled away, giving them perfect access into our house. I plugged the gap with some mortar, so we’ll have to see if they find another sneaky route into our house.
Having cut out the kitchen windowsills, I didn’t get round to treating them, and with a few accidental spillages while watering, they started to get marked. To save them I sanded them back down and applied some varnish. It was a relief to see they cleaned up OK. Chris then installed them.
A job we’ve been putting off for ages is cleaning and sealing the windows. This is because I’ve tried a few different hacks to clean off the expandy foam marks and nothing worked. However, after some research online, Chris found some expandy foam cleaner. It worked a treat on the PVC windows, and we quickly got those cleaned and sealed. However, as we suspected, it peeled off the paint from the wooden windows. Annoyingly this means we’ll need to sand and repaint the wooden windows, a rookie mistake not to fully mask them before filling with expandy foam.
In the front garden, I spent some time weeding the main bed, while Chris tidied up the bed directly in front of the house. Its going to take a fair amount of compost to fill this bed, but it looks a little tidier at least.
The main bed is a little wild, full of self-seeded red campion, foxgloves and buttercup, as well as our more intentional planting. It’s lovely to see so much flowering though, and little by little we’ll build a little order into it. But not too much order of course.
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Change of plans
We were very lucky to get an Eco grant for our heating system when we first got the house. However, because the grant came so early in the renovation we didn’t always know how we were going to set up the rooms. Now, using the rooms, we’ve found two of the radiators are in the wrong place. Moving them is a pain, meaning draining the system and cutting and moving pipes, but we decided to go ahead as it will make the rooms more useable.
The radiator for the lounge was put along the wall which used to have a doorway into the old kitchen. With the stairs, fireplace and doorways on the other walls, it seemed the most sensible place. However, we soon realised it dominates the room and stops us being able to put the piano in the right place.
I’d previously laid the pipe to the new location under the window, the other side of the room, so we just had to cut the pipe and take the radiator off the wall. The plumber had attached it to a back board because he struggled to screw into the wall. Behind it we still had the exposed brick, where we’d filled in the old doorway. I plastered this with a lime plaster. It will just need a final coat and a touch of paint and it will blend in with the rest of the wall.
Chris trimmed down the back board and we reused it on the other wall, using plasterboard fixings to safely attach it. We then clipped on the radiator and Chris joined it to the piping I’d previously install, finally connecting up the other end with the old pipes.
It makes a big difference to the room. The piano now takes up the space where the radiator was. We can now also order flooring, without worrying we might flood the room when cutting pipes.
In the utility the only wall long enough for the radiator was the same wall all our cupboards had to go along. The room is always very warm so Chris decided we could get away with shrinking the radiator and moving it to the recess of the old doorway. This would stop heat getting trapped behind the cupboards and let us put the new coat rack against the wall. Chris was lucky enough to find exactly the right sized radiator secondhand on marketplace.
It was a long job, largely because we had to empty all the cupboards, move them out of the way and take out the washer and drier. It did however also allow Chris to replace the old worktop the dryer sits on. When Chris previously installed it he realised he cut it too short meaning the top cupboard overhung the rest. He managed to use some offcuts of the kitchen worktop to make a matching surface.
There’s one more radiator I wonder whether we should change, exchanging a long horizontal radiator for an upright radiator, to allow more furniture to go along the wall. But I don’t care enough to start this faff all over again. Maybe one day…
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Rearranging
I usually write my blogs on a Sunday night, as a nice way to finish off a weekend of DIY. Sometimes if we haven’t done much I’ll wait till the following week. As I didn’t feel what we’ve done is that impressive I wondered about rolling over this week, but then again it was a lot of work so I thought it’s still worth celebrating.
Our big exhausting job was finishing off the two patios. To do this we first had to shift a pile of rocks (again after already having moved them twice). There is a little bit left to do at the back of the house but as we need to rebuild the bank wall, we decided we’d wait till this was done. We also need to lay a connecting path between the two patios, which we originally thought we’d do in the same slabs, but it’s far too winding for big slabs to be practical so we’ll think of something else.
Chris continued with his stairs, reusing some old wooden beams to build two more.
Inside, my big achievement was finishing off the bookshelves. It still needs a bit of filling, but I’ll wait till the room’s had its final coat first. I then emptied the four boxes of books cluttering up our lounge and piled them in, to see if they all fit. They do, just about, but Chris agreed we’d go through and get rid of some so both bookcases can look a little less overstuffed.
The garden is really growing now, with plenty of tulips coming up, along with lots of selfseeded primroses, cowslips and red campion. We even seem to have a selfseeded black current bush. It’s all looking a bit wild and Chris is desperate to get on top of it, but I want to finish the inside before we worry too much more about the garden. Idris likes it as it is anyway.
Over the bank holiday we stopped in at a salvage yard and picked up an old sink to plant up as a bog garden, as well as an old stool which seems the right height for my harp.
One small job we finally ticked off was hanging up the second hand curtains I bought months ago in the study. The study doesn’t particularly need them at the moment, but I mostly hung them up to get them out of the way. Still it does make the room look a little more lived in.
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