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Beautify
We had spent a long time thinking about how to design the stairs to maximise space. In the end we settled on a banister attached to the wall, with slats on the otherside to stop people falling off the stairs.
Chris ordered oak slates and a pine beam to attach the slats to. We then cut them roughly to the right length and screwed them into the beam at equal distances.
Together we lifted it up and attached the whole thing to the ceiling beam. We then checked that the beams were the right distances apart and Chris screwed from behind the stairs, while I held them in place.
The final step was to trim down the ends to match the stairs. It’s amazing how much the slats change the feel of room, one more thing to make it look finished.
Another small change to the lounge was that Chris’s mum gave us some nicer, thicker curtains. They were a bit big so I trimmed them down to size.
In the utility I attached the skirting, as usual it was a pain finding the studs to attach it too, but I managed it in the end. The final job will be filling the gaps.
While Chris worked on the van breaks, I cleared the area of the garden immediately in front of the French doors. We look out onto this patch from the kitchen, so I thought it would be nice to have something a little prettier to look at in the spring.
The area was filled with wild raspberry canes and bramble, so I spent a good amount of time digging out the roots. I also had to move a big pile of stones taking up one corner. We’re going to replant the raspberry canes somewhere more suitable to see if they will give us a crop next year.
As well as some new plants from the garden center, I also planted some of the plants we moved from our old garden, that were struggling in pots.
The next step will involve finishing off the drystone wall, putting in steps and a path. But at least we’ll have some flowers in the spring.
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Chris’s Big Week Off
Chris is changing jobs, and wisely decided to take off a week between. This has given him some time to focus on some of the jobs that he’s been wanting to get done.
Unfortunately, as I’ve been working, I don’t have many photos of some of Chris’s work, as he doesn’t take any.
He spent a good deal of time on some mechanical mysteries, fixing a broken chainsaw and working on the campervan’s brakes, fan and windscreen wipers. His final bit of mechanics was clambering into the attic to connect up the ventilation, which is nearly ready to go.
His big priority for the week however was finishing off the shed, including adding a few final boards, attaching trim to the corners and installing guttering. He also used some old wood to create a lean-to wood store, which he filled with wood from the garden that he’s cut into logs using the chainsaw. Inside he installed the final window and my new swallow nest box.
Inside the house he properly installed our final kitchen cabinet, though he’s now given himself an added job of cutting down some spare worktop to make a top.
On my lunchbreak I managed to get enough enthusiasm to prime and paint the kitchen doorway.
I also spent a long time playing with wood stain. Having cut half the skirting for the utility, and then run out of wood, I’d stained it with some wood stain from our collection. Recently having gotten more wood and cut the final few pieces, I looked for the matching wood stain. But after much trial and error I had to conclude it had been thrown out.
So then I started to see what colours I could combine to make the old and new skirting match. I’ve settled on a reddish undercoat for the new skirting, and then going over everything with a brown stain, not ideal but hopefully it’ll be fairly close to matching.
My other indoor job was filling, sanding and staining the architrave at the back of the kitchen worktop, a fiddly and time-consuming job.
I also spent some time cutting out templates for the downstairs windowsills, which will make the job much easier given all our wonky walls.
Having slowly accumulated a lot of rubbish in the garden we decided to have a tidy, filling up the car with as much as we could and heading to the recycling center. With most of the rubbish gone, we moved to tackling the piles of wood. While some of the wood was being saved for fires, we had plenty of brash from hedge laying, trimming and tree clearing, so we decided to have a bonfire.
We managed to get through the huge piles, scattered around the garden. What remains is wood to be cut up for firewood, and another pile I saved to keep for a habitat pile, as it was full of fungi and other interesting things.
At the back of the shed I gathered together our various pots, which have been scattered around the garden since moving, and often go walkabout during high winds. Hopefully they’ be a little more protected here.
There’s a long way to go with the garden, but it’s nice to start seeing it looking a little more orderly and less chaotic. The real change will come when we build our patios, but we need some drier weather to start that job.
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Timber
One of the biggest disagreements myself and Chris have had about the house renovation has been how many trees to take out in the garden. Having been abandoned for forty years, the majority of the garden was covered in tall trees or scrub. Personally, I would prefer not to take out any trees – as having mature trees in the garden is something money can’t buy, and great for wildlife.
Chris’s argument was that trees are healthier and happier when they aren’t too crowded, which is also true. In the end we agreed to take out two of our line of overgrown plum trees, and coppice a third. The trees were struggling under heavy crowns of ivy, and very close to their neighbours, but it was still kind of sad to see them go.
We have planted a small plum tree in the gap, but a little further into the garden, so this will one day fill the space.
Down the side of the garden we had a line of scraggly blackthorn. We were keen to lay a hedge along this line, but because of the poor condition of the plants, it was better to cut them down to the ground. While they regrow, we can also plant some more mixed species to make the hedge more diverse. It can then be laid a few years down the line.
Unfortunately, clearly the blackthorn also means we can see more of our assorted mess (made up of things we don’t need and things we don’t need just yet). But it’s motivated Chris to make time for a few more tip runs, so that’s no bad thing.
Down the back of the garden we cleared out what must once have been a group of three plum trees. At some point they collapsed, and rotted, then became tangled with huge mats of ivy. Removing the stumps and ivy matting means we can now get in and lay the hedge along the back wall.
With all this felling, we now have a huge pile of logs to be chopped up for firewood, and an even bigger pile of branches to be burnt in a bonfire.
I was pretty pleased with a vintage bottle that turned up amongst the foliage.
In the house, we’ve had a few unwanted guests scuttling around the walls. They are very cute, but not very hygienic, so they are being removed to the garden.
I haven’t had much time for anything inside the house, but I’ve started stripping an awkward bit of varnish below the radiator in the bathroom. The sander we used couldn’t quite reach. It’s incredibly thick paint, meaning I have to keep adding more layers of paint stripper to even begin to get to the wood.
There’s plenty to do inside the house, but with bird nesting season not far away, it is worth getting any major garden works out of the way. We both have a little time off soon too, so hopefully that will be a boost to the inside workload.
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Strip and Paint
It’s been a busy start to the year, with Chris off skiing, and me having two house guests, in the form of Chris’s brother’s dog Ned and my friend Becky.
With an extra doggy guest arriving, we wanted to protect the stairs from damage by staining them. I did two coats, with a sand before and between. They are definitely much more protected now, if a little slippy for doggy paws. I also added the lime plaster coat on top of the rough plaster along the edge of the stairs. While I had the mix out I also plugged some gaps in the kitchen walls.
Having flipped our bedroom door to open the other way, I was now staring at the green side most nights, so as I’d done with the bathroom door I using paint stripper to take it back to the wood. Unfortunately, the paint stripper couldn’t quite get through all the paint layers, so I ended up hand sanding as well. But I’m happy with the end result.
Before Chris headed off on holiday he decided to polish out some accidental stain marks on the concrete kitchen floor. They’d happened when he’d spilt wood stain from the worktop on the floor. Luckily they polished out fine.
In the utility I cut the final pieces of wood for the skirting. I need to stain them and then I can attach them. I also cut the final piece of architrave for the back of the worktop.
Chris bought me some bird boxes for my birthday, and I finally got round the attaching them to the shed. It’ll be lovely if I get some house martins in my house martin boxes, but the more generalist bird box is probably more likely to get a guest. I’d also like to put a swallow nest box in the shed itself.
Becky had previously made us a plant hanger, and another had been bought for us by Chris’s cousin for Christmas. Chris requested that Becky make us a third to complete the set, which she obligingly did.
It feels like lots of bitty jobs at the moment, but that’ because we’re building towards some bigger ones. Still the house has stayed warm and comfortable in a cold and snowy week, showing how far it’s come since we started the renovations.
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Stairs
The very dull world of installing skirting kept me busy for a good week. Even once it was attached there was the filling, sanding, second filling, second sanding, caulking and of course first coat and second. It’s done anyway, aside for the doorway, which is complicated as it currently catches on the door.
With the shed watertight enough to move our tools into I’ve lost all interest, as I’d like to finish off more of the inside of the house. Chris carried on however adding some of the corner pieces and a missing panel or two. He also moved in the majority of the tools, though I was left to sort through the mess and dregs that always seem to be left behind once you’ve move the more straight forward bits. Managed to locate a few missing bits, and throw out lots of rubbish we’d just chucked back into the tool room when busy.
Having boxed in the pipes on the floor with wood, we couldn’t figure out how to attach the boxing for the soil pipe. So in the end I filled the gap with expandy foam and cut it back and filled. We can then paint it the same colour as the wall.
Early on in my filling odyssey I didn’t realise some fillers could only be used on stone and some on wood. I filled a load of holes in the study ceiling, only to have the filler crack and new gaps open up – very annoying. So I spent some time scrapping off ruined caulke and filler, to then refilled and recaulked. With all that finally done I did a second coat of white paint on the study and bedroom ceiling. A very unsatisfying job, but it needed doing before we get a carpet.
While the paint was out, I redid the wood in the landing. A proper job would have been to strip the old paint first but that seemed like a lot of work so I just gave it a light sand and repainted.
Outside Chris also had an unsatisfying job. I’d mortared around all the new windows I could reach, but some were too high for me even on a ladder. Chris finally got round to the remaining four windows. A slow job and one we’d forgotten we hadn’t finished so it feels like lost time to go back to it. But still, nice to be watertight.
In the utility I finished filling and sanding the walls and door, just need to finish the skirting so I can paint.
The big job, however, was replacing the old stairs. The new stairs arrived in one piece, from a bespoke online dealer. The delivery man, though at first very pleased that he didn’t have to carry them into the house, couldn’t believe I was the person carrying them with Chris instead of him. I often get this attitude from delivery drivers and I have to explain that I’ll be the one shifting them around in the house, however far they carry it to the front door.
The old stairs came out very easy and someone took them away to use for a two story shed. The new stairs were a little more tricky. We were keen to widen them to full width of the gap, but while Chris checked carefully, the stair manufacturers added an extra 3mm, making them incredibly tight.
We started off with Chris lifting at one end while I moved the other end towards him, but the tightness of the gap made it impossible. Rethinking, we remembered the pulley system we used to get the steel in place. Using the wooden beam above the stairs, Chris used the pulley to winch the end of the stairs up while I moved the base forward from below. It was still tight, but eventually we got it into place. Annoyingly, I had some great photos of the process, but I broke my phone and lost them.
Chris filled the edge with expandy foam, and added some screws into the wall. I used the leftover mortar from Chris’s repointing of the windows, and replastered the walls beside the stairs.
Next we need to add wooden slats along the gap, and a banister.
With Christmas here we have a few days off, but looking forward to getting back to it in the new year. For now Nadolig Llawen from Wales!
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Touch of Paint
With guests coming to stay soon, I wanted to tidy up the last few bits in the guest bedroom. This meant filling and sanding a few areas, and then painting the window reveals and coving.
I bought a second curtain and put up the curtain pole on the second window. Because of the wonkiness of walls and ceiling, the curtain pole looks all askew, but it’s actually the only straight element.
Having covered the lintle in the study, I added the coving and filled, sanded and painted around it. The coving around the windows has been a painful job, with the odd angles and wonky walls making it difficult to line up. I’m glad to have the last one done.
In the kitchen I painted the bare plaster with a watery paint mix before painting the section blue. Soon the whole kitchen will need a second coat but at least it looks passable for now.
In the utility I covered the very old and unattractive lintle with plasterboard and filled the gaps. Another bit of plasterboard will need to fill the gaps above the door but first we’ll need to add architrave.
In the downstairs toilet I started to build the boxing around the pipes. The verticle soil pipe we’ve decided will be covered in expandy foam, filled and painted, as we can’t see a reasonable way to box it in. At least the horizontal pipes were a fairly easy job.
One small but satisfying job was to start organising the shed, so all the wood that’s been sitting around in piles in the house could be moved into it. We’ll need to install the windows and door before we can start moving the tools in, but getting the wood out of the house is a nice first step.
Chris focused his attention on finishing the electrics for the extractor fan in the kitchen and adding edging to the bookcase.
He also did the fiddly job of lowering the kitchen lights. We hadn’t had enough cable when we originally installed them so they’d ended up close to the ceiling. They’re much more of a feature now.
The next job that really needed to be finished was the skirting in the kitchen, but its a horrible job and both myself and Chris had been trying to avoid it in the hope the other person would do it. In the end I caved in. I’d avoided it in part because all the skirting upstairs had been a nightmare to attach, but actually this lot went on without a problem. Having filled the gaps the next job will be sanding and painting.
We got treated to a winter wonderland this week, with a heavy dump of snow that blanketed everything for days. It certainly made the building site of the garden look a little more appealing.
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Coverings
I’ve been plodding away on the boxing in the spare room. I filled and sanded the screw holes, used expandy foam, filler and caulke around the edges, and painted the whole thing with primer. The final step was a couple of coats of white wood paint. I located a pot and painted the wood. Then, looking up at the rest of the ceiling I realised that also needed some caulke and another coat, so I moved on to that. It’s an annoying job but I was pleased to get it done.
Until that is I looked back down at the paint I’d been using and realised it was gloss… Chris claims it’s not particularly obvious but there are definitely shiny patches. It’s low on the priority list but at some point I’ll go over it again with satin paint.
In the utility I covered the rough lime plaster with a coat of pure lime to create a better finish. Where I’d done lime coats last week I used filler to cover the cracks and the smooth over the edge of the doorway.
I got round to attaching the last bit of insulated board over the lintle in the study. It just needs filling and painting next.
But the big job was getting on with the shed. Chris had spent an evening attaching the boards to the roof, and another moving gravel to backfill around the base. This meant we could move straight onto cladding the outside. We cut the waney edge spruce to size and overlapped it from the base to the roof. On the roof we cut and attached bitumen roof sheets.
The shed is pretty weatherproof now, with only a few final bits of cladding needed, as well as the windows to install. Soon we should be able to move in some of our tools, and clear out the house a little. Chris is on the look out for old kitchen cabinets to start building a work bench.
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Shedding
I can’t say that I’m particularly excited about building the garden shed. This is largely because there are undone jobs I look at every day inside the house I’d rather be getting on with. But Chris has been dreaming of a shed ever since we moved in, and says I can’t replace the stairs till the tools are out of the house – hence a shed.
We borrowed Chris’s brother’s cement mixer and spent last weekend laying the concrete slabs for the base. As I can’t lift the slabs on my own, Chris laid the slabs while I wheelbarrowed sand from the drive to the cement mixer, and then wheelbarrowed cement to shed base, in a continuous loop for hours. For something that looks like such a small job it took a full day, and was pretty exhausting.
With the base done and dried, we started on building the shed itself this weekend.
Chris has spent several evenings pondering on the design. He was keen to maximise the size so he could use it for tinkering on projects in the future. We also had an old door, two of our old windows, and some second-hand shelves that had to be worked into the design. My only inputs were a request for a green roof, an entrance for swallows, and an inbuilt bug hotel.
I spent my time cutting the wood to size while Chris hammered them together into frames. Once the frames were together we lifted them up and bolted them together. We then screwed the frame to the floor with a vapour membrane beneath it.
Next Chris cut the joists for the roof and we used a gravelboard from the shed base to begin constructing the roof.
A few more joists to put in and next weekend the larch boards should arrive the clad the outside. It might not be one of my priority jobs, but at least it’s moving on quickly.
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Background features
With weekends pretty busy I’ve been trying to get a few little jobs done in the evenings where possible. But I really wanted to get on with some bigger jobs so decided to book off a few days to help move things forward.
I’d been itching to panel the back of the breakfast bar for ages, but Chris said I couldn’t do it till he finished the extractor fan. The breakfast bar looks much better, though Chris says you can’t notice the change much as we currently use this space to store items for the recycling center and resale, but one day it’ll be empty and ready for some bar stools.
We decided to use architrave to cover the gap at the back of the breakfast bar. I treated the wood with the same stain as the worktop and chopped it up. Unfortunately, there a lot of odd angles along the back of the breakfast bar, and Chris had to give me a hand working out how to calculate the angles.
I finished off the downstairs toilet cupboard doors with hinges, door knobs and closing mechanisms.
Chris finished up the last of the tiles in the utility, and you can’t tell they went in after the other tiles.
To finish off the edging in the utility Chris added an entrance strip between the two tiles.
I boxed in the ventilation pipe in the spare room. It was a horrible job, with cutting the shape of the wood to match the ceiling taking an age. I then attached the final bit of coving. Next it will all need filling, sanding and painting.
I’ve been avoiding a number of small plastering jobs because they’re a pain, but I got down my list and couldn’t avoid them anymore. I plastered the wall in the downstairs toilet with lime mortar, and filled the utility doorway with the remaining mix. I then smoothed out some previous lime mortar surrounding the doorway and above the doorway on the landing with lime plaster.
In a gap under the worktop Chris used the spare cupboard shelves to create a small bookshelf for our kitchen books. He’ll then use some iron on edging to cover the exposed wood. This tiny bookshelf means another moving box is finally emptied.
Chris’s brother has lent us a cement mixer, and Chris plans to start laying the slabs for the shed. A big order of wood has also gone in for the structure – meaning the kitchen will once again be piled high with building supplies, but still it’ll be exciting for the shed to start going up. We just need a little sunny weather to help it along.
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Filling some gaps
We only had one day free this weekend for DIY, so I made an effort to get through a few small jobs in the evenings.
I gave the lounge beams a final coat of paint, before washing the brushes, putting everything away, and then remembering the one solitary beam in the utility that still needed painting.
When we first moved in we left Idris alone for one of his first evenings without us and he decided he’d burrow his way out through the door. Luckily he now feels more comfortable in the house on his own, so it seemed time to undo the damage. I used a chisel to smooth out the worst of the roughness, then sanded it down before adding a coat of stain to the bare wood. The whole door then got another coat, and the frame a couple of layers of the brown paint.
Where the edge of the concrete floor meets the door, there’s a ugly gap, which needed a piece of trim to cover it. I cut it to size, primed and paint it, and stuck it down. It’s a very small change but it’s surprising how much its changed the room.
I having previously started the skirting in the kitchen I had to stop as the new doors weren’t in. I restarted, but remembered how complicated the tiny bit of remaining skirting was going to be – as the lack of space beside the door means they’ll have to be trimmed down. I managed one piece and moved on to something simpler.
I continued with the boiler doors, building them in the same vein as the previous door. The only added complication was that the frame needed a bit of additional support, which meant using expandy foam to stick pieces of wood to the wall to screw the boards to. Still all done now, just in need of hinges to finish the job.
Chris’s big job for the weekend was finally connecting up the extractor fan, which was a fiddly task, involving cutting holes through the cupboard and getting all the electrics connected up. Chris was triumphant to finally put the fan on and see it drawing in the steam. The only negative is that he got his electric wires mixed up and now you press the ‘-‘ to turn the extractor up and ‘+’ to turn it down…
We’d spent out Saturday morning cleaning the layers of dust ready for visitors, only to have new layers laid down after our day of DIY on Sunday. A never ending cycle of dust and dusting. At least it’s slightly less dust with each passing cycle.
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Ruined 