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A Big Pile of… Soil
With a couple of other obligations this weekend, we didn’t get an awful lot done, but little jobs are better than no jobs.
One little job I decided to do was plug up the last of the gaps in the landing ceiling. The gaps were letting in cold air from the attic, so first I had to push in some insulation and then tape up the plastic lining. A few coats of paint and the new boards will fit right in.
After plastering the landing, we realised we’d used the wrong type of plaster on one small section, that still had a layer of plaster on it. This had left a poor finish, so Chris used filler to smooth out the worst parts. I then sanded the filler and the plaster, before applying a watery coat of paint. I had planned to paint the landing white, the same as the stairs, but seeing the space now I feel it needs colour to pull together the various corners. I’ve got to decide what colour
Our big job of the weekend was continuing to move the huge pile of soil beside the drive. Frustratingly, the photos makes it look like we achieved nothing, when in fact we moved two-thirds of the pile. I realised too late taking the photos from the other direction would have shown our progress much better.
We found a line of big slate stones buried upright in a line, which probably once marked the edge of a wall. Chris spent a lot of time and energy digging them out. At some point we can repurpose them as garden steps.
In the spare bedroom things have descended into chaos once more as I moved everything around to paint two of the walls. The two remaining walls still need plastering, one complete plastering, the other just a bit of smoothing out, but it’s nice to see what the room will soon look like.
Outside spring is on its way, with daffodils having joined the snowdrops on the side of the road. I’m looking forward to working on the garden, but there’s still a lot to do inside before we can really dig into the garden.
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Nesting
After I had dutifully written and posted my blog last weekend, Chris decided he hadn’t managed to get enough done afterall. Heading back upstairs after dinner he spent the evening creating sawdust as he cut and fitted the desk.
As we were only going to have one day free over the next weekend, and we needed to get the second bedroom ready for guests, I spent a fair few evenings working on getting the room in better shape.
I spent the first evening rearranging the remaining items in the room to free up space to put up the new bed.
The next stage was finishing off installing the coving. There were some horrible angles in this room, and despite it being the last room I had to do, the experience clearly didn’t pay off as I think I did the worst job out of the four.
Coving up, I filled the gaps with filler, sanded it back, and added caulke where needed. Finally, the ceiling got another coat of paint and the coving it’s first coat.
With the bed in place we managed the source a spare mattress from Chris’s family.
On a roll with the painting, I set to work painting the white wall in the kitchen. A less dramatic transformation than putting colour on the wall, but still nice to have more of a finished look.
With the spare room slowly coming together, we decided to concentrate on an area we’ve largely ignored up till now. The landing is an annoyingly complex space to plaster, with lots of little nooks and crannies to tackle.
While Chris worked on the ventilation system in the attic, I got on with prepping the walls for plastering. I always forget how long the prep work takes, though it doesn’t seem like it should eat up so much time. I cut off the excess insulation foam, taped the joins, and then coated the walls with PVA.
There was a small strip at the top of the wall on the stairs that still needed plasterboard adding. I wasn’t tall enough to fill the gaps, so Chris had to get up on the ladder to reach.
Our plan had always been to remove one of the wooden posts beside the stairs in order to widen them. Although we aren’t at the stage of replacing the stairs yet, we decided it was easier to remove the post now so as not to damage the plaster later on.
With the walls prepped we started plastering, with Chris getting the first coat on and me following to smooth it out. Even though it was a small space, all the different walls meant we only got the landing done, with the stairs having to wait for another day.
With a little remaining energy I planted some newly arrive winter aconite bulbs in the garden. These large yellow flowers will hopefully add a bit of spring colour next year. I think I’ve now filled the cleared bit of garden with as much as it can take. I just need to find time to clear another patch so I have somewhere new to plant up!
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Moving on up
Chris has gotten the hang of online auctions and managed to buy a Victorian drop arm sofa for the kitchen. Though we’d already bought a small white sofa, Chris was worried this was still too big for the room, so found something more compact. It will need recovering and restuffing but at a cost of £60 we can afford the reupholstery costs. Idris has already claimed his spot. We didn’t know what a drop arm sofa was, but it means that a mechanism allows the arms to be lowered or raised depending on preference.
I spent a fair few evenings redistributing some of the items in the spare room, which does mean there are now boxes scattered around the house waiting to be unpacked, but it freed up some room to work in the crowded space.
Once the room was a little less busy, I sanded down the plaster and smoothed the rounded window corners, before refilling any holes. Once smoothed and filled I gave the two plaster walls a watery coat of paint. The third wall is one of the only in the house that never had the original plaster removed and the fourth wall is still missing some plasterboard and needs plastering.
Next I filled the gaps between the boards on the ceiling with chaulk, a job that took a great deal of gymnastics as I manuevered around the various obstacles in the room. The flat portion of the ceiling remains to be done but as these boards were never taken down the gaps are less significant and don’t need as much filling.
With the chaulking done for now I started on the coving, not an easy job with all the various angles. I kept going as long as I could before my brain was fried.
In the meantime Chris was busy in the attic creating a platform by installing wooden beams between the two steel purlins. With boards placed on top we were able to clear more out of the spare room, with Christmas decorations, camping equipment and other lesser used items getting safely stored away.
On the Sunday I had to go attend a maternity leaving do, and therefore left Chris in charge of himself, meaning I don’t have any photos of work in progress.
His first job was to install another doorway ready for the spare bedroom door.
In the study, he cut out a template for the desk, to avoid wasting the oak worktop. The table is particularly complex because the two walls slope outwards towards the corner, making marking it out in place tricky.
But his biggest achievement was installing the hob and connecting up the electrics for the oven. Meaning that when I got back he was busy cooking a lasagne for the first time in months.
Despite good progress this weekend it’s going to be a fair few evenings working this week to get things ready for another visit next weekend. Having offered to put up Chris’s friend, his wife and their two kids, we’ve got a lot of tidying to do, as well as a fair bit left to get the guest bedroom ready. Not that it’ll be finished, but at the very least we need to get a bed into it…
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First coat
With a weekend away planned, we tried to get a few jobs done in the evenings in order to keep things moving forward.
My first job was to finish the lime plaster on the stone wall. With the plastering finished the next job will be to fill the cracks and paint.
Having done the previous three coats of paint on the ceiling I passed the fourth coat on to Chris to do, who admitted that it was the worst kind of painting job.
When we’d put in the windows at the back of the house we hadn’t gotten round to filling around them with mortar. Though it does need doing it hadn’t caused a big problem until the recent storms. While most of the windows just let in the wind, one of the kitchen windows started to let significant amounts of water in, leaking through the plasterboard. While it only occurred when the wind and rain was in storm conditions, it could very quickly cause significant problems. So the first dry evening I got out and plugged the gaps. Hopefully that’s the end of it, though there’s still four more unproblematic windows to do.
Having chosen the colour for the kitchen walls I started with the first coat, before Chris fixes the worktop in place and makes things more fiddly. Having painted two walls I think I’ll keep the third wall white in order to keep the room feeling light and open.
Before we disappeared for our weekend away Chris got the last coat of oil on the worktop, to allow it to dry by the time we got back. This will mean he can get in the hob and oven this week, and the sink after that. Having gone from the least finished room, the kitchen suddenly looks like it’s very close to being finished. Of course that doesn’t mean it’s time to pull back, lots more work to do.
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Top-down
After trying out a number of different colours for the study we settled on the only colour Chris has so far given a strong opinion on. He struggles to visualise what a colour might look like across a whole room, so getting an opinion from him is usually an exercise in futility. But for once, he did like a particular tester colour. It’s not my favourite, but given that I’ve chosen all other colours so far, it’s only fair he occasionally gets the deciding vote.
I gave the walls their first coat of blue, and all the skirting and architrave several coats of matt white.
The ceiling was perhaps the most complex of all the rooms, with three meeting joints needing covering in wood, and coving at all kinds of angles. To keep costs down Chris suggested using gravel boards to cover the gaps, simply cutting off the corners.
Finally, I filled all the gaps and edges with caulke and gave the ceiling and coving a few coats of paint. All that remains to be done is the bits of coving adding by the windows, but we’ll leave this till the windows are replaced. We also need to buy a carpet. We’ve seen a few second-hand or end-of-roll options, so plenty of choice.
Chris’s big job for the weekend was to get the worktops installed. The major concern for me was lifting them into place. The two very large men that delivered the worktops moaned bitterly that they shouldn’t have to lift something so heavy, and then stated there was absolutely no way I would be able to lift them.
The two pieces of 3m by 1m, 4cm thick oak, weighing around 85kg, were heavy enough to make me pause. After one failed attempt to lift and flip the first worktop, we managed to lift it first on the dining table and then onto the island.
Chris then went to work cutting the edges to shape and cutting out holes for the hob and extractor. He then rounded the edges using a router. A smaller bit of wood has been cut out to create an end panel.
We’d treated the undersides with tung oil already, but once in place and cut to size Chris treated the top. Next we moved the second worktop in place, Chris cutting out the back and a hole for the sink, before rounding the edges and treating.
There’s still a little more work to do attaching a smaller bit of worktop to cover the last cupboard, but I’m relieved the heavy lifting is done. And they already look very fancy with all of Chris’s hardwork cutting them to fit.
So the house is once again in a state of chaos, meaning a temporary kitchen has been set up in the lounge. Still, omelettes and broken eggs and all that.
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Study time
We both felt a little underwhelmed this week, in terms of how much we got done. I think this is in part because we got through so much in our time off that a weekend’s work seems poor by comparison, in part because we’re still pretty tired out, and finally because we didn’t really get to tick anything off our to do list. Half-completed jobs are your typical half-glass empty/full situation. On a good day we’re pleased to have gotten half the work done, on a bad day we’re irate that we didn’t finish it.
One good thing this week was that Chris managed to get a bed and bedside tables at an auction got £100. It needs a little attention, but as it’s a good quality solid oak bed it’s definitely worth the time. Unfortunately there’s currently no where to put it but the lounge, so we’ll be tripping over it till the spare room is ready.
The plaster in the study now dry we sanded it down and put on the first watery coat of paint. Chris then did a great job getting all the skirting and architrave onto the wobbly walls. He’d seen a new technique where you cut little slits out of the back of the skirting so it can be bent around corners, and this seems to have worked well.
As I didn’t want to get in Chris’s way in the study I decided to finish off the cupboard in the bedroom, something that took a frustrating amount of time. I added the architrave, painted the frame and the doors, caulked the edges, fill the wall inside the cupboard and painted that. So much work for a tiny cupboard.
Now we need to get some boards to build the shelves inside. Although it feels a little pointless when there are so many big jobs to do, the extra storage will help empty out a few more packing boxes, freeing up space in the spare room.
As the next job we’d been hoping to get the study ceiling done, however we realised we didn’t have the right wood to cover the gaps in the wood, or enough coving. Once those things are in place the room will just need painting. Some paint samples arrived, with some options for the study, kitchen and spare room. Painting colour on the walls is always a joyful moment.
Finally moving on from the cupboard, I started putting the final layer of lime plaster on the edges of the kitchen wall. A slow processes I was still fairly convinced I might get it done in one sitting… when I ran out of lime. Another half done job.
One job that was particularly exciting to get done was the installation of the dishwasher, which Chris got on with after the skirting. There’s nothing more magically than stacking all your dirty cutlery in a box and having it reappear clean. As someone who has been hand washing since July I’m looking forward to the test run.
Finally, I fetched the various pots and saucers we had outside. A few had succumbed to the ice but most are still fine. They need a good scrub before matching them up with our various houseplants.
Outside spring is giving a glimmer of hope that the winter will come to an end, though in reality we’ve got months to go. The banks are already lined with snowdrops, and patches of daffodil leaves have popped up here or there. It’s a good reminder that perhaps we shouldn’t be too gloomy when progress isn’t what we expect. We will get there afterall… eventually.
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The Big New Year Push
After a big push before Christmas, we were looking forward to a break and a chance to recover before getting back to work in our week and a bit off after the festivities were over. What we forgot, as we do every year, is that you don’t leave Christmas feeling rested, but simply exhausted in a slightly different way.
Still, returning to a particularly horreduous level of dusty chaos, we didn’t have much choice but to get back to work on the concrete floor.
Having finished the initial grind, we now did the second grind, then three polishes before spreading the concrete hardener.
As I don’t have the upper body strength to control the machine, I concentrated on doing the matching grinds and polishes with the hand tool on the edges, as well as brushing and bagging the mountains of dust.
However, once Chris had moved on to the later polishing levels the machine was much easier to control, so we thought I might be able to manage it. Optimistically I took the reins… and ran over the cable. Luckily, Chris was able to rewire it, but that was my last attempt at pushing the grinder.
Post concrete hardener it was back onto polishing the floor, with five further grades of polishing pads. With each pass there was less dust, and a clearer grain in the floor.
Finally finished, we’re very pleased with our concrete floor. The grinder hire company were very kind and didn’t charge us for the repaired cable, so in the end the total cost came to around £400. This is around 10% of the £4,000 we were quoted by a professional company. Of course our finish isn’t as professional as an expert would have achieved, but we like it so that’s all that matters.
Floor finished, we clean up and carried the kitchen back in. While I did the tedious job of emptying all the cupboards, dusting them down and cleaning everything within, Chris got to work leveling the island units.
With the final set up finished we’ve ordered the hob and worktops, which will be exciting to install.
Chris also did the fiddly job of installing the cupboard that goes over the underfloor heating system.
After a long day of kitchen installation, we somehow got up the energy for a midnight walk up a local hill to watch the New Year’s fireworks in the moonlight.
With the island in we moved in the other furniture to make sure everything would fit as we hoped. Idris is looking forward to the day when the kitchen has a permanent sofa.
Kitchen on hold until the worktop is delivered, we move on to the study. The study has long been the tool room as we don’t have a shed. Over time it’s become an unholy mess, making it difficult to find what we need.
As we wanted to move the study on, we spent two days empty and sorting the items. There was plenty of rubbish, then some things we needed to sell, and most of course just needed reorganising. I did a general sort, putting items into boxes for electrical items, plumbing items and so on, and then Chris went through each box to see what we did and didn’t need. It was a slow processes, but well worth doing.
Once sorted, we set up our tools in the much smaller showerroom, which will be the last room to be finished.
One of the boxes we found in the tool room included a number of lights and lampshades we’d bought before we needed them. In order to get rid of the box Chris set to work installing and hanging up the lights and shades.
Another small job that got rid of some bits in the tool room was putting in some more doorways, which Chris got on with while I was sorting through other bits.
With the doorframe for the cupboard completed I cut the doors to size and added the door stops. The challenge lay in the wobbly nature of the chimney, meaning the door had to be cut on a curve.
With the study finally empty, we got to work plastering. To make the work go quicker we hopscotched around the room, with Chris doing the first plaster on the first wall, and me following to smooth it out, then me moving to plaster the second wall, while Chris put the second coat on the first wall, and so on.
On our final day of DIY we had our first volunteer of the year! Our friend Daniel was heading home to the Lake District from Aberystwyth and foolishly offered a hand moving the big pile of soil on the drive. Him and Chris wheelbarrowed loads up to the garden while I collected the larger stones for the sinkhole. A few hours cleared around a third of the pile, making it much more manageable for myself and Chris to continue with on our own.
I also took the opportunity to get a few more bulbs in the ground, planting some dutch irises.
Although not really a DIY job, I was pleased to finally repot our 60+ houseplants. Very neglected and dusty, they will certainly benefit from a little attention. Chris had also brought me two small planting troughs so I could plant a large number of cactuses and succulents in one pot, something that will hopefully stop our plant collection looking like a load of clutter.
So that’s it, a holiday well-spent, though as always we’ll return to work exhausted. It’s felt like a big step forward and a great start to 2024. Finger’s crossed it’s a sign of a good year to come.
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The Grind
I spent a day finishing off the plastering on the kitchen wall, starting with the remaining areas surrounding the bare stone wall. I would have like to leave more of the stone bare but the position of the wiring meant it wasn’t possible. Still I think what’s remaining will look nice.
Once the lime plastering was finished I did the plasterboard next. It was nice to get these awkward remaining sections done.
We’d spent an evening emptying out the kitchen and cramming everything into the utility room and lounge. With the room empty and plastering done I went round the room scrapping old plaster off the floor from previous work and then swept and hoovered to get the floor ready for grinding.
The floor grinder appeared, as did a set of plastic zip doors that we stuck across the two entrances to at least minimise the dust in the rest of the house.
As I had two days off work this week the plan was for me to do the grinding while Chris was at work, however it turned out the machine was pretty hard even for Chris to control, while I simple didn’t have the upper body strength to wrestle with it. So instead, we decided on an evening session to get the first grind done, with Chris on the grinder and me sweeping up.
The dust created by the machine was incredible – filling the room and building up in thick piles. We’d invested in some better masks, which saved our lungs from the worst of it.
The grinding and polishing stages consist of 7 different grinding and polishing disks, each getting finer. The first stage consisted of small pads with large metal rectangles that scour the unevenness off the surface, flattening it out. We’d expected the machine to rest of its wheels, with the pads just touching the floor between, but actually the whole weight of the machine rested on the rotating pads, which was why it was so hard to control.
Chris made three passes of the whole room before we swept up and hoovered.
We hadn’t been sure how much of a difference we’d see in this first stage, but it was very noticeable, with the surface flatter and smoother, and more of the aggregate visible.
The next day I got to work with the hand grinder, tackling the edges where the large machine couldn’t reach. I’d thought the large grinder filled the room with dust but somehow the hand grinder created complete white out in a few minutes. I had to open the windows and pause to let the dust clear every five minutes as I couldn’t see what I was doing.
With the edges done and the room swept and hoovered again, the plan was then to spread a thin layer of concrete across the surface to fill any gaps. We would then grind off the excess. However, when I started spreading the concrete mixture on the floor I found the mixture immediately solidified when it hit the floor, and it was impossible to spread. Calling Chris at work I explained the issue and he said he would have a look when I got home. Giving it a try himself and finding exactly the same issue, and then looking up reviews online and finding other people also had the same problem, he decided simple to spot treat the worst holes, and give up on a complete covering.
Now we’re off for our Christmas break, so nothing will be done for a week. But then we’ll be back to get the second grind done. I’m hoping once we get to the polishing stages the machine might run a little smoother, and I might be able to control it, meaning Chris doesn’t have to do all the work with the big machine.
To end on a less dusty note I was looking for a boring green lampshade for our bedroom on ebay and came across a broken tiffany lampshade. I put on the lowest bid and won it. My mum does stainglass so hopefully she can show me how to fix it. I’m not sure how to attach it to a light, still it’s very nice and I thought it was worth a go. And afterall , daffodils and a Welsh country house are very well suited to one another.
A Merry Christmas everyone, or Nadolig llawen in Welsh, and a Happy New Year, a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!
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White out
It’s been a windy week here in the hills, with 50 mph gusts howling round the house. Having installed the roof ourselves we’re always a little nervous when it gets windy, but for the last few days we’ve been hearing a knocking noise whenever the wind blows. Other than being very annoying we were worried it meant something had come loose. However, having checked everything obvious on our side we actually think it’s something to do with our neighbour’s new solar panels. Though it’s a relief it’s nothing we’ve done, we may have to get on the roof to deal with the knocking before it drives us mad.
This week’s work for me has been fairly repetitive, as I went round and round the kitchen in circles. First I filled various holes, then sanded any uneven areas. Next the ceiling and walls got their first watery coat of paint. Having given all the beams one coat of stain I then gave the new beams a second coat, so their colour better matched the older and darker beams. Finally, I got on to a first full coat of paint to the ceiling.
Chris spent his Saturday in the Christmas pass time of plucking turkeys, but he was back to DIY on the Sunday scrubbing the wall he previously grouted. He spent the rest of the day lugging around boxes trying to make space in our other rooms so we can empty out the kitchen ready to grind the floor in a few days.
Idris isn’t very good at painting but he enjoys a good dust sheet.
Things will soon become pretty cramped as we empty out the kitchen into our lounge, so Chris was keen we get our Christmas tree up now, so it can stake its claim to the floor space. It’s certainly going to be a dusty, messy Christmas, but at least we’ve got a little bit of Christmas sparkle in place.
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Shoulders, knees and toes
This week I’ve been planting 100 tulip bulbs. We planted some tulips in our old garden but they never really had enough impact, so this time I’m going big.
Inside, Chris has installed a hand towel rail and door handle, both a little bit vintage. The door handle came from the house, but the towel rail I brought secondhand.
In the kitchen, Chris lined up the ceiling ventilation from the showerroom above. This was possible the trickiest vent to install as it had to avoid all the pipework and wires located in this piece of ceiling. One down, a fair few to go.
Rather than cut up a larger door I cut down the old over the stairs door to fit our cupboard. Still a bit of fiddling around to do before it looks less like a franken-cupboard.
On the landing it took four coats of paint to get the ceiling looking a little less tatty.
My big job for the weekend was prepping and staining the kitchen beams. It doesn’t sound like a lot but having sanded and cleaned all the beams and stained half, my legs, shoulders and arms are all worn out and full of aches. From constantly reaching above you, and getting up and down the stepladder, it’s like a full day aerobics class. Chris, looking at my newly stained beams, stated confidently ‘they’ll definitely need a second coat’…
Chris didn’t have a particularly easy time of it either, finishing off clearing out the old mortar on the kitchen wall and repointing it. My mum had started this job, and after she left I thought I should finish it off, however the mortar has to be the toughest in the whole house. It was truly wrist breaking work. Since then I’ve been putting off getting back to it, so I was pretty happy when Chris decided to take on this exhausting job.
Although the sinkhole in the garden was filled during the drainage work, the end of the sinkhole next to the road has been expanding. Having informed the council and been told it wasn’t of concern, we thought we’d better sort it ourselves. Being all out of building waste Chris started throwing in a load of our bricks. It’s a shame to chuck perfectly good bricks into a hole in the ground, but we don’t need them and there’s been little interest on marketplace. And at least they’ll stop the car falling into a pit in the ground.
Having hired the grinding and polishing machine for the kitchen floor for our Christmas break, there’s now a push to get the kitchen ready before the floor work can start. So it certainly feels like we need to work particularly hard on the run up to Christmas, but it’ll be worth it to come out the other side with the kitchen much closer to being done.
Because of this push we haven’t had much of a chance to get Christmassy. However, I took a bit of time to make a wreath for the door, with all the materials gathered from the garden (apart from the oranges). Phew at least that’s a little bit of Christmas spirit. Nadolig llawen as the Welsh would say.
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