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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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Tortoise and the Hare
This week brought our first touch of snow, though none of it settled. The roads are really icy however, and it seems the gritters don’t believe in salting little roads like ours, so getting plenty of ice skating practice on the morning dog walks.
I finished off the bathroom coving this week, painting over the white woodwork and retouching the yellow walls.
I’m not a big fan of painting over unpainted wood, but decided the mirror looked a bit out of place, so touched it up with the ceiling paint.
After trying for ages to find a suitable secondhand bathroom cabinet we finally gave up and brought a new one, which is now up on the wall. Just a towel rack to add, which Chris has a plan to hand make.
Moving on from the bathroom I finished off the coving in the bedroom, which unfortunately was all troublesome angles and cutting out odd shapes for curtain poles.
While I was fiddling around with a few small bits of coving upstairs the plasterer finished plastering the remainder of the kitchen. When it comes to the tortoise and the hare, the hare definitely won this one.
Chris has been getting on with the showerroom. As this room is more about future proofing the house than something we need at the moment, we decided to move our tools into here to free up the study, our current dumping ground. Before filling it to the brim, Chris finished off the plasterboarding and has almost finished plastering. The layers of chaos on the study are going to be fun to untangle, definitely a job for the Christmas break.
While the filler dried on the coving I trimmed a spare door, too small for any of our doorways, to size for the cupboard. Because the chimney is so wonky the edge of the door will have to be cut in a curve. Just a second little door to attach to the top, and shelves to build.
This week’s work certainly felt slow to me, all small and fiddly jobs on my side, but at least Chris and the plasterer have significantly moved two rooms on. We’re both looking forward to a big push at Christmas, a chance to take some big steps hopefully.
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Draining
We have drains! The digger drivers did a fantastic job digging a ditch along the side of the house, installing a new pipe and refilling it with gravel. The pipe now pops up on our boundary and has been constantly running. We can’t be sure yet if this will solve all our drainage problems, so we’ll have to wait till the next downpour, but finger’s crossed it’s all done.
Once the ditch was filled there was even some spare gravel, which they kindly spread out on our drive, so it looks less of a mess. The sink hole was also largely filled in, so we’ll see if that remains full or not.
As well as the drainage we asked if they could pull out two of the large tree stumps in the front garden, so we can eventually widen the drive. We didn’t realise how massive the stumps were. I wanted to use them for a stumpery, but they’re too massive for that, so they’ll be cut up into firewood. Now we just need to dig through the remaining debris and seperate the stone from the soil and move it all out of the way. Wish we still had a digger.
The new pieces of wood in the bathroom and bedroom ceilings had some more coats of paint added and some caulk around the edges. I’m very pleased with the bathroom, but not so much with the bedroom. I might use some wood filler to neaten it up.
After having abandoned the wooden coving in the bathroom as the geometry was hurting my head, I realised Chris was also avoiding it for the same reasons. So finally I got back to it. I had to take down a few of my earlier attempts to start again, and some of the joins are terrible, but I got there. I then filled gaps with filler to make up for the wonky walls. I just need to sand it all down and repaint, and hopefully no one will ever look too closely at it.
On the landing I finally replaced a missing ceiling board and caulked the gaps ready to paint. Chris also removed the tiny door to nowhere above the stairs.
Meanwhile Chris has been living like a goblin in the attic, taping plastic sheeting, laying ventilation pipes and putting down insulation. Finally, there’s just a little insulation to lay, perfect timing with the first winter frost having just hit us. Just a few windows and doors to replace and the house will finally be draft-free.
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Filling gaps
Having thought the plasterer wasn’t returning for two weeks he was able to continue this week, getting the rest of the ceiling and most of the back wall finished.
I spent too much time with a few fiddly jobs around the glass bricks, grouting and cleaning them, then sanding the wooden support below them, before painting everything else the same colour as the wall. In the bathroom I also cut and painted some beading for the edge. Just a little filling to do and the glass bricks are finished.
My other fiddly and annoying job was cutting out some bits of wood to fill in the thin strips between the sloping and flat ceilings in the bedroom and bathroom. It took an age and I made a rather messy job of it, but with some more filling and painting hopefully it will just fade into the rest of the wood.
Chris continued with his mammoth insulation job, having to lay down plastic, tape it to the plastic in the roof below, and then laying down the insulation. He’s about a third of the way through. It’s nice to see the big rolls of insulation disappearing upstairs after they’ve been cluttering up our spare room for so long.
Chris also started to figure out the coving in our bedroom, which isn’t a simple task with wonky walls and a sloping ceiling. It looks nice though, even with only half the room finished.
After storm Babet our neighbour is having her drive repaired, much of it having ended up on the road. With the digger drivers already on site Chris asked them for a quote to dig out the tree stumps next to our drive, and install the new drain. When we got a quote off them for £1k he was initially horrified, but having worked out the cost for us to get the materials and hire the machines, he decided it wasn’t too heavy a price to pay for an extra pair of hands, plus it takes a job off our list.
Today they started by digging back from the road. They found the old clay pipe, which appears to be clogged with roots, explaining why it hasn’t been working. Hopefully they’ll be back later in the week to finish the job. It feels a little like cheating whenever we pay someone to do something for us, but I guess no one but ourselves is keeping score.
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A backwards step?
Our plasterer appeared this Saturday. He’s a landscaper who is looking to move into plastering and so is taking jobs on the weekend to improve his skills before making the jump. As he’s not a trained plasterer he’s charging a little less, on the understanding we might not get perfection. Given that we’re doing the rest of the plastering ourselves, and that isn’t perfection, we really weren’t worried about this. Turns out his ‘not perfect’ is much better than our ‘best we can manage’.
In his first day he got half the ceiling done and one of the three walls. It’s exciting to see it come together, but sadly he’s only working Saturdays and he’s away next weekend, so he won’t be back for a while.
Unfortunately, in order to get the room ready for the plasterer we’ve had to move most of the stuff out, filling up our other rooms in the meantime. However, once the walls are finished we’ll be on to polishing the concrete floor, which requires the room to be empty, so there’s not much point moving things back in.
We finally got rid of our corner cabinet, a spare from the secondhand kitchen we couldn’t fine a spot for. We listed it for free as we weren’t sure anyone wouldn’t want one cupboard from a set, but a nice Greek couple came to collect, and as a thank you gave us a bag of mini ice creams!
Upstairs in our bedroom the corner behind the chimney has needed doing for a while. As part of it was plastered qith board plaster and part done with lime plaster Chris thought it would be better to smooth it out with filler rather than add more plaster on top. I applied the filler, trying to even out the surface, then sanded it back and painted. It’s definitely not as neat a finish as plastering, but it’s a corner that is always likely to be behind furniture, so it doesn’t hugely matter. Idris supervised me from the comfort of the bed.
Another job that’s needed doing for a long-time is cleaning the chimney and sealing the bricks. It took quite a while scrubbing the bricks with a wire brush, before wiping them down and painting on two coats of sealant, but it’s a good job to get done. As the chimney is right next to our bed I could often smell the dust coming off it, which can’t be good for my lungs.
Another small job I managed to tick off the list was filling and painting the plasterboard over the doorway, where we’d once had glass.
While I was ticking off little jobs Chris was busy with one big job, up the in attic. In order to reduce condensation and recirculate heat Chris had decided we needed mechanical ventilation heat recovery system. So before insulation can be put down in the attic, first plastic sheeting has to be put down and attached to the plastic sheeting we put up in the ceilings, and then the ventilation installed, and finally insulation put down. Though the house isn’t particularly chilly we can feel a cold draft from the attic, so insulation really needs to go down to reduce our heating bills and avoid waste.
Chris spent his time laying down the plastic in one half of the attic and starting the cut though the holes for the ventilation. I joined him briefly to help pass the ventilation pipes across from the other half of the attic. There’s still plenty to do before the attic is finally insulated, but it’s a good step in the right direction so far.
In some ways it’s felt a little like a step backwards this week with the bedroom, lounge and kitchen going from relative order to a chaotic mess once again, but it’s all forward movement all the same. Though I’m looking forward to a dust-free future.
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Ruined 