Sunday 30 November 2014

Master En Suite

Yesterday we connected the new bath in the master en suite (waste and both taps), levelled the tub and fixed it down, and then tiled around the bath. That was followed, this morning, by grouting the tiles, which now look really good; we've also attached a shower-curtain rail that doubles as a normal curtain, and installed the glass shower screen.

While Liz grouted, I've properly hung the door between the guest room and that en suite—it couldn't be done until the blockwork wall was down, because the door couldn't open. That's now up, and allows access as intended. On the landing, we've put up the last section of plasterboard in the lobby, as well as finishing the stud wall separating the side guest room from the en suite, and plasterboarded the unfinished guest room side. That also meant hanging a wall light (reusing the cabling for the shaving light from its bathroom incarnation.

That really does bring us the end of major operations, which has meant that we've been able to clear the dining room, which has been the staging arena for tools, consumables, and building material for months, now—since August. We've been able to return tools and the small remaining amount of materials to the workshop and garage (as was), and collect up the waste, which is broadly either scrap metal, wood for recycling, and a small amount of 'domestic' waste. It's lovely to have the dining room back, which now feels like a big room again.

We've also resorted to turning on the central heating, as the stove is starting to struggle as the only heating in the house. Not bad, turning on the boiler right at the end of November.

Tuesday 25 November 2014

New Hostas

New hostas arrived today, barerooted and looking more like multi-tentacled aliens. I've potted them up, and popped them in the greenhouse to overwinter. Although they don't need the protection, I prefer having them there, where I can keep a better eye on them.

They are:
  • Wide Brim
  • Sieboldiana 'Elegans'
  • Francee
  • Halcyon
  • Pizzazz
  • Snow Cap

Sunday 23 November 2014

Front Guest Room

This weekend's been a bit of everything, getting the front guest room more-or-less finished. There was some electrics (moving the lobby light; adding a wall light above the head of the bed; and getting a switch wire from inside the stud wall into the ceiling space of the bathroom, ready for the electronic lock).

We wanted to put a little niche into the side of the chimney breast, instead of a bedside table (there's not room in the alcove created by the chimney for the bed as well as a little table), which meant propping the wall, taking out some brickwork, and replacing with a lintel and wooden frame. These things take time...

Once that was done, we put up the wall cupboards, which in turn meant we were able to get the contents of the room a bit more rational. With the space that created, we've been able to put up the plasterboard on that side of the dividing room, and do the electrics in it (the PSU for the locks; the lightswitches, and sockets); as well as the plasterboards in the en suite that were missing. We've also put up the plasterboard missing from the sitting room wall, and the kitchen, which have been long overdue. Slowly getting there!

Sunday 16 November 2014

Last Walls Insulated

It's a little frustrating, really, how long it takes to get electrics sorted. It took a long while yesterday, finishing the wiring in the new guest room: new sockets, changing the light switch to a rocker switch (it was a bathroom pullcord), removing a wildly unnecessary coax cable that passed from ceiling to floor, disconnecting the old cable for the shower, and re-routing a wall light (necessitated by removing the wall it used to live on).

Never mind. One advantage of doing this room's work, and having the floor up in several places (and no shower monolith) was that I could rectify a design error in the kitchen. Since re-designing it in 2010, we realised that when stood at the sink, you were in your own shadow, which made washing up out of daylight hours (the sink's under the window) rather gloomy. Our solution has been to add a recess mounted LED light above and slightly right of the sink, which entirely remedies this.

Pleasingly, it's the only thing we've wanted to change in the kitchen, after four years.

Back in the new side guest room (old pink bathroom), we then set to insulating the room, throwing up the battens, insulation, and plasterboard rather quickly, actually—it's showing, now, that we've done some 250m2 of this stuff. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it: because we wanted to start plastering today, we wanted to give any dust kicked up by demolition as long as possible to settle, and the two messy jobs we knew we still had to do were the fireplaces in our bedroom, and the front guest. (There's some plaster removal in the front guest, but it's minimal, and the room can't be plastered for ages, and only one wall is plasterboarded.)

Our bedroom's fireplace is in the same stack as the working sitting room fireplace, but obviously off-set. It was an extremely unpleasant job, but I stripped the breast of plaster, and broke out the stone/brickwork blocking the mouth of the fire. I looked as though I'd been coal mining when I was finished, as there was an enormous amount of soot, ash, and dust in the chimney. I was working in a confined space; a tent we'd put up to protect the room. It worked to protect the room, but I was horrible by the end.

The front guest room's fireplace was a lot better, partly because I knew what to expect, and had the vacuum to hand to suck up soot as I went. I found, unexpectedly, a letter lost in the stonework, which was from the summer of 1937: more on that another time, but it gives a date around which the fireplace was probably last used, before being blocked up.

That drew to a finish a long (0430 finish on Sunday morning) day, but the last of the mucky work. Today, a comparative lie-in (we only started work at 11: the laziness!) was followed by putting up the triple wardrobe in the side guest room, doing a variety of sorting and cleaning, and then, while I used expanding foam to finish the landing and master bedroom's walls, Liz started to plaster the side guest room. It's amazing, the difference it makes, even though it's only 70% done. We hope to finish it tomorrow evening, or at least get another bucket of plaster onto the walls.

This weekend sees the end of major operations, in a way, with the remodel/insulation. After this, the job list has the following, which, compared to what's gone before, feels much more manageable. I misquoted Churchill a while ago, but now I think we're able to say that we're at the beginning of the end.

  • Plaster everywhere (sounds awful, but each room should only take about three hours, making about 27 hours work);
  • Skirting board everywhere (ditto: there's only 90m or so to do);
  • Paint everywhere (yes, this is awful, I admit);
  • Tile the two bathrooms;
  • Wire up the electronic locks for the bathrooms;
  • Put up the cupboards in the front guest room;
  • Put in the sockets in the diagonal wall dividing the guest rooms;
  • Strip the last of the wallpaper upstairs (not much of this, in the master bed, and front guest);
  • Single last plasterboard to go up in the sitting room, the landing, and kitchen;
  • Window reveals & boards in the front guest room.

And I think that's it. By the end of our Christmas break we should be there, or thereabouts; the painting will probably take us beyond that, realistically, but let's say 'by my birthday', we'll be done.

Friday 14 November 2014

Last of the Old Plaster

In preparation for the weekend's work, which is mainly focussed on the old house bathroom, we spent some time this evening stripping the old plaster off the old chimney breast. We hadn't really registered that this existed, until we started work on the other en suite bathroom, which it jutted into, just, next to the toilet.

Before we did this, I had to finish up some of the plumbing, removing a few pipes that were connections to the hot water cylinder, when we had one, and which ran up the front of the fireplace. Once these were out, we dismantled the brickwork blocking the mouth of the fire.

After doing this, I removed as much of the old toilet waste pipe as we could from inside, and rebuilt the wall where it came through. There was a bit of a cavity, which has been filled with mineral wool batt, and I've used expanding foam to consolidate the section.

Sunday 9 November 2014

The Pink Bathroom

After, I think, five years and three months bemoaning it, we've finally demolished (as it were) the pink 'house' bathroom. Tiled lovingly from floor to ceiling in a pink rose pattern, with monolithic shower plinth, and 'cosy' loo in the corner (tucked between said plinth and the wall), it's never been much loved. The tiles were augmented with two mismatched white tiles at some date, too. Anyway, it is gone.

We started on Saturday by taking out the sink, and then took the ceiling down. It sounds drastic, but it was a false ceiling, with the 'real' ceiling hidden a couple of feet above it. We're not entirely sure why it was put in: it's got some quirkiness to it, though. The upper ceiling is higher than any of the other first floor ceilings, with a sloped section at the front/back of the house. However, the finish matches the ceiling material in the far end of the house (~15cm T&G planks)—where, in fact, the ceiling is lowest. The lower ceiling, which is at the same sort of level as the middle compartment of the house (master bedroom and landing), matched the finish there, which is a kind of long panelled effect.

We decided we had to take it down, because, oddly, the master en suite and house bathroom had the false, dropped ceiling, but the airing cupboard, between them, didn't. Because the new guest room was going to absorb the bathroom, airing cupboard, and a slice of the master en suite, the ceiling had to be consistent; and as it was, it was carried on a beam affixed to the wall we were going to take out.

Down it came, in not too horrible a fashion.

Next, we started to dismantle the walls: the walls separating the bathroom from the master en suite, and forming the airing cupboard between them, were all coming down, replaced by a new stud wall that made the en suite slightly smaller, but the soon-to-be-guest-bedroom a better size.

Eventually, by mid-morning today, we had all the walls down, generating a huge heap of cement blocks (breeze-blocks) outside the kitchen. It revealed a number of pipes and cables we'll need to sort out, that were previously hidden in the airing cupboard. We've then taken out the toilet, and attacked the shower plinth.

I described it as monolithic above, which proved unexpectedly accurate: when we took apart the tiled ply exterior, we discovered that the shower tray had been set into a three inch slab of concrete, itself held in a timber frame and on top of a foam base. Why, I have no idea. I managed to lever it up, and then break it into lumps, but it must have weighed around 200kg. In combination with the high-density cement block walls, the floor was carrying an unexpectedly enormous weight, which, to be frank, I'm glad it won't have to support any more.

By early evening, we had the contents of the room removed, now forming an absurd glacis of bagged plaster, tiles, and cement blocks outside the kitchen window, waiting an eventual skip/grabber truck plan. We then set to work stripping the plaster from the walls, with the remaining pink tiles. Eventually, we finished about ten, and the room is bare.

I'm going to try to sort out the pipes in evenings this week, and next weekend we'll insulate and plasterboard the room, and, with a little luck, start plastering first floor walls.

Christmas Cake

We started soaking the fruit for our Christmas cake earlier in the week, and it was ready, this morning, to make the cake. Last year, we used Mary Berry's recipe, instead of the Delia Smith recipe we've used for many (nine, I think) years. We've tweaked it slightly.

Dried fruit:
  • 6oz glace cherries
  • 1lb 2oz currants
  • 7oz raisins
  • 12oz sultanas
  • 2oz mixed peel
Soaked with 150–200ml strong tea for three days.
  • 9oz butter
  • 9oz light sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1tbsp treacle
  • 4oz flaked almonds
  • 3tbsp marmalade
All beaten together, before folding in:
  • 9oz plain flour
  • 1tsp mixed spice
  • 1/2tsp cinnamon
  • pinch salt
The fruit is then stirred in, before it's spooned into a 9", double lined and greased tin. It cooked for 4:45, at 140°, covered from the start with a greaseproof paper lid.

Thursday 6 November 2014

Compost Turning

I've had a day off today, getting a few bits done around the house while Liz works from the sitting room. It's been a useful one, with reasonable weather, too, and we finished the day with a trip to our local garden centre's Christmas preview evening (with 15% discount on everything...irresistible).

A lot of this morning I spent getting the plumbing and worktop in our bathroom sorted, and now the sink is properly connected, and the worktop is in place, attached, and sealed. This is rather necessary, as the plan is to dismantle the pink (house) bathroom at the weekend, so we wanted a working toilet and basin, even though we'll be using the guest en suite for showering for a while yet (until we can tile ours).

I've trimmed the old hollow-core back door, ready to re-use in the doorway between the master en suite and the new guest room. For now, it's just secured in the frame: the existing wall prevents it opening, so (as I can't, therefore, get to the hinges) it can't be screwed to the frame until the wall's taken down.

I've finally got round to labelling the plants we bought at Tatton in July, before they die back and vanish for the winter—unfortunately, I've lost track of a eupatorium, and the two echinaceas ('Secret Love'), so I'll have to hunt again for them.

Over lunch, we set soaking the dried fruit for our Christmas cake, which we'll make at the weekend. It has loads of dried fruit, nearly three pounds, which we soak with a mug or so of tea for a few days.

Before dusk fell, I managed to turn the compost heaps, thus freeing up (kind of) the first bay, which promptly half-filled with the mound we'd formed nearby. It has let me empty the bin outside the kitchen, though, which is good. Hopefully the space will suffice until spring, when we'll start needing compost again, thus emptying the third bay, and creating trickle-down space in the system.

I also managed to knock a long-standing job off The List, and cleared a silted up corner of the drive, and the drainage channel between it and the track, so the drive will, hopefully, flood less badly this winter.

This evening's shopping trip was good, with a few Christmas decorations, including a long string of lights for the acer in the front garden, and a half-priced holly (the variegated form, 'Silver Queen'), which will go on the hillside, to complement the pure green hollies already well established.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

First Frost

This morning saw our first frost of the winter—coincidentally, on the same date as last year.

Fortunately, it wasn't a hard frost, hitting only the windscreen of the car, and not quite reaching the ground, which is as well, because we've not lifted anything. A frost was predicted for Wednesday morning, but not last night, so we were lucky. The house, too, protects the front garden, where the zonal pelagoniums are: we only have a limited number of non-hardy perennials, and these are a high fraction of the total.

As a result, we went out after getting back from work to lift the other vulnerable plants, as well as the geraniums in the front garden. The variegated agapanthus, Tinkerbell, and tulbaghia from Tatton last year, the three chocolate cosmos from this year, and the Queen Victoria lobelia (also Tatton Park 2013, I realise) have all been potted, and are in the greenhouse. That extends the time they can stay outside, before we have to find windowsills for them to go on, although they can't stay out there over winter, as the greenhouse isn't heated.

We've left the dahlias (Bishop of Llandaff, Twying's After Eight) for now, as they can wait until a proper frost kills the top-growth, before we lift the tubers for the winter.

Sunday 2 November 2014

Solid Door

Yesterday, we spent a bit of time getting on with the 'left behind' insulation in the kitchen and sitting room. In the former, there's a patch of wall near the old front door, which is partly an internal wall (dividing kitchen from sitting room), partly a cross-section through the old cottage wall, and partly a cavity'ed external wall (part of the kitchen extension from 30–40 years ago). In previous years, it's suffered from condensation, and been quite cold, although it's not a proper solid external wall, so we thought it worthwhile insulating it. It's been left to do, though, as it's just a single metre width of wall, which we're not insulating to quite the same standard as elsewhere, due to the scale of the problem (limited), the stone arch that's adjacent, and the limited space. The insulation and electrical bit of this is done, and the plasterboard will follow: the stash of plasterboards is currently buried under adopted furniture in the garage, so it has to wait.

We've also put up the roller blinds we ordered: new, more durable ones for the kitchen, matching ones for the bathroom windows, and a very wide, insulated blind for the patio doors. That also required us to get round to putting back the curtain poles in the kitchen, and to hang the curtains, which are now back up, which is good.

Today—a short day because Cath and Jason came round for dinner—we've replaced the utility room door with a new one. The old one was, bizarrely for an external door, a hollow-core door, which was neither secure nor warm, so we've replaced it with a solid wood door. The hollow-core door will serve in the short term as a bathroom door upstairs: we hope to replace all the first floor doors with attractive natural wood doors in a few years.

The solid wood door came blank, so it took me a while to mount the hinges, cut the recess and holes for the handle and lock mechanism, and re-mount the rack bolts, as well as hang it. Fortunately, the size was off-the-shelf, so I haven't had to trim it down, which would have been fraught with peril.