Tag Archives: shelving

Monday 6th July 2015 – NOW HERE’S AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION.

Our Hero – “is it tomorrow that we are recording at Marcillat?”
Liz – “that’s right – at 09:30”
Our Hero – “ohhh” … pause … “I suppose that I’d better go home then”

Yes, the Bane of Britain has done it again hasn’t he? Gone to Marcillat on the wrong day. Still, it could have been worse. It was a nice drive out and in any case, at least it was a day early and not a day late.

And I’d been on my travels in the night. I was in Glasgow, the funniest city in Europe (everyone who goes there comes back in stitches) organising some kind of football training, and then I’d taken the Metro with Strawberry Moose. The train was stuck in the station for a while and so, knowing that I would awaken as soon as the train set off, I allowed myself to go into a deep sleep. But before I did, I took my trousers off and hung them over the back of the seat in front. Sure enough, I awoke as soon as the train moved, and I prepared to alight at the next station. But I couldn’t find my trousers. There was a pair of shorts there but they were nothing to do with me. Of course I made a fuss and the lady driver told me that seeing as how we hadn’t reached the first stop, no-one could have alighted from the train with my trousers. However, a couple of people had boarded the train and alighted before it had set off. I carried on the argument and a couple of the passengers started to become agitated. But none of this was finding my trousers.
Ironically, I’d been reading a little about the Glasgow Underground yesterday evening and also something comnected with North-West Glasgow and the Underground, which was where all of this was going on.

My morning wasn’t wasted though, as I did two more radio programmes – or, at least, half-done them. These are the rock programmes for Radio Anglais and I’ve done the miscellaneous programmes for two more months. I just need to do the two live concerts and find a radio commentary for one of the programmes.

After lunch, I made the shelf that will fit between the door and the stud wall by the beichstuhl. And the new Bosch circular saw – nice and lightweight, it cut through a pine plank as if there was nothing there. A nice neat cut, no need to sand it down, no whining, no rattling, and the inverter showed no sign of distress. This was the best circular saw that I’ve ever used (and so it ought to be at the price that I paid for it) and if it lasts the pace (because one or two people are a little sceptical about it) it’ll be just the job.

I also cut down a 300mm plank into 2x150mm planks, and the circular saw hardly broke wind doing it. But do you remember ages ago when I told you that the 600mm pine planks were actually 605mm? Well, the 300mm planks are actually 295mm. So much for Brico Depot’s precise measuring.

I had yet another shower to cool me down afterwards (I’m having my money’s worth from the home-made solar shower) and made a mega-red-pepper-and-lentil curry for the next 4 days. I may as well start the week as I mean to go on.

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Tuesday 14th April 2015 – THIS MAKES DEPRESSING VIEWING;

plasterboard taken off back wall in shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceYes, if you look very carefully at the back wall of the shower room, you’ll see that the plasterboard has been taken down.

And that’s not all either, for half of the plasterboard on the side wall has gone too. And when all of that is sorted out, half on the other side wall will be coming off.

You may remember that I did the plasterboarding in a hurry in 2013 in between trips to belgium, and I really wish that I hadn’t, because firstly, it’s a total mess, and secondy, the studding is all wrong.

I have to fit a variety of shelves in here, and it would have been ohh so easy to have fitted them and then done the plasterboarding around it like I did with the stairs, but that’s far too simple an idea. When I was looking this morning at how to fit the shelving in, and not seeing a satisfactory solution, I thought “sod this for a game of soldiers”. It was quicker to take off the plasterboard and start again.

I don’t know how I’m going to find the space to cut it down to the new shape, by the way, but I’ll worry about that in due course.

shelving bracket for composting toilet shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis is what I should have done before I fitted the plasterboarding.

Here’s the shelf mounting for the top of the composting toilet and it took me about an hour and a half to make it, including searching for the wood and changing a few light bulbs in the barn. However, it took about 5 hours altogether given all of the messing about. And that’s sad news. You can see what I mean about having done it first rather than last.

There needs to ne another shelf bracket fitted to the adjacent wall and I’ll finish that tomorrow – I’m well on my way to doing that already.

blossom on trees les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn other news, the blossom has finally arrived on the trees. 3 weeks later than usual, but it’s here nevertheless. And it does look pretty too – well worth the wait.

And you can see how nice the weather was – another beautiful blue sky all day long.

199.3 amp-hours of surplus solar energy (and wind energy too because we’ve had a nice windy day) went into the dump load – the home-made 12 volt immersion heater. The water temperature in the dump load was off the scale (over 70°C) by 15:00 and when I went to fetch hot water to do the washing up at 22:00, it was still not back on the scale again.

I’ve finally fixed the data logger too – the new one that I bought a few months ago. And this is what I call accuracy. I checked it tonight with a 1-watt bulb and it showed a discharge of … errrr …. 1 watt. I rigged up a few other low-powered items and the discharge was 9 watts. Switching everything off again went straight to 0.

I’m well impressed with this.

I was back in Crewe on my travels, with some people who figure more in my nocturnal adventures that they do in real life which is just as well as they aren’t people whose company I would appreciate for real.

We were in one house – a Victorian semi with waste land at the side that was a zone of special scientific interest – a marshy wetland. A car driven by a woman went past, did a U-turn across the marsh, went across the drive behind my car, and out across the lawn and back onto the Highway. This had caused a huge pile of light-grey gravel to be pushed into the marsh and had totally dried it up.

Then, I had to take one of these people to see his father, and he gave me directions. When we came to what he reckoned was the house number, it was an empty plot of land in Delamere Street where the little old school used to be. Now it’s been 23 years since I last lived in Crewe, and yet I could tell the difference between Delamere Street and Flag Lane, even when I’m deep in the arms of Morpheus.

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Friday 27th February 2015 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… such a late start this morning, although I did finish mixing the live concert for the rock show that i’ll be broadcasting in a few weeks time. I just need to do the text for the rock programmes (which I’ll do tomorrow morning) and that will be the rock shows done for the month of April.

shelves wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceBack in the bedroom, I started to fit the shelving in the wardrobe.

First job was to cut down the shelving strip. It comes in 2-metre lengths and so seeing as how I had four of them, I could each one in half to give me 8 lengths of I metre, and then measured up so that they could be screwed correctly into the back and front walls of the wardrobe so that the shelves will be level.

I ran through the offcuts of pine boarding that I had lying around, and there was enough to make 6 shelves, with some judicious cutting. Not enough, so I had to cut up a pine board in order to make two more.

shelves wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhat astonished me was that I went outside to find the clips that support the shelves and I was able to put my hand on them straight away. It’s not every day that this kind of thing happens, especially around here is it?

But anyway, now I have all of the shelving fitted and doesn’t it look nice?

I wasn’t so lucky with looking for the clothes rail. I know that I have two oval ones that I salvaged from a previous project, but I’ve absolutely no idea where they might be found. They will have to wait for another time.

I’ve also started fitting the framework for the upper row of doors, and it seems that I have miscounted and don’t have enough hinges, magnetic catches or door handles. Well, that’s just typical isn’t it?

And I’ve also managed to screw a screw into my thumb while I was at it.

Later on, after knocking off, I went to Pionsat and the Intermarche to do the shopping. And ended up having a lengthy chat about the virtues of Canadian maple syrup with a fellow-shopper.

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Thursday 19th February 2015 – I’M ABSOLUTELY WHACKED …

… and I’ve no idea why either.

I was so tired last night that I was in bed and asleep by 22:20 and I’m not sure if that had ever happened before when I’ve not been ill. I slept right through until the alarm at 07:30 and I still managed to crash out at about 15:15 for a good 45 minutes after I had come back from Cécile’s. And I’d still go to bed right now given half a chance.

wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou may remember my target for today – to have the fixed shelving and the fixed fronts on the wardrobe by knocking-off time. Well, I managed to accomplish that and here you are, in all its glory.

It’s really quite funny but like most things around here, I ended up redesigning it, even when I was halfway through fixing it and it’s not quite thesame as it started out being. And I was almost held up by the lack of a 300mm plank for the intermediate shelf.

But not to worry – I remembered that I had two of them for my bookshelves up here in the attic and so I came up here and dismantled the bookshelves. Now I have books all over the place, but at least I have shelves in the wardrobe.

I’m well-pleased with this

What needs to be done next is for the moveable shelves to be fitted (if I can find the struts) and the doors to be made and hung. It’s quite a tall order to do that tomorrow – if i manage to do half of that I’ll consider myself lucky.

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Friday 7th February 2014 – THE FIRST THING THAT I DID TODAY …

… was to rip off the tongue and grroving that I had put on the ceiling.

Well, actually, it wasn’t. First thing that I did do was to crawl out of my stinking pit, and at the unbelievable time of 09:20 too. I heard all of the alarms go off (it’s very hard not to) and I remember thinking that I’ll get up in a minute. And so almost two hours later …

Anyway, back to the plot. I ripped off all of the tongue-and-grooving that I did yesterday. It wasn’t going on correctly and I was certain that I could do better. And while I was having my breakfast I also had some inspiration.

head of stairs plsterboarding tongue and grooving les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo I had to recut every single piece and refit it, but I am glad that I did because the effect is so much better as you can see in the photo.

All that it needs now id to be varnished, the light to be fitted properly and for a couple of bits of beading to be added, but that will have to wait as there is still plenty to do before I reach that stage. In fact I’ve already mad a start in sheathing in the window. And it’s a good job that I don’t throw anything away, because I needed a few thin strips of wood to make a batten and here, hanging around in the house were the offcuts of the 10mm playwood sheeting that we used on the roof back in 2009.

shelving tonge and grroving head of stairs les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere’s a somewhat gloomy view of the reverse angle, showing the sloping part of the ceiling and one of the two shelves that I’ve fitted. There’s a bare wooden beam that’s exposed there at the back, and I’ll be repainting that in due course.

I solved the problem of cutting the tongue-and grooving down the length. The Ryobi Plus One circular saw on the softest setting saw to that, and without tears too

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Thursday 30th January 2014 – ANYONE WHO HASN’T COME …

… here for a few months won’t recognise this house now, that’s for sure.

I had another late start but I made up for that by curtailing my lunch break so I didn’t miss too much time. And I also found the tiny music player that takes micro-SD cards so I had music while I work too.

I put my back into it too and by the time I finished I had fitted the shelves, fitted all of the plasterboard on the outer wall, and made a start on filling the joints. I wanted to have all of the joints filled by the end of the day but that didn’t happen unfortunately. Nevertheless I’m pleased with the progress that I made.

That wasn’t all of it either. When I finished working at 18:00 I went out and emptied Caliburn and I was still there at 18:20, with the daylight that was left. The days are definitely getting longer.

And why empty Caliburn?

Liz has a few things to do in clermont tomorrow and needs a little help. If we go in Caliburn we can go to the Brico Depot at Lempes and stock up on the insulation and buy the tongue-and-grooving that I need, as well as some light blue emulsion.

Yes, I’m cracking on.

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Wednesday 29th January 2014 – I’VE STARTED …

… to put the second piece of plasterboard onto the wall today, but it’s probably going to have to come off again, which is a pain. I was doing it in the dark and, unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if it’s on correctly.

Ahhh well.

But given that, you might be wondering what on earth I’ve been doing all day. The answer to that is that the day wasn’t all that I had hoped it to be.

This new mobile ‘phone isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Here 8 was, complaining about the 3-day battery life on the ancient Nokia. On the brand-new Samsung, it’s … errrr … 38 hours. I thought that it didn’t sound right when I first let it run down and so I timed it after that, and here we are.

The alarm function isn’t up to much either. The cock-crow is too strident and so I’ve been turning it off instead of letting it snooze me slowly awake. That might explain why my morning didn’t occur until … errr … 09:20 – almost two hours late.

But then I filled in the sheet of plasterboard I fitted yesterday – all of the screwholes and the edges and the like. After that, I had to cut the two shelves that I’ll be fitting. There’s a lot of work to cut them too and that took a while. Luckily with the reasonable weather that we had, I didn’t feel inhibited about using the mains circular saw to do some of that.

Anyway, the shelves are cut and now varnished, and they can be screwed in place tomorrow.

The insulation and counter-battening comes up about 8mm short of the upright beams that I fitted in 2009. I was trying to find some 10mm insulation to make up the gap but no luck there, so I’ve been today adding another layer of this space-blanket insulation. That will go hard-up to the plasterboard on the outside wall of the stairwell. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … no money spent on insulation is ever wasted.

The final job was to insulate the false ceiling at the top of the stairs. I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago and I wonder how much heat from out of my little attic room has been wasted out of there.

And then, I started to cut and shape the second piece of plasterboard.

So you see that I’ve not been idle at all today, even though there might not be a lot to show for it yet.

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Wednesday 22nd January 2014 – HERE YOU ARE THEN

shelving lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceHere’s the shelving unit in the downstairs part of the lean-to, allnicely fitted and made to measure.

It didn’t take long to finish it either, about 3 hours or so. But I was interrupted by a heavy rainstorm so I had to take in the washing, and a phone call from Marianne too.

That did however give me some time to start emptying the verandah a little and move the stuff onto the shelves. There’s a long way to go, but at least I’ve made a decent start and it won’t be long before I can organise myself so much better

Tonight I cooked a mega-aubergine and kidney bean whatsit – and on the woodstove too. I’m definitely improving there.

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Tuesday 21st January 2014 – IF I’M NOT INTERRUPTED …

… tomorrow, I might actually finish these shelves.

I didn’t do anything this morning though because I wasn’t here. I had to go to St Eloy to see Marianne’s son Pascal. He’s giving up his little apartment there soon and moving to Montlucon to be nearer work. He’s not much good with a screwdriver and there are a few tasks that need to be done to put the apartment back how it should be. I said that I’d go for a look around and see what needs doing.

I took advantage of my visit to go to LIDL. Their special offer this week is D-i-Y stuff and I needed some screws so I stocked up with them.

After that I went to Cécile’s and the Post Office at Gouttières to negotiate a little about collecting this letter. After a lengthy period there with the guy who runs it, we agreed that Cécile needs to telephone him, and so I duly passed on the message.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, all of the washing (or, at least, all that I remembered to bring back from Cécile’s) is now hung up outside, so nice was the day, and then I attacked the shelving.

All 6 uproghts are now cut and shaped and because the floor is uneven and so they are all different lebgth, I’ve but a bracing bar across the three at the back to hold it all in position.

5 of the uprights are now screwed into position and the horizontal fitted to two pairs. I was trying to work out how to fit the 6th – it’s a little cramped in there and I need the room to pass the shelves through into position.

But having a stop and a think has made me think of a way to do it and so tomorrow I can press on.

Tonight I just lit a small fire and had a tea of pasta, veg, tomato sauce and veggie-burger. And it was the nicest meal that i’ve ever cooked on my little stove. I must be improving.

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Friday 17th January 2014 – DURING THE NIGHT …

… I was in Berlin, on the Underground with the much-maligned Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves) and we became separated as a train that she stepped onto pulled away before I could stepon it (Strangely enough, such a situation did actually occur when I was in London once with Liz Ayers).

I made a gesture to PP to get off at the next station and wait for me, and I would follow on the next train.

However we were waiting for hours and hours. It turned out that there had been an accident and the line was blocked, and then they hauled into our station a smashed and damaged Underground train)

We couldn’t continue on the Underground and so we had to take an overground train and then a bus, which dropped us a few hundred yards short of our destination. And the station was so big and confusing from above ground, and there were so many people milling around, and we had taken so long to get there that I was certain that I would never ever find PP again.

As I’ve said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … if only my real life waseven half as exciting as my dreams.

Today, in the glorious sunshine that gave me a world-record January total of 107 excess amps of solar charge, I remeasured all of the uprights (and how I wish that I had noticed that I had my measuring stick on a piece of wood when I measured Upright 3 – GRRRR!) and all 6 are cut, as are the lets into the floor beams above.

This afternoon I cut the joints in the first two and also cut all of the horizontals.

I’ve also fitted a batten across the uprights that support the stairs, screwed about 20 screws into it and I’ve started to hang up the tools there. I’m really in danger of being organised before I’m much older.

I had an interesting ‘phone call too.
Caller – “This is France Telecom Orange, your service provider. We would like to tell you about the massive reductions in telephone charges that occur as of today”
… (lengthy discussions on phone charges) …
Caller – “Now we just need to take your address details to check them with our records”
… (no problem with that – it’s in the telephone directory anyway) …
Caller – “Now if we can check your bank account details”
Our Hero – “Madame – what tree do you think that I fell out of?”
Caller – *click*
I suppose that there are some people who fall for calls like this.

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Thursday 16th January 2014 – DREARY, GREY, WET AND DEPRESSING.

But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather instead.

So first task this morning was to clean the stairwells and the ground floor underneath the stairs. That’ll teach me to drop a box of wood and sawdust, won’t it? But now even the stairs look impressive.

tidy ground floor les guis virlet puy de dome franceI thought that I would take a photo of the ground floor before I begin to clutter it up. You can see over there all of the wood that will be tne new shelves, the kitchen worktops and the new window. It’s all there.

Than I brought in the little shelf unit that is hawked aroud the place. That’s now in the corner next to the table, and I spent the morning putting all of the screws, nails and all kinds of things on there. This means of course that the shelving unit behind the stairs on the first floor – the one that I built 18 months or so ago, is now almost empty. I can, if I so desire, start to move stuff down there from up here if I so desire.

At lunchtime I went round to Cécile’s again. It seems that her mail redirection has expired because there was a pile of stuff in her box, but not the letter that she was expecting.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I did another pile of sorting out and collected up some more stuff that really belongs in there, and finally, just as it was going dark, I brought in three demi-chevrons. I’ve measured up in the downstairs lean-to and tomorrow I’m going to be starting on what I’ve been tidying up downstairs for – I’m going to use the space to work in – and start to build the set of shelves for the downstairs lean-to.

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Monday 30th December 2013 – AS YOU MIGHT HAVE EXPECTED …

… seeing as how today was the day that I started back to work, it didn’t rain this morning. In fact, for the first hour or two I thought that we were going to have some bright sunshine all day, but that idea was soon dispelled, even though the rain did manage to hold off.

And as I said yesterday, I’ve been shelf-filling today. And indeed they are almost full. You’ve no idea how much stuff I’ve been finding that Ive had lying around the place. Quite a bit of stuff that I had forgotten about.

I’ve also put the old computer stuff up there on one of the shelves. I can’t think when, if ever, I might use it again but Marianne’s stuff is quite important I suppose. I don’t want to lose it or have it damaged.

Tea was another one of those meals that wouldn’t get going for ages and when it did, it went berserk. I have a lot to learn about this stove

Anyway tomorrow, I’ll do some more stacking for a while and then knowk off early. New Year’s Eve.

And guess what the weather is doing?

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Tuesday 24th December 2013 – TOTALLY ASTONISHING!

Yes, I should say so. The wind here has been such today that I’ve had more wind energy in the last 24 hours than I’ve had in the preceding 12 months. According to the anenometer on the barn, we had gusts of up to 52mph. I was in the barn as a little of this was going on, a quick glance at the wattmeter attached to the ageing 400-watt Air 403 that I bought from Southwest Wind Power in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2002 was showing that at that particular moment I was receiving 280.3 watts of power and I have never before seen anything even approaching that amount of power.

And even as I type, I can hear the hollow tube of the turbine mount whining away, which means that the wind turbine is still churning it out. All in all I’m overwhelmed with this and I do wish that I could have this amount of wind every day.

shelving unit upstairs lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceMeanwhile, back at the ranch, the shelving unit is finished – or, at least, it’s finished as far as it will be for the next few days and I’ll add the doors and siding in due course.

It took me about 4 hours to finish it off and to screw it down, and the hardest job was to set it all in tension. It’s not just a floppy old wobbly shelf unit but something quite structural.

The shelving planks are a little warped but firstly, it’s cheap concrete shuttering that I buy at Brico Depot. Rough and ready, very solid, very thick, and very cheap. And secondly, of course, it’ll straighten itself out when it has some weight on it. I don’t mind it being like this at all – it’s not as if it’s for the inside of the house, of course.

When I finished it, I started to load it up, but called a halt for lunch – rather later than usual but I was enjoying myself.

After lunch and a brief siesta (I really don’t know what’s up with me these days) I went round to Liz and Terry’s with their Christmas presents, and they very kindly fed me and also loaded me up with a pile of goodies too, more of which tomorrow.

And now I’m back here. All of the alarms are switched off and I don’t intend to be doing anything for the foreseeable future. After the year that I’ve just had, I deserve a really long break.

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Monday 23rd December 2013 – THIS SHELF UNIT …

shelf unit upstairs lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome france… is taking shape, even as we speak. The framework should be finished tomorrow and I’ll do the doors and the siding after Christmas.

It’s the one thing that I need – some decent storage space. I have piles of new stuff awaiting use, piles of stock to sell on, all that kind of stuff, and it’s all over the place at the moment and I’m dropping it, dropping other stuff on top of it, walking on it, all that kind of thing. It needs sorting out and putting somewhere where it won’t get dirty, and this will fit the bill.

Anyway, despite the early night, I still had no end of trouble waking up this morning, Still, after breakfast I was out and cracking on.

And you can always tell how I’m enjoying myself by what time I knock off. Finishing time in winter is 18:00 but here I was at 18:30 still out there at it, and if it were light outside? I would be out there now.

But like I said, another good day on that tomorrow and it will be to all intents and purposes finished..

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Thursday 19th December 2013 – FIAT LUX!

12 volt DC electric lighting LED les guis virlet puy de dome franceNo – we aren’t talking about Italian cars and washing powder here, it’s that we now have power and light upstais in the downhill lean-to.

I was fed up of trailing cables all over the place, which is what I’ve been having to do for the last couple of days, and so bearing in mind that I did some wiring in there a while ago and that I also drilled a hole through the wall into the house last year, I hunted down a cheap American extension and fed it through the hole.

I then collected all of the loose wires, joined them together ( and these French cable connectors are the bees’ knees that’s for sure. I’m going to go round and replace every single one of my “chocolate block” connectors), threaded them through a conduit and put a plug on the end. With a switch wired in for working the lights as well, I plugged the circuit in and there we are!

But just looking at this image here, It’s hard to realise that just two years ago, there was almost nothing of that far wall, no flooring and no roof either. That lean-to has come a long way when you consider all of that.

After lunch I measured up for the shelving unit that I’m going to build, and tracked down the demi-chevrons that I need for the uprights as well as a few laths for the horizontal shelf supports. The uprights were cut to the approximate size and the front uprights were cut and marked for the horizontals, but I didn’t have time to finish them.

Firstly Marianne phoned me about tomorrow and then Rosemary rang for a natter. It’s always nice to talk to friends and I welcome every opportunity that there is, even if it does mean that I fall behind with my work. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Tomorrow I’m off to Clermont, on the bus would you believe? It’s Pionsat’s annual shopping day and I mustn’t miss it.

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