Tag Archives: stud wall

Monday 22nd June 2015 – BACK TO WORK …

… although I didn’t feel much like it. I didn’t have anything like a late night, but it was still difficult to crawl out of bed.

After breakfast, I did a pile of work on the computer again and that took me though to midday. And then I attacked the shower room.

The worktop is now in position, and all of the plasterboard has been fitted around it (except on the stud wall where the pipes will be running).

And I remembered why I hadn’t fitted the mounting rail on one side too. That was because there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre the worktop into position with both mounting rails in place. I had to take it out, fit the worktop and then refit the rail

But tiling the walls is going to be interesting. According to the plasterboard that I have fitted, the walls are out of plumb bu 25mm over a distance of a metre. So with 18m² of wall to tile, you can imagine what that is going to look like when it’s finished.

There were some bits of blank wall that needed plasterboarding too, and I had forgotten about these. I’ve made a start on them – one part has been done and I’m fitting the studding for the second. The third doesn’t need studding but just a bit of “dot and dab” – I’m sure that I have some stuff for that somewhere, and I’ll look tomorrow.

Water in the home-made immersion heater was really hot – off the scale in fact – and the water in the solar shower was at 32.5°C. 8 litres of water out of the immersion heater into the solar tank took that up to a glorious 38.5°C and I had the best shower that I have had for ages. But the wiring on the immersion heater is heating up again. I’m really going to have to have a good look at this next time we have a grey day.

Later, I made a mega-red pepper and lentil curry, enough for four days. Three says’ worth has gone into the fridge in the vacuum jars and that will keep me going quite happily for the next few days.

But I might not be working here tomorrow. Rob rang up and there’s the possibility of some folding stuff for the next few days.

-1

Wednesday 17th June 2015 – I’VE BEEN DRILLING ….

… for most of the afternoon.

I need to route all of the water pies – the cold water in, the hot water in, the hot and cold out and the hot and cold central heating – around the house, and where the water tanks will be going is in the attic right above the shower. The shower room and the kitchen where the sink will be are right in a vertical row one under the other, and so I’m planning to route all of the pipework down the inside of the stud wall.

The central heating is a later addition to the plan, and as well as that, I’d only made provision for the other water pipes in the top rails of the stud wall. Hence, there were 22 holes to cut and I’ve done 18 of them this afternoon.

As we’ve actually had some good weather today, I’ve resurrected the little 330-watt mains drill and that has made rather short and effortless work of the drilling.

Or it would have done, but I soon discovered why I hadn’t used it for years. The on-off switch is broken and so the drill is permanently “on”. That makes for some interesting moments when I’m starting off with the drilling.

I’ll finish all of this tomorrow and then I can finish off with the plan to fit the worktop. I might even have finished it off today but I crashed out for an hour – and I mean crashed out too. I was well-done.

This morning I started on my website, trying to resurrect all of the notes that I have lost, and that’s not easy. It’s going to be a lot of work and I’m not looking forward to doing it all again.

After that, I’ve been working in the garden. Yes, even though I said I wouldn’t this year.

But this was urgent as I had a load of stuff, including the beichstuhl, to take down to the compost heap. But I couldn’t get down there, seeing as the weeds, brambles and everything else have totally overwhelmed it. And so for a good hour and a half I was hacking my way down there.

But in a change, I’ve put the smaller container, the 15-litre one – in the beichstuhl. This will mean that it will have to be emptied more often, as it will fill up quicker, and that suits me fine. It’ll keep the compost bin turning over and keep the shower room healthier.

As it’s sitting low in the box, I’ve propped it up by taking the telephone directories upstairs and put them underneath the container. That raises it up and that’s much better. I’ve also put the bin bags and the shredder upstairs too so it’s all to hand.

And so I’ve had an easy night tonight. Day 2 of the aubergine and kidney bean casserole that I made yesterday and forgot to mention.

I was on my travels during the night – or, rather I wasn’t for I was here. Someone with whom I used to be very friendly back a few years ago was here too and we were watching my ocean-going yacht arriving down the little lane here. It took hours for them to unload it – in fact they still hadn’t finished by the time that I woke up, even though this guy had gone downstairs earlier to chivvy them up.

Tuesday 16th June 2015 – NOW THAT I’VE FINISHED …

… working on the corner where the beichstuhl is, I can post a couple of photos of it so that you can see what I’ve been doing.

That’s the worktop that I’ve been building just there. The container for the composting toilet is where you might expect it to be, and at the side is the container where the sawdust and wood-ash is kept. There’s a ladle in there for dispensing the sawdust and wood-ash.

The three contents combined (sawdust, wood-ash and the contents of a composting toilet used by someone with a vegan diet) contain all of the elements for making a first-class compost if it’s left to stand for a year or so. That’s why I have two compost bins down at the bottom of the garden. One is “working” and the other one is “standing”.

As for the container, it’s one of these huge stainless steel jam-boilers, about 25 litres of it, and complete with stainless steel lid. It’s lined with a bio-degradable dustbin liner and then a thick layer of shredded paper (I use old telephone directories as the paper is super-absorbent) to soak up any liquids.

As for the upper part, you can see the two shelves that I have fitted in place. One shelf is for what I call the “bathroom books” and the upper shelf is for the supplies of toilet paper and the like.

Storage space is quite important around here, seeing as how there is so much stuff that I seem to have accumulated. I can never have too much of that.

I have to fit the suspended ceiling (which won’t be for quite a while yet) and then it will be ready for tiling.

So having done that, I toot out the worktop for the sink. That had been propped into position merely to give me a kind-of workbench. Once I had done that, I had to reposition the mounting rails.

You may remember that I was planning an inset sink, but the old worktop wouldn’t support the weight of the sink once I had cut the hole in it. Hence I’m going for the type of sink that sits on top of the worktop, and this means that the height of the worktop needs to be lowered by 150mm so that the sink is at the same height.

I’ve also been drilling out the rails in the stud wall between the shower and the sink worktop so that the water pipes will pass down there out of the way.

I would have done much more too, except that I had to spend an hour or so in the barn looking for wood to make the new rails. I need to spend some time tidying up in there, although I’m not sure whenever that might happen.

And what else?

We had another bad weather day today. A hanging cloud everywhere this morning, and this in mid-June too. All miserable, wet and depressing.

I’ve been working on the laptop too, and found another technical forum that looks quite helpful, so I’ve posted on there to ask whether anyone has any ideas about whether it might be possible to extract the data from this failed hard drive.

I doubt it, but it costs nothing to try.

Friday 24th April 2015 – APART FROM HAVING …

… to leave my nice comfortable bed for obvious reasons during the night, I had the best night’s sleep that I have had for a century. It was wonderful.

I was out like a light, and was off on my travels too. I was at a Gothic cathedral somewhere in the UK auditioning singers to choose one to front a huge concert and trade show. And after having listened to all of them, I had the very disappointing task of announcing that there wasn’t one of them sufficiently good to be given the task. That was not a popular decision by any means.

From there, I went with Liz to the Trade Show. It was in a new all-glass exhibition hall and was on several floors, and packed to the gunwhales with people. We spent our time wandering around the mezzanine between the first and second floor looking at all the technology stands.

After breakfast I finished off the rock music radio programmes for the month of June, and then attacked the shower room. I’ve assembled the stud wall and screwed it into position. And I was right too – it’s much more solid than its predecessor.

I had to cut down a sheet of plasterboard while it was standing upright. I didn’t think that this would be very easy at all, to say the least, but clamping a long and heavy straight-edge in position where I wanted to cut – that simplified the task considerably and it’s not all that much more difficult than cutting it when its lying down on its back. It’s amazing how your technique adjusts itself when necessity is driving you forward.

So having screwed the first piece or two back on, I’ve made a start on constructing the new beichstuhl. This is going to be a permanent fixture instead of a “thunder box”, but the container can lift out and be taken downstairs to be emptied all the same.

I went to St Eloy for shopping this evening. There was no-one there whom I knew, and it was a comparatively cheap trip (apart from the fact that I treated myself to a couple of things in the “reduced” box).

And that is that. I’m off now for an early night in my lovely comfortable bed. It really is the business and I keep on sticking my head in there during the day, just to admire my handiwork.

That’s definitely a sign of contentment and, strange as it may seem to say it, I’m glad that I didn’t do it earlier as my technique a couple of years ago was nothing like what it is now. This is one of the reasons why I’ve dismantled the shower room and started again, and I do wish that I could restart the attic from scratch. Compared to the bedroom, the attic is something of a shambles.

I would love to do it all again.

-1

Wednesday 22nd April 2015 – HAVE A GUESS …

… where I’ll be sleeping tonight!

We now have acquired a mattress (which cost more than everything else in the bedroom combined), a new sheet, new pillows, new quilt, new mattress cover, new sheet and new pillowcases. And I shall be in there in a very short space of time.

I’ve even had a shower (5 litres of hot water at 69°C out of the home-made immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the excess solar energy and poured into the solar shower at 32°C and the result was gorgeous) and a shave too. I’ll be nice and clean in there.

And no alarm either. I’ll be sleeping in there until I awake and I don’t care if it’s not until lunchtime either.

Many thanks to Terry who helped me bring the mattress into the bedroom. It had to come in through the window and that was something to which I was not looking forward. But with Terry, we had done it in 2 minutes, and then spent two hours chatting and drinking coffee.

And that reminds me – talking of coffee – I had the percolator running again – and twice too. Once for me at lunchtime and once when Terry came round. The weather was such that I could certainly spare the electricity.

This morning, I had another go with the weedkiller and then I used the wood treatment to cover the stud wall that I had built the other day. At least – I’ve not built the wall but everything is cut and shaped, and it was the pieces that I covered in wood treatment.

So I’m off to bed in a minute, and tomorrow I’ll let you know how the bed is.

-2

Friday 17th April 2015 – SO …

… after the vicissitudes of yesterday, it was “keep calm and carry on” today.

But it nearly wasn’t. I shouldn’t have had that coffee when I knocked off yesterday evening because at 02:45 this morning I was still up and about. Serve me right.

And having slept on it, I’ve decided that the next worktop that I fit, I’ll cut it, fit it into position and then build the cupboard around it BEFORE I cut out the insert for the sink. That way, it might just withstand the whole process.

After breakfast, I made a start on the new stud wall. I’m building it downstairs and then I’ll take the bits into the shower room and assemble it. It’s had a couple of design improvements too, there are also the brackets fitted for a couple of shelves, and even though I say it myself, it’s much better-built than its predecessor – the joints are tighter for a start – but so it should be, seeing how I’ve taken more time over it.

By the time knocking off came round, it had all been built, shaped and had a trial fitting. Now, all it needs is for some wood treatment to be applied because the wood has been stored in the same place where the other two bits (that I mentioned yesterday) had been stored.

At the shops, I didn’t meet anyone that I knew, but I had to go and pick up a parcel that was awaiting me – more of this anon. I spent the grand total of €19 in the shops at St Eloy this evening even with a couple of little extras – it’s definitely cheaper here than at the Intermarche in Pionsat.

So now I’m off to bed for an early night. I need one after yesterday.

Thursday 16th April 2015 – WE HAVE HAD A CALAMITY.

Yes, and you have no idea just how miserable and fed up I am.

Mind you, at about 11:00 things were going pretty well, as you can see.

Here is the worktop in the bathroom. It’s been cut to size and shaped to fit. And now I’ve put it into position just to make sure that it’s fine.

It is in fact milimetre-perfect, except that it’s going under the rails, not over them. But that’s not a problem

Next plan is to cut out the inset for the sink.

It’s not as complicated as you might think. First, you draw around the perimeter of the sink, to give you a maximum area. Then using a straight edge and a pencil, you draw straight lines from the perimeter – these correspond with the outline of the inset that you need so that you can drop the sink into the hole that you’ll be cutting.

Then you remove the sink, and continue the lines into the inside of the perimeter and they will all join up and you’ll have an internal perimeter. If you enlarge the photo, you’ll see exactly what I mean.

And then you cut away the internal perimeter. Drilling out the corners with a 10mm drill, you can use a jigsaw then to cut out along the lines.

And here we have the sink, inset into the worktop, and the worktop screwed in place.

Well, in fact the sink is just set into the hole. What you need to do of course is to smear mastic everywhere and then drop the sink in, and that will make a permanent fixture.

So it’s looking good, isn’t it?

Well, actually, no it isn’t.

If you look at my thunb, you’ll see that the worktop has collapsed – and collapsed under its own weight too (I put the sink in afterwards for a demonstation).

That’s right – more rubbish from Brico Depot. Cheap, nasty worktops that aren’t fit to be used as firelighters. This went into the bin. And there will be another pile of Brico Depot stuff following it too.

I’ve been complaining for ages about the quality of Brico Depot stuff being worse and worse, and it’s hit rock bottom today. I’ve wasted 5 hours on this piece of Brico Depot garbage

Anyway, I went and had a coffee and called it a morning. I also had a listen to Neil Young singing about Brico Depot products

And if that’s not bad enough, then this afternoon I made a start on another job that I had intended to do now that I’ve dismantled the shower room. And that was to rebuild one of the stud walls, only with the shelf rails in the correct place.

I sorted out he two demi-chevrons left over from when I bought a pile of stuff years ago to repair the downhill lean-to that had collapsed, and then marked them off and started to cut the lets.

That was when I noticed that both the demi-chevrons had somehow acquired a dose of dry-rot. Consequently, they’ve followed the shower room worktop into the pile of firewood.

Believe me – I’m totally p155ed off by all of this. On Monday, after the radio, I’m going to go and have a look at the real worktops in IKEA and I don’t care how much I have to pay. I’m totally fed up with this Brico Depot rubbish.

The good news is that we had a storm tonight and 8mm of rain fell in 90 minutes. That’s filled the water butts back up and no mistake. If the good weather comes back, I can carry on with the washing.

And I was on my travels last night – around the pubs in the East End of London. and I had to go and change my clothes and disguise myself, and the best place to do this is in the toilet of course. So there I was in the ladies’, of all places, in a cubicle with a woman banging on the door. But I was too busy checking through the stuff in there to make sure that some stuff that I had left a previous time was still there. And when I came out, the woman had gone and the toilet was empty. From here I went on the Holmes Chapel and Shearings depot, wandering around carrying a huge pile of plates. People were telling me that there was a load of new faces for the new season that was starting, but of course that was nothing new as coach-tour driving is something of an itinerant job. Still, there I was, wandering around all of the rooms, and it suddenly occurred to me – why don’t I put the plates down? Why do I need to carry them about?

Wednesday 31st December 2014 – NOW HERE’S A THING.

While I was having (a rather late) breakfast this morning, I started to empty out the woodstove and clean the glass window. But much to my surprise, the big log that I put in there last think last night was still smouldering away.

It didn’t fire up however when I opened the foor, but it was still something of note to see it.

After breakfast, Iwent out to look at this idea of fitting the wood to the ends of the runs of plasterboard as I mentioned yesterday. However, I was thwarted right at the start, because it was one of these jobs where you needed to do several other things before I could start.

I had to fit a few lengths of tongue and grroving as a false ceiling, but before that I had to fit the plasterboard onto part of the stud walling. And before I could do that, I had to move some wiring around.

Anyway, you get the picture.

However, we have made a little bit of history because we now have, for the first time, plasterboard on both sides of part of the stud walling. That’s history in the making of course, and it means that whatever is between the two layers of plasterboard is there for good now, in exactly the same place as it’s going to be.

There’s 5 lengths of tongue and grooving in the ceiling as well, enough to clear the stairway.

And while I was doing all of this, I had another idea. I don’t have too much of this wood that I was talking about yesterday, so seeing that it’s good, heavy stuff I’m going to save it for where I’m putting the hinges for the doors. For the rest, I’ve been experimenting with floorboarding. I cut one to size, trimmed off the tongue and then with the circular saw I cut the width to size.

I had to file and sandpaper the edge where I cut the width to size, and it didn’t turn out to be as bad as I was fearing. A power plane or a belt sander would finish them off quite nicely but I don’t have them so I’ll have to do without.

So while it might not look as if I’ve done much today, it is in fact an enormous amount of progress both physically and psychologically too. Just one piece of wood to be fitted and then I can start to fill and then sand down the stairwell ready for wallpapering and painting

-1

Sunday 19th January 2014 – IT’S SUNDAY!

And the thing that I like about Sundays is that it’s the day when I can do whatever I like (or even nothing at all if I so desire) and don’t allow myself to feel guilty about it or about doing anything more important.

Consequently, lying in my nice clean bed and refusing to leave it until … errr … 11:00 does not worry me in the slightest.

I did have one or two things that needed doing though. Liz had reminded me that we are in the studio for Radio Anglais tomorrow and so I had to finish off my notes about speed cameras and to prepare all of the hardware etc that we need. I also had to prepare some new data sheets for the statistics that I keep here, And what with all of that, it didn’t leave me very much time for anything else.

After that, it was round to Liz and Terry’s for rehearsals and I stopped off at Cécile’s on the way to check her mailbox for post, make sure that her house was okay and to take advantage of her washing machine. In the depths of winter I usually have to pay a launderette for my washing, so if I’mpaying someone I may as well pay Cécile.

On the way back, I was stuck behind some kind of car that thought that it was amusing to drive at 60 KPH on the road between St Gervais and Pionsat. I know that in places it’s quite a tortuous, sinuous road, but in other places you can put your foot as far down as you like with no difficulty at all. And so I did.

In the gridiron tonight, the Broncos were looking very effective as they swept aside a rather dad-looking Patriots side. Nothing spectacular or special, which probably means that they might be second-best in the Superbowl, but then again their fans will argue that they didn’t need to do too much this evening.

We shall see.

-4

Thursday 18th July 2013 – MYSTERY SOLVED

It wasn’t the old abandoned house that fell down the other night. I managed to have a wander around there to see, and although I walked past it twice without seeing it, because it was so covered in ivy and weeds and so on, it’s still there, or, rather, what’s left of it is,

But I know what it was that made that noise.

I managed to make my way down to the compost bin today (high time I emptied the composting toilet – it certainly needed it) and I’ll tell you what – a cordless Ryobi Plus One hedge trimmer makes a magnificent strimmer for dealing with tall grass and weeds and the like – it’s a long time since I’ve been as impressed as this.

But back to the plot

There are piles of dead wood and twigs and branches covering the bottom end of my garden and there, in the next field where Lieneke had a huge old tree of some description, well she doesn’t have it now.

There’s about two metres of stump and then there’s absolute carnage. I’m not surprised that it heaved me out of bed.

As for the shower room, well, it’s all finished as far as I can go until I buy the tiles.

And it was finished at lunchtime too (mind you, it was 14:45 when I stopped).

The good news is that the sink is not 50cms at all but just 43cms. That means that I can have a 45cm worktop instead of a 52cm one and that will give me much more room.

I have to admit that, in all honesty, my shower room is not going to be the place to be for anyone suffering from claustrophobia.

But there will be plenty of shelving and even a very small 20cm deep linen cupboard.

But seeing as I had finished by 14:45, how come I didn’t knock off until 19:45 then?

The answer to all of that is that, as I explained just now, I fought my way down to the compost bin, and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either as you can imagine.

And once I had finished attacking the vegetation, I emptied, cleaned and recharged the composting toilet. And it needed it too, as I have said.

After that, changing the habits of a lifetime, I attacked the the room which will be the bedroom and which I’ve been using as a workroom.

A pile of wood went straight out of the window for a start, and then I started to sweep up and tidy up. 3 large bin bags of rubbish and a bin full of sawdust for the toilet, and it’s not finished yet.

But it’s amazing the space that you can make if you put your mind to it.

I’m going to have a serious go tomorrow and see if I can’t make enough space to lie flat all of the sheets of plasterboard instead of having them propped up against a wall bowing away to themselves alarmingly.

They ought to be lain flat but I’ve never really had the space to do it.

Tons of tools recovered, as well as tons of nails and screws, and I bet that there will be others recovered tomorrow. But I’m not going to do too much – I have a pile of correspondence to deal with and some of that is urgent.

I felt like cooking tonight too, and ended up with a gorgeous meal – potatoes, carrots, cauliflower in a cheese sauce and a veggie burger. Absolutely marvellous.

Went down a treat with the ice cream sorbet that I bought for myself as a treat for finishing the shower room.

And we’ve had a storm tonight. First rain since July the … errr … 2nd? And we needed it too as the water situation was getting desperate.

I’m glad that I cleaned out the filters the other day.

-5

Wednesday 17th July 2013 – WELL YOU MISSED …

… all of the excitement last night, that’s for sure.

I didn’t though.

At about 03:30 I was awoken by the most almighty crash. My first thought was that, after singing the praises of my stone wall to Helena last night, that the lean-to that I rebuilt last year had collapsed. It was definitely that kind of noise.

So heaving myself out of my stinking pit I went for a good walk around my property, taking a torch with me. and there’s nothing missing or damaged that I can see. So after that I went to bed, even though it was impossible to sleep.

This morning though, the old abandoned house stuck in the abandoned jungle plot next to the spring doesn’t seem to be there.

I can’t get to it to check, but the last time that I looked, back in January if I remember, it was certainly on its last legs, and so that may as well be that.

The proprietors are Parisians and they’ve been trying to sell it for years. I made the odd enquiry about it, but they want to recoup the money that they paid for it back in the 1960s, even though they haven’t been there to visit it for 30 years.

In that time, house prices here have collapsed, and now it looks as if the house has too.

I was a little optimistic about my plans to finish the shower room today.

I’ve finished the false wall by the shower, along with a slight amendment to detail, and fitted the sheet of plasterboard.

I’ve also fitted the rails around the wall from which the false ceiling (yes, tongue and grooving, in case you were wondering – which I’m sure that you aren’t) will be fitted.

From then on, though, I was busy making the framework for the false wall by the composting toilet.

And I’m not at all sure where the time goes because I haven’t finished cutting the joints, never mind assembling it, and it was 19:40. I dunno where the time goes, though.

I haven’t stopped working today and yet I didn’t seem to accomplish much. It’s a mystery.

Too tired to carry on, I had an early night (last week I would have said that 19:40 was a flaming late night – how times have changed over a week) and came up here.

For the radio programmes I wrote just over 1500 words on collecting mushrooms and almost 2800 on salient points to remember in the different types of relationships in French family life.

That took me from about 09:00 to 12:30 and from 19:45 until 21:00.

Then I finished for tea, and that is that until tomorrow…

-7

Tuesday 16th July 2013 – EVEN MORE WHACKED!

And that’s hardly surprising either.

Despite yesterday’s Herculean efforts I was wide-awake and up and about long before the alarm went off and after breakfast I finished all of the notes for the rock music programme for the forthcoming month;

In the shower room quite early too, and I discovered to my dismay that I hadn’t fitted the bracing on the wall at the head of the stairs. That needed doing before I could fit the plasterboard.

But that was all done, the cables re-routed and the plasterboard fitted, and all before lunch too – mind you it was 15:00 when I stopped for I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way of doing what I need to do;

Into Pionsat to buy some bread and there in the Intermarche was Rick the Trailer Guy. Seeing as it’s harvest time I greeted him with a “hey, Rick” but, being Dutch, it went clean over his head.

Keen readers of this rubbish will remember back in August last year that Rick’s cello was blown away in a freak gust of wind and badly damaged, but he has it back now, “Playing even better”, so he says and I’m glad about that.

It was a real tragedy.

Just half an hour for lunch and then I attacked the next stage of the shower room – the false wall.

And in a fit of reckless extravagence that’s installed now. It just needs one more horizontal brace fitting ad then the shower side can be cladded with a sheet of plasterboard.

All that then remains is the false wall for the composting toilet and that, dear reader, will be that.

The plasterboard around the windows is not all that important – it doesn’t need to be fitted in order to be measured up for tiles.

If I can finish the second false wall, then i’ll be two days ahead of my schedule, which is impressive enough.

And so it ought to be too because if you think that 20:35 was late for knocking off last night, this evening we finished work at 20:50, which has to be something of a record, I reckon.

But I’m too tired to cook and I’m too tired to eat. I’m going to bed and I’ll sleep for a week I reckon..

-3

Monday 15th July 2013 – I’M WHACKED!

And it’s hardly surprising.

If you think that 19:40 and 19:45 is late to knock off, how about 20:35? And I was having so much fun that I would have carried on too if I hadn’t been so tired.

This morning first thing I uploaded another pile of Nova Scotia pages and I’ve now arrived at Halifax.

The Halifax pages have been on line for quite a while, and so the next step is to go to Truro and then the Stellarton/Port Glasgow conurbation.

Once those pages were up and running I dashed off a quick 2002 words (in under two hours – I was on form) for the additional notes for the Radio Anglais programmes that we record for Radio Arverne

If that wasn’t enough, I sorted out the music and wrote part of the script for the Radio Tartasse rock programmes that we do. Yes, everyone is having their money’s worth.from me today.

In the shower room, I’m ahead of myself and doesn’t that make a pleasant change for once?

Just the plasterboard on the wall at the head of the stairs and around the window to fix now – all the rest is installed and the wiring is exactly where I want it, which also makes a change.

The gaps between the window and the wall on both the outside and the inside are now sealed too and that Ryobi Plus One mastic gun is an impressive piece of kit, that’s for sure.

I must buy myself one of those without any doubt.

But where I am ahead of myself is that the shower tray is installed and fitted.

With two layers of flooring, I cut out a square in the top layer with the circular saw (and that took ages to get the correct shape – in places I had to use the drill and chisel) and then I had to drill a big hole in the second layer of floor to pass the drain through.

I didn’t have a hole saw big enough for that and so I cut four smaller holes in a cloverleaf pattern and with the jigsaw cut out the bit in the middle.

And then I lined the hole with the plumbers mastic that Terry gave me, dropped the shower tray in, and then sealed it off all round. It really looks impressive – seeing a shower tray in the shower room.

Whatever next?

I had a good chat with Rachel and with Cécile on skype this evening and I won’t be doing much more as I’m whacked.

Tomorrow I’ll be checking on the sealing around the shower base, fitting the missing bits of plasterboard, and then starting to build the false wall around the shower base.

When that’s in, I can measure up for the tiles.

-6

Friday 5th July 2013 – IT’S POETS DAY TODAY

Yes – p … errr … ush off early, tomorrow’s Saturday and so I did knock off early too. Upstairs sitting in my room with a good book by … errr … 19:35.

This morning I had another couple of hours on the internet with the next instalments of web pages, with just a minor interruption from Rosemary. Her car’s gone wrong and she didn’t understand the garagiste.

Anyway, I gave him a quick ring and found out that a wheel bearing – roulement – has packed up. I duly relayed the message to Rosemary and after a little chat, I carried on with my work.

This afternoon I took off the sheet of plasterboard that I’d fitted incorrectly and dismantled the wiring that I’d assembled last week.

I then threaded all of the wiring down the channels that I had drilled, reassembled it and then fitted two (or rather one and a half) sheets of plasterboard, as you can see.

But there are two issues with all of this.

Firstly, you’ll notice a horizontal line right across the nearer sheet of plasterboard. Trying to put a sheet of plasterboard into the cutting position, I dropped it (these 13mm waterprrof sheets are flaming heavy) and it snapped.

And so I fetched another one – and did exactly the same.

I’m working in a confined space with no room to move around and I’m on my own with these heavy objects so I’m bound to have accidents.

But at least the split in this one will be below the level of the tiling and so seeing as how it will be bunged up with tile cement it doesn’t really make much odds.

The second thing though is more important. I’ve cut some of the wires too short and I’ve not much idea exactly what I can do about that. I shall have to think of something.

Last night though, I was in Nantwich. Of course I know Nantwich very well – it’s where I went to school and I like to go there for a wander around the shops and to sit by the river on a summer evening. In my dream Nantwich was very much like it is today except that although just recently that have built a new road around the back of the town, in my dream there was an old road system around the back there) that went to Winsford and Middlewich (and is much more logical that the road system of the late Victorian age). . A friend and I went for a walk through the crowds sunning themselves by the river at the back of the swimming baths and we carried on along this old abandoned road. After about half a mile, after passing some mile posts of the 1920s we came to a roundabout where the roads for Middlewich and Winsford diverged. This roundabout had all of the signs and street furniture of the 1920s and was probably one of the earliest roundabouts ever to be built, On the fourth exit off the roundabout, there were a couple of big cars of the late 1920s parked up. They were in fact die-cast models but life-size and I remember trying to lift up the bonnet of one of them.

Anyway, now I’m filthy dirty, unshaven, unwashed and in the same clothes for a week and feel totally uncomfortable.

Tomorrow, come what may, I’ll be going for a swim at Neris-les-Bains. You just watch the baths be closed for maintenance.

-9

Thursday 4th July 2013 – I WAS TOO TIRED …

… to cook tea tonight.

That’s no surprise, though. It was 19:25 (or something like that) the other night, 19:45 last night, and all of 20:40 this evening when I finished.

I’d actually fitted one sheet of plasterboard onto the stud wall, but it has to come off and be refitted as it’s in the wrong place, and I ran out of time and energy.

You are probably wondering why it took so long to fit it. The answer to that is that it’s not as straightforward as I led you to believe yesterday.

Apart from the usual interruptions of the phone and of visitors, first thing that I had to do was to extend the flooring into the bedroom. I’d “overlooked” the fact that I hadn’t refitted the horizontal bracing to the stud wall at ground level.

You may remember that I’d had to raise the level of the shower room floor and so I’d taken up the floor level horizontal bracing. And I hadn’t refitted it. And of course with the higher level of flooring it needed to be reshaped.

Then of course there’s a quick way and there’s a proper way to do all of this and I’ve decided to do it the proper way.

Consequently all of the framework is now on the end wall and the insulation is stapled in place but it isn’t nailed in with the counter-battens yet.

I also still have these two holes to drill in the wall. But it’s all coming together quite nicely right now and we are making progress in leaps and bounds..

Apart from that, you may remember a few weeks ago that I was talking about these Nova Scotia pages that I had half-written.

Since then, I’ve been spending two hours each morning just after breakfast to bring them right up-to-date and this morning I posted the first batch on-line.

have a good read – that should keep you out of mischief for an hour or two.

-6

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: stud wall

Monday 22nd June 2015 – BACK TO WORK …

Wednesday 17th June 2015 – I’VE BEEN DRILLING ….

Tuesday 16th June 2015 – NOW THAT I’VE FINISHED …

Friday 24th April 2015 – APART FROM HAVING …

Wednesday 22nd April 2015 – HAVE A GUESS …

Friday 17th April 2015 – SO …

Thursday 16th April 2015 – WE HAVE HAD A CALAMITY.

Wednesday 31st December 2014 – NOW HERE’S A THING.

Sunday 19th January 2014 – IT’S SUNDAY!

Thursday 18th July 2013 – MYSTERY SOLVED

Wednesday 17th July 2013 – WELL YOU MISSED …

Tuesday 16th July 2013 – EVEN MORE WHACKED!

Monday 15th July 2013 – I’M WHACKED!

Friday 5th July 2013 – IT’S POETS DAY TODAY

Thursday 4th July 2013 – I WAS TOO TIRED …

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