Tag Archives: bedroom

Thursday 5th March 2015 – I DIDN’T QUITE MANAGE …

… to complete as much as I intended to do on the wardrobe today. I had the usual issues of working hard but making not much progress.

It took all morning to hang the two doors that I had made yesterday. Mind you, I spent some of the time having a good search around looking to see if I had any hinges lying around anywhere. I eventually found three in the barn. I must have bought those for some long-forgotten project, but they weren’t much good as they were left-hand hinges and too big in any case.

However I did find half a hinge in the house and this made a pair (or at least it will do when I find the other half) with a hinge that I had already, so I could at least do that. It also means that I don’t have to go on a shopping expedition to Montlucon on Saturday.

final door for wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, I made the final door and for a change, I had a play with the cheap chop-saw that I bought agesa couple of years ago in the sales at Cheze in St Eloy-les-Mines. This did an excellent job, although it needs two cuts to cut the width of a floorboard (which is annoying) but never mind. I’ll be doing the floorboards with this.

While I was on my travels around, I tried to see if I could find the Ryobi portable router that I bought in the USA in 2012 but I’ve no idea where that might be. Not a trace.

The final door needed trimming down but once I’d done that it was quite a good fit and it’s all come out quite well.

all of the doors need trimming off of course, so I measured everything up ready to cut them down tomorrow. That ook me nicely up to 18:30 when I called it a day

During the night I was on my travels again, back in Crewe. We were living back in Davenport Avenue and there was quite a crowd of us there. We all had cars and the place was totally cluttered up with vehicles. Anyway, I went on the bus up Gresty Road and South Street and the bus turned right into Nantwich Road, towards the station. I realised that I should have alighted at the corner so I urgently rang the bell. The driver went to stop but of course there’s nowhere along there to stop (the bus was clearly driving on the right-hand side of the road) so the driver said that he would swing round into Pedley Street and come back round into Nantwich Road to drop me off. I told him not to bother as I was going to Pedley Street anyway, so I alighted then and there and went to a house where I cooked my pizza and chips. I somehow managed to burn my chips although my pizza wasn’t anything like nearly cooked. So I abandoned my tea that and went outside where I bumped into my friend Mandy, and we had quite a chat about the good old days.

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Tuesday 3rd March 2015 – I HAD A GOOD DAY …

… at work today, for a change. Although, as usual, you wouldn’t really notice.

I was up early enough and after breakfast had a good crack on at the laptop. As well as the Radio Anglais programmes, I’ve restarted work on my website again. I’ve done almost nothing on it during the winter but now Spring is here and it’s time to come out of hibernation and get a wiggle on

upper doors fitted wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn the bedroom I spent some of the morning finishing off the second door on the upper part of the wardrobe, cutting out the lets for the hinges and fitting them, and then fitting the door handle and the magnetic catch. Once I’d done all of that, I could hang the door.

And then take the door off, file down part of the edges so that it would fit better and then rehang it.

Off to Caliburn next, to fetch another pack of floorboarding and bring that upstairs. Then I could make up a board out of seven planks, ready to cut down to make doors 3,4,5 and 6.

After lunch, I cut two strips 770mm wide out of the board that I had made. 770mm is the height of the upper doors (give or take a millimetre or two) and these two strips will form the four doors that I mentioned just now.

One of the strips I cut down to make two doors of exactly the right width for doors 3 and 4, and then fitted the reinforcing battens. I had to cut down some wood for the battens, and the table saw that I bought in Commentry a couple of months ago did the job expertly. In fact, I was running the electricity and power tools today (the circular saw, the belt sander and the table saw) until 18:40 today without significantly draining the batteries and I’m well pleased with that.

So now the two doors are ready to be hung tomorrow morning, and then I can crack on with cutting down doors 5 and 6. When they are done, there will be just door 7 to fit, and then the upper fascia panels and then I can varnish the wardrobe.

Tonight, I didn’t light a fire. 17.8°C in the attic it was, which was impressive for this time of year. I cooked tea on the single burner camping stove that I use for making coffee and as well as working perfectly (a good plan making these huge curries and packing them into individual portions – they don’t take much heating) it warmed up the place by 1°C.

On the subject of electricity, I noticed that at one stage we were having 42 amp-hours of surplus electricity. It didn’t last long but it pumped uop the heat in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load.

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Monday 2nd March 2015 – I DIDN’T GET …

… as much done as I wanted to today – but then I had quite an interruption round about lunchtime.

I struggled to get out of bed this morning, but nevertheless I cracked on with my stuff about Algeria and managed to finish that, at least, even though I was late going down to work.

I managed to fit all of the framework for the upper doors, although one piece had to be recut after it split while I was malleting it into position. All of that took much longer than I anticipated, due mainly to my having to cut a couple more fascia pieces as the ones that I had set aside were not strong enough.

Once that had been done, I went out to fetch a pile of floorboards from Caliburn and then made the first of the upper doors.

But this was when I noticed the smell of burning.

We had a brief patch of sun today and I ended up with 45 amp-hours of power going down the cables to the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. It seems that the connector on the positive cable wasn’t up to that and the connection was arcing out. I ended up having to cut it off, fit a new connector, cut off the insulation and then solder it using the new gas soldering gun that Terry bought me for Christmas.

My soldering is total rubbish as you know, but it has to be better than my crimping, so it seems. and it was then that I noticed that the thread appears to be stripped in the heater element. I had to remove the screw and do my best with a nut and bolt, but that’s not looking so good and I’m going to have to deal with this.

All in all, I ended up having lunch at about 16:30.

Back at work I carried on until 19:00. All of the hinges are in place but the door needs trimming down. That’s not the kind of thing that you can do when you are tired and so I’ll be dealing with that first thing tomorrow.

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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 26th February 2015 – I WAS UP …

… early this morning. However this was not due to any urgent desire to get to work. I knew that I shouldn’t have finished off that bottle of pop before I went to bed.

That gave me an hour or so before starting work and so I made a start on the next month’s issue of radio programmes. I might as well put this time to good use. I made quite a bit of progress too but like anything else, there’s never enough time to do anything.

I had a good day at work today. First job was to take that sheet of floorboarding that I had made up yesterday and cut off one of the doors for the wardrobe.

Once that had been done, it needed the diagonal bracing and the door handle fitting, and then I had to organise the hinges on the door and on the frame. With that done, I could hang the door. And while it needs a little sanding where it’s tight on the frame , it’s quite a good fit.

Next task was to cut down the remaider of the sheet of floorboarding to make the second door. And then to repeat all of the above procedure as on the first door and hang that.

That was a good fit too except once more, a little tight on the frame (but sanding will take care of that of course).

However, the width was about 2mm out but I was able to deal with that by undoing the bracing, using a large sash clamp to pull the floor boards closer together and then te-attaching the bracing. That way, I recovered the 2mm that I needed and the widths are perfect, which is certainly impressing me.

two pairs of doors on wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceOnce the bolt had been fitted on one of the door and the lock and magnetic catch fitted to the second door, then we now have two pairs of doors on the wardrobe and this is starting to look serious.

Knocking off for lunch 15 minutes late and knocking off for the evening 45 minutes late – you can see just how much time and effort that I’m putting into this bedroom. I don’t understand why it’s not progressing much quicker than it is. That’s something of a complete mystery to me.

Tomorrow, I’ll be fitting the shelving brackets and then cutting the shelves to fit. That is, provided that we have some sun. Today, we were bathed in a hanging cloud all day, solar energy was nominal and the batteries didn’t half creak when I was running the circular saw. We need a good day pretty soon.

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Wednesday 25th February 2015 – BACK TO WORK TODAY

And I didn’t feel much like it either. A late night last night and the battery going flat in the mobile phone that I use as an alarm clock meant that I wasn’t awake as early as I would have liked, and I crashed out for half an hour at lunchtime too.

Once I actually started work (about 20 minutes late) I cracked on – or so it seemed – but despite working consciensciously throughout the day, I haven’t made all that much progress and I don’t know why.

The story of my life just recently, I’m afraid.

door hanging wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceI cut the second door of the wardrobe down to size (and much to my surprise, the width is millimetre-perfect), sanded off the edges with the new belt sander, did the lets in the door and the frame for the hinges and fastened them, and then hung the door.

Once it was in place, I fitted the handle, fitted the door lock and drilled out the hole for the key, and fitted the magnetic catch.

That took me nicely up to something of a late lunch and I went off upstairs for a little doze

After lunch, I rooted out another couple of packets of floorboarding (and also found the strips for the shelving supports for the inside of the wardrobe – I knew that I had them somewhere) and then made the sheet of planks from which I’ll be cutting out the doors for the other half of the wardrobe.

I also made the framework for the doors and that took me to 18:30, so having more-than-recovered the time lost due to my late start, I called it a day.

For tea, I cooked a mega-pepper-and-lentil curry that’s now divided up for another three meals, and now I’m off to bed.

I’ll be carrying on with my doors tomorrow – I wonder how far I will get.

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Friday 20th February 2015 – AHHH WELL!

Yes indeed!

door wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceYesterday I told you of everything that I needed to do on the wardrobe, and how I would be lucky to do half of it. In fact I’ve managed to make the framework for one pair of doors, assemble a pair of doors and hang one of them.

And that’s it.

And I’m not sure why either. It’s not as if I’ve been slacking or been distracted, or spent hours looking for stuff either. I’ve put in a good shift and made good use of the circular saw and the new belt sander (with which I am very impressed – it does exactly what I wanted it to do) too, but for some reason I don’t think that I’ve advanced very much.

I’ll have to work much harder than this if I want to make progress because this isn’t very good at all. if I carry on like this I’m never going to accomplish anything. However, I’m not quite sure how I can work any faster. After all, as I have already said, it isn’t as if I’ve been slacking.

After knocking off, I went into Pionsat. Firstly, for a pile of shopping at the Intermarche of course, and secondly to put a load of washing into the washing machine there. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … installing the little launderette at the Intermarche was the best thing that the owners of the supermarket ever did.

I had the clothes hanging outside in the wind, because we’ve been having a lovely windy day today, but when I was outside later doing the stats, it started to rain so I’ve stuck it all in the verandah.

Now I’m all set up for the weekend.

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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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Wednesday 18th February 2015 – IF YOU WERE TO LOOK …

… at the photo of today’s work, you would be forgiven for thinking that I don’t seem to have made much progress.

In actual fact, I reckon that today was the day when I accomplished the most work in the bedroom to date, in that all of the electricity in the dressing table area is now installed.

electricity fittings wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere’s a pair of 12-volt sockets (you’ll notice that I use North American plugs and sockets for my 12-volt circuits as they take high-capacity cable), a 230-volt mains socket (I use British plugs and sockets here because the plugs are fused) and a light switch that powers one of these IKEA LED light strips.

All I need now is some extra-long screws to fasten the socket to the pattress, and also a mirror. But they will both come in the fullness of time.

I would have made much more progress too had I not fastened the connectors to the wire of the LED light strip before I’sd threaded it through the hole. I had to cut off the ends and pass the wires through, and then I couldn’t find any more connectors. I spent about half an hour looking too. In the end I had to invent something.

But you’ll notice the difference between today’s photo and yesterday’s. We have the mirror backing in position and also the other side wall of the dressing table area. We really are making progress.

Tomorrow I won’t accomplish too much because I have to go to Cécile’s to show someone round. But I’m hoping that I can fit the top of the wardrobe as well as the intermediate shelf. If I can do that, as well as to start to assemble the front walls, I shall be quite happy. But I have a feeling that I’m going to miss my target of the end of the month, and probably by a week or two as well, to finish the bedroom.

I had another helping of my vegan aubergine and kidney bean whatsit for tea, and I realised that I forgot to add the olives too. What a performance!

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Tuesday 17th February 2015 – I’VE BEEN ON MY TRAVELS …

… during the night and was having such an exciting time that I was determined to remember every second of it when I awoke.

Of course, you can guess what happened. I awoke and … paff … it was gone.

Ahhh well.

So this morning after something of a slow start (I’m not quite sure why I couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm) I cracked on. And much to my surprise, by the time that I had knocked off for lunch, I had really accomplished something.

home made chest of drawers bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceand here you are – my first ever home-made chest of drawers.

Don’t worry about the front panels by the way, they will be replaced eventually with pine planks when I have finished the wardrobe and know what offcuts that I might have left over. And they will pass in front of the wardrobe frame too, in order to hide the framework which isn’t quite straight.

Making the sides was exciting though. I had to make the first one and fit the runners in position by trial and error. And to my surprise, I only ended up 14mm out in height. And that was soon remedied with an offcut and from the outside, you would never notice.

The second side was of course so much easier, having already made the first and having taken copious notes.

The gap in between the two sides needed to be 549mm and to my total astonishment, having assembled the framework back in 2010 or 2011 or whenever, and doing it by guesswork, I had left a gap of 548mm. And what is 1mm betweem friends?

After lunch I fitted the top to the chest of drawers, fitted one of the sides of the wardrobe above the chest of drawers, and cut and shaped the piece for the back where the mirror will be. It’s all becoming quite exciting here as I progress.

But two things stick in my mind and one of them is annoying me intensely. I’ve designed the wardrobe so that the internal fitting is 500mm, meaning that I can use 500mm pine boards without having to cut them. However, the flaming, blasted, perishing 500mm pine boards are actually 505mm, meaning that I have to trim 5mm off each board.

This is a total shambles, I’ll tell you that. If there were anywhere else to go other than Brico Depot, I’d be there.

But the second thing that I have to say is based on the first thing, and this is definitely positive. That is that despite the hanging cloud that has covered us for all of the day, I’ve used the 650-watt circular saw intermittently today and you would never ever notice from the state of the batteries. Installing these new, big heavy-duty batteries back at the end of autumn was an excellent move. those old second-hand batteries would never have coped with this.

For tea tonight, I made an exciting vegan aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. I’ve lost a load of supplies, including the macedoine vegetables and the kidney beans. I’ve no idea where these might have gone but its bewildering. I’ve had to use subsititutes and it doesn’t taste the same.

But where have these supplies gone to then? This is bizarre.

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Monday 16th February 2015 – I HAD A LATE START …

… this morning. I was up early enough, but you know how it is. I had a 15 minute free space before I needed to start work so I made a start on something else – a quick 5-minute job – and it wasn’t until 11:20 that I had finished it.

I’d been on my travels through the night too. Wandering around Glasgow with a small portable gas-welding kit doing odd jobs.

I’ve made great progress today anyway. I caught up with my late start by having a very short lunch break and also working on until 18:45, but I did spend half an hour chatting to Cecile on the phone and also to someone who wants to come and visit her house.

What I have accomplished is to cut, shape and fit the central shelf of the wardrobe and then screw it into position. That involved two planks of pine shelving that I had to go and search out from downstairs, and also a great deal of tidying up in the bedroom.

Having done that, I could fit the flooring into the wardrobe. That again involved searching out a couple more planks from downstairs, cutting, shaping and fitting them into position. And the good news from this point of view was that I could cut out the good bits of an old split plank that was doing no good anywhere and fit these good bits into place.

Final job was to assemble all of the drawers.

Tomorrow, I’ll be building the cupboard to fit the drawers and then fit that into the recess in the wardrobe.

It’s not half looking good in the bedroom now.

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Friday 13th February 2015 – THIS SUMMER DIDN’T LAST VERY LONG

It clouded over at about 18:00 this evening and by 20:00 it was p155ing down outside. So that’s that then.

But I have made enough progress today, so that it doesn’t matter too much.

First job was to sand off the second layer of filler on the wall. That didn’t take too long to do, and it doesn’t look too bad, although I would rather have been able to take off all of the plasterboard and start again. Anyay, it’s ready to paper and paint, whenever I’m going to be doing that – which won’t be for a while yet.

Next job was to move everything around in the bedroom so that the working space is next to where the wardrobe is. And hen I’d done that, I emptied the wardrobe. That was a horrible job and I hated every moment of it. I’ve found quite a bit of stuff that I had “lost”, as well as another hundredeight of screws and nails, but none of that compensates for the rubbish that I pulled out of the wardrobe area. There was even stuff in that corner that came from off the old roof when we ripped that out in 2009.

I can see a great big issue now in that I don’t have enough space left to store all of the stuff that I’ll be taking out of the bedroom when I need to empty it

There was still an hour left before lunch so I made a start on crepi-ing the OSB alls of the wardrobe. I worked up a good rhythm in there and I as doing so well that I ran a good half-hour past my normal knocking-off time and I didn’t care either.

crepi osb wardrobe wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfterlunch I cracked on with the crepi-ing and at 18:30 (another long day) I’d finished it all.

You can’t really see what it looks like because it as dark by the time I took the photo, but it’s come out quite nicely and I’m impressed. On Monday I can even fit the shelving, which will be progress indeed.

I had a nice hot wash in the water out of the home-made 12-volt immersion heater and then another load of the potato and lentil curry.

Now I’m all set up for the weekend – I’m off to Montlucon tomorrow.


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Thursday 12th February 2015 – I HAD A LATE START …

… today. I had about 10 minutes spare before I needed to start work qo I started on something really quick – and it was 11:10 by the time I finished.

But never mind – I still managed to accomplish everything that I had planned for today, and even found time to draw up a list of tasks to do before the bedroom can be called finished. There’s 15 on the list (and I’ve just thought of one more too) but I’ve already completed one of them so it’s not too bad.

First thing today was to sand off all of the remaining filler in the joints of the plasterboard. And now, of course, I look like a snowman … "snowPERSON" – ed. Once that had been done, I could put the second coat of paint on the landing wall. I still don’t like the colour but it went on good and thick and at 20:00 it was still wet.It’s going to take a while today.

This afternoon I had to fetch in a pile of wood as I’ve run out, and then I set to work on the second layer of filler on the plasterboard joints on the wall in the bedroom. It ddin’t take too much either – I must be getting good at this. Finally, I took off all of the masking on the landing and now I can get into the cupboard there and start putting stuff away.

I didn’t know what to make for tea tonight but just messing around aimlessly with a few bits and pieces here and rhere and I ended up with another mega-meal – this time of potato and lentil. It was nice, but it would have been even nicer had I had some onions handy, and there’s enough for four meals. So that’s problem solved until next week.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sanding down the second lot of filler, but then nothing’s going to happen to that for a while so I can leave it at that. I’ll also be emptying the wardrobe and painting that with crepi, ready to start fitting the shelves. I’m intrigued to see how far I can reach tomorrow.

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Wednesday 11th February 2015 – THIS MUST BE SOMETHING OF A RECORD

Today, I had a massive 169 amp-hours of excess solar energy and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load went off the scale (ie more than 70°C). There has never been that much surplus solar energy in the month of February – in fact we would not find too many days in July and August where we would have more than that.

That gives you some idea of what today wad like. The temperature outside reached 15.1°C and this was the first day for I don’t know how long when the temperature in my attic rose during the day rather than fell.

The increase in temperature prompted me into action and first job that I tackled was to paint the landing. But that wasn’t how it panned out, as I dropped my pliers into the 8 litres of white paint. They will be nice and pretty when I finally get down to the bottom of the tub and can fish them out. But that’s not going to be for a while yet.

landing painted yellow les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo here we are. You can’t really see things very well in the landing, but here’s the first coat of yellow paint on the wall. This is basically 8 litres of white emulsion and a tube of yellow paint pigment.

It’s not brilliant, but it will look much better tomorrow after I have done the second coat. And I don’t really like the colour – it’s come out much darker than I was expecting and much darker than what I wanted.

But never mind. it’s on and it’s staying on.

osb wall wardrobe s les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, I started on the second piece of OSB for the end wall of the wardrobe. That eventually went into place with a little bit of manoeuvring and fine adjustment, and it won’t be coming out again.

It’s a different colour than the rest, due to the fact that I didn’t have enough OSB in the house and had to go outside and scrounge a piece that I had been using as part of the false floor in Caliburn. But as it’s being coated in crepi, it won’t make much of a difference.

This afternoon, after a few other bits and pieces that I had to do, I made use of the surplus solar energy and started to sand down the plasterboard. That took ages and I’ve only done about half of it, but the sandpaper on the sander split itself, at exactly 18:05, and I took that as being the signal to knock off for the day.

And those falafel balls and oven chips for tea were delicious again.

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Tuesday 10th February 2015 – IN WHICH OUR HERO MAKES GREAT STRIDES

The first lot of great strides took me up to Virlet and the mairie to be censored, seeing as how it’s census time again and I missed both visits of the census team. And it’s clear that the people at the mairie read this rubbish because the first question that I was asked was ” did I manage okay seeing as how I was snowed in for 10 days at home?” and the second topic of discussion was about the postie and an explanation as to why she couldn’t make it here. All totally unprompted.

Not only that, I was taken to see the new snow-clearing apparatus and I was asked for my advice about some technical aspects. Well, well, well. Whatever next?

Second lot of great strides were down to the bottom of the garden and the composting bin, where I empted out the beichstuhl and refilled it. Such delightful jobs that I have to do around here. Still, it’s all grist to the mill, and compost for the garden too.

Once those delights were sorted out, I attacked the bedroom and gave it a thorough cleaning – or, at least, the best cleaning that I can do seeing as how there are still four sheets of plasterboard in the middle of the floor. And as usual, running my big magnetic dish through the pile of sawdust and plaster dust and ordinary dust, I salvage about a hundredweight of screws and nails that have been dropped over the passage of time.

plasterboard stud wall bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceWith that out of the way, I can press on and fill all of the joins in the plasterboard. And how I wish that I have the time and the money (and the inclination) to rip off the wall everything that I did a few years ago in here and start again.

All of that work so far took until lunchtime and it really is quite impressive, even though I say it myself (apart from the rubbish plasterbaording of course). I could be quite happy living here.

Although it was still very cold today, we had another really bright alpine day. Not good enough for varnishing or painting, but good enough to sort out the circular saw and cut the first of the two end-pieces for the remaining unfinished wall of the wardrobe. To cut it, shape it and fit it, it took all afternoon firstly because it needed to be an exact fit – 1mm out and it’s no good at all, and secondly because trying to fit it on my own was almost impossible.

It had to be the upper piece that needed doing. That needs to be fitted first and difficult as it might be with nothing underneath it holding it in position, fitting it in second is impossible. In the end I had a crowbar wedged underneath it at the bottom and an endstop nailed to the beam above, and I was gently levering it into position between the uprights with a big wood chisel.

osb wall boarding wardrobe end les guis virlet puy de dome franceI had it in position and screwed in nicely after about an hour and a half, only to find out that it had slipped down the crowbar and was about 15mm out at the top. Taking it out was a barrel of laughs too, as was putting it back in again in the correct position but finally, at about 18:30 it was in exactly where it ought to be, and all screwed in position.

A wash in the beautiful warm water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater (we had 104 amp-hours of surplus electrical energy today and we would have had more had I not used the circular saw) and up here for a nice warm fire and oven chips with peas, carrots and falafel balls.

What I’ll do tomorrow depends on the weather and the sun. We are promised a warm day and if that is indeed so, I’ll be painting the landing. Otherwise, I’ll be sanding down the filler.

But starting work on the wardrobe already. Isn’t this progress?

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