Tag Archives: landing

Tuesday 7th April 2015 – THE WIND FINALLY DROPPED THIS EVENING.

That made quite a change as we’ve had non-stop wind for the last three days or so.

All kinds of records have been broken too with the wind. For example, of all the wind energy created by the big AIR 403 wibd turbine since I reset the meter in December, 40% of it came today. And with the small wind turbine, today has doubled the previous record of wind generated.

It really was impressive but now it’s blown out and we are all quiet.

This morning, I took decisive action and ripped out all of the masking and protection on the stairs and on the landing downstairs. I gave the stairs and landing a thorough clean, sanded all of the imperfections, vacuumed it thoroughly and then gave it all a really good coat of varnish.

That took about an hour and a half in total, and so for the rest of the morning I went outside. First job was to sort out a huge pile of old cardboard that I had put on one side when I tidied the barn out the other day.

cardboard cover raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceWith all of that, I went down to the raised beds in the garden where I grow my crops of vegetables. Nothing is going to be done there this year, so I’ve covered over all of the beds with cardboard. I did 6 this morning, and then this afternoon I dismantled the bean frames and did the rest.

I’ve only weeded two of them, the rest can take their chance. BUt it’s not going to be a problem for as soon as it rains and the cardboard becomes waterlogged, it’ll fold down flat onto the soil in the raised beds, suffocate the weeds and then slowly disintegrate into the soil over the period of the coming year.

Immediately after lunch, I put the second coat of varnish on, and I’ll do the third coat first thing in the morning.

For tea tonight I made a mega-mushroom and potato curry. Mushrooms were cheap at the weekend and I had some potatoes left over from winter.

And there was so much surplus energy today that the water in the dump load (the home-made 12-volt immersion heater) went off the scale – ie over 70°C. I had some lovely hot wahing-up water this evening.

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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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Thursday 5th February 2015 – 12.8°C IN HERE THIS MORNING.

Hardly surprising, seeing as how downstairs it was all of 1.4°C. And (even at 10:00) it was minus 4.5°C outside.

decorator's door landing les guis virlet puy de dome franceConsequently, I have this morning fitted a decorator’s door to the head of the stairs on the landing.

These are great things, thrown together out of a bit of old plastic sheet and scrap offcuts of wood. Their main purpose is to stop the passage of dust into areas that are being painted, but they also work for keeping in the het and keeping out the cold. IN fact, you can feel the difference either side of the door so it’s clearly working. And as the temperature dropped downstairs, on the first floor we remained at a rather comfortable, if not balmy, 4.5°C

So having done that, and done some more tidying up, what was next?

windowsill bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAhhh yes. We now have a windowsill in the bedroom.

This is from an offcut of pine board and normally it would be having about 3 coats of varnish on it. But that’s a waste of time with the temperature in the bedroom at 4.5°C.

The board took ages to fit as it needed to be carefully cut and shaped, and it’s come out quite well. But one unforeseen problem was that the window wouldn’t open with the sill in position. But that power belt sander that I bought the other day is superb, even if it did break the belt. Ith having something like some sun this afternoon I could use it. It did a really good job of sanding down where necessary and now there’s about 3mm of clearance under the window.

After lunch I tracked down some thin wood offcuts such as scrap tongue and groowing and nailed them to the wall inside the window and then started to clad the inside of the window with tongue and grooving like I did to the window at the head of the stairs. I have some of the t&g left over from when I did the bedroom ceiling and together with the offcuts from other projects, I should have enough to do a decent job there

I’ll post a pic when I’m finished with that.

I knocked off at 18:30 and it was just 9.3°C in here. And it’s snowing heavily outside too. If that’s not enough, the 10-day long-range weather forecast is promising not much let-up in the weather. It’s a good job that I don’t really need anything from the shops, as I won’t be able to go to fetch it.

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Wednesday 4th February 2015 – LEAVING THE FIRE …

… simmering away through the night did some good. It was 13.4°C in here this morning. Mind you, in the house downstairs it was an impressive 1.9°C. The weather really has gone cold here right now and it’s staying cold too. It had snowed during the night too.

First job was to make a start on the plasterboard walling.

plasterboard stud wall bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere was quite a bit of studdding that needed to be fitted – I hadn’t done that correctly at all – and then I cut the second piece of plasterboard (the first piece was fitted yesterday). That needed a hole cutting in it for the light switch. That’s much better than trying to cut four out, isn’t it?

You’ll notice the two length of wood screwed into the top of the first piece. Having had years of experience of fitting plasterboard single-handed, those lengths of wood make rails. You slide the plasterbord over the top and down the back, clamp it to an upright (ou can see the clamp at the top of the image) and then once you hve trimmed the board (GRRRRR!) it’s ready to be screwed into position.

Getting to that position took me until lunchtime at 14:00 but I wasn’t going to stop. I carried on fitting the rest of the plasterboard and that took me until 14:40.

After lunch, in view of the fact that there was a little sun, I vacuumed up the landing and then masked off everywhere ready for painting. No point in doing that though in 1.9°C.

To finish off tonight, I mixed up a bowl of filler and put it on the wall. That took me until 18:40 and then I knocked off and fled into my room. I was absolutely freezing. It’s no fun working in 1.9°C – and that’s indoors too.

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Tuesday 3rd February 2015 – IT’S BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… when very little seemed to go right. After all of my exertions today until 18:30 this evening, I’ve put one (out of three) sheets of plasterboard on the wall, and that is that.

I started off by some more tidying up in the bedroom so that there was a place to work on the plasterboard, and then I cut the first sheet.

This needed four holes to be cut in for the pattresses, and then a frantic search for the pattresses and sockets. And despite a decent search, I can’t find the telephone socket that I bought the other day.

I then had to lengthen a couple of electric cables and that wasn’t easy either, and when I pulled out a redundant length of wire, I noticed that the insulation was shredded. A further search revealed that I’d put a plasterboard screw from the bathroom through into the conduit for the cables, so I had to remmove that and replace the wires.

But the screw was behind the batten for the suspended ceiling in the bathroom so I had to take the batten down. But the screw head was worn so I had to drill it out. And so the battery went flat in the drill.

And so it went on, and you get the picture.

Eventually, all of the wire was the correct length, in the correct place, properly routed and joined, and so I could offer up the plasterboard to the wall. It needed trimming off and so I had to take it all down again to trim it. And in puttilg it back, I smashed a corner of the plasterboard that I had spent all morning shaping.

But then again, that’s what filler is for and so it’s gone on the wall anyway. You’ve no idea how difficult to manoeuvre a sheet of plasterboard, thread four lots of cable through four lots of holes and then screw it to the wall all on your own.

But it’s done anyway, and if I’m lucky, I can fit the other two pieces tomorrow and – shock horror – maybe even paint the walls on the landing. But I’m not holding my breath.

It was freezing here this morning – 13.3°C. But that’s ot surprising seeing as how it was minus 6°C outside. And freezing where I was trying to work. That didn’t ease my humour any.

So tonight, I’ve banked up the fire and we’ll see what happens.

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Monday 2nd February 2015 – WELL, THE SNOW …

… looked quite pretty this morning. Especially when the sun came out and we had a little bit of blue sky to play with. It made me quite glad that the first job that I did this morning was to clear the snow off the solar panels on the roof.

That’s quite an exciting task – I stand on a tall step stool and reach out of the roof light and with a long handled window cleaner blade I can reach all of the panels and push the snow over the back of the house.

That’s not a new idea either. I can remember, when I was very young, watching a television film where some Indians were firing flaming arrows into the thatched roof of a pioneer house, and the pioneer wad having to reach out of the roof and try to dislodge the arrows before the fire took hold. And I wish I knew which film it was for it made quite an impression on me.

The little bit of sun encouraged me to use the electric sander to sand off the filler that I had done on Saturday afternoon. And when I had done that, the next task was to make some room in the bedroom where I could set up the paste table. As you are well aware, that’s not the work of five minutes to tidy up wherever I’ve been.

Now that the paste table was in place, I could make a start on wallpapering the landing. And much to my very great surprise, by lunchtime I’d done all of that. This was quite astonishing.

After lunch, I did some more tidying up and I’ve filled three bin bags with rubbish out of the bedroom (and there’s plenty more to come). That led to making a start on putting the battens onto the stud wall so that I can put the plasterboard on there. I also spent a pleasant 15 minutes in the lean-to looking for the drywall pattresses that I need for the electricity.

This evening, I’ve made yet another pile of vegan aubergine and kidney bean whatsits. There’s enough for four days in the batch that I’ve made and now of course I have the shelves outside where I can leave the stuff in the cold.

In other news, I’ve had some very sad news this evening. Another one of my friends from University passed away at the weekend. She was a lovely girl, very nice, very intense and very good company but that was on a good day, and as her perceived problems mounted up, her good days became fewer and fewer.

About 12 months or so ago, she walked out of her life and a short while later, turned up in her native Portugal. Presumably, with the intention of finding comfort and consolation in the surroundings of her childhood. However it looks very much as if she was unable to find whatever it was that she was seeking and this led to the tragic events of this weekend. I hope that wherever she is, she’s found peace and comfort and is at rest.

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Saturday 31st January 2015 – NOW HERE’S ANOTHER THING.

Something else that’s totally unheard-of too. At about 16:00 today I went downstairs and spent an hour working on my walls in the landing!

Mind you, what was astonishing about this was the weather. When I awoke this morning (early yet again) it was snowing – and quite heavily too. And it kept that up for most of the day.

After breakfast I wrote yet another series of radio programmes, in my quest to keep well in front of targets, and then, in other astonishing news, I started to empty the attic. A lot of the foodstuffs – those in glass continers – went outside onto one of the shelves and that made much more space on my table in here. And the shelf – the smaller of the two – isn’t even half-full.

I’ll find some more cardboard to put on the upper shelf tomorrow and move all of the cookery stuff, saucepans and the like, out there. At this rate, i’ll be able to move around in here.

Whatever next?

Well, next was 16:00 and, quite dramatically, the sky cleared and the sun came out. Never one to miss an opportunity, and not knowing when the next time will be that we will have decent weather as the weather forecast for the next few days is dire, I nipped downstairs, switched on the inverter, found the power sander and attacked the filler that I had put on the landing walls last night.

15 minutes had that all smoothed off and, in for a penny, in for a Pound, I filled in where the filler was low.

That’s now drying off and thennext time that we have half an hour of sun, even if it’s tomorrow, I’ll sand it off. I’m already two days behind where I want to be with this bedroom and I can’t afford to lose any more time. Wallpapering the landing on Monday, painting on Wednesday, that’s the next plan. And in between, I’ll empty out the bedroom ready for a work-in.

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Thursday 29th January 2015 – THIS DOOR HINGE ISSUE …

… still isn’t resolved, despite my best efforts this morning.

This morning, I was up quite early and I’d finished my breakfast by 08:30. Se seeing as I had to be in Marcillat for 10:30, a sudden idea entered into my head given the time available, and I shot straight off to Commentry and Bricomarche.

There are indeed right-handed and left-handed hinges, and all of the hinges were totally muddled up. I very carefully sorted out three right-handed hinges (as well as a hosepipe connection for the overflow on the water tank). However, the boxes were more mixed up than I thought, and I’ve ended up with 2 x 110×55 and 1 x 90×45.

Ahh well.

But at least I have the shape to use to cut the lets into the door and the doorframe.

At the radio, we recorded our Radio Anglais programmes for Radio Tartasse and then went for a coffee and a chat.

varnished shelf stairwell attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceBack here, first job that I did even before I took off my coat was to put the third and final coat of varnish onto the shelves in the stairwell up to the attic.

These shelves are now finished and that is really the first completed task of this phase of the work. These shelves mean that I can now start to empty the attic of all of the cooking stuff, the pots and pans and so on, and put them on the shelves outside, as soon as the varnish had hardened off.

This is definitely progress.

suspended false ceiling recessed light plasterboard landing les guis virlet puy de dome franceSecond job that I did, likewise before taking off my coat, was to fit the crown onto the LED light bulb and recess it into the hole in the false ceiling on the landing.

You can see the varnished ceiling and the plasterboard on both the walls but the light hasn’t come out well enough. I’ll take another photo of the ceiling when we have some daylight, but that wasn’t going to be today as so far we’ve had 35mm of rain and it’s still teeming down.

I’ve also cut the three lets into the hinge side of the doorframe so that I can fit the recessed hinges in due course and I’ve also cut down a floorboard to make the latch side of the doorframe.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off cutting down the floorboards for the rest of the door frame and for the head of the stairs, and if I’m lucky, I might even be able to put the first coat of filler on the screwheads and joins in the plasterboard.

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Wednesday 28th January 2015 – THIS LANDING DEFINITELY …

… won’t be finished by the weekend now, that’s for sure.

I didn’t realise this at the time, but now I do, that the “drop-in” hinges that are quite common here and that I like to use are “handed”. I need three right-handed ones for the bedroom door and three right-handed ones for the shower room door, but I seem to have acquired six left-handed hinges.

I can’t believe this, because I’ve fitted three doors here, some right-handed and some left-handed, and I’ve always managed to find the xorrect hinges without even knowing about it. Talk about beginners’ luck. But now I’ll have to wait until I can go either to Montlucon or Commentry.

This morning though, I fitted the ceiling in the landing and cut out the hole for the recessed light that I’ll be fitting. All of this took a while but it’s finished now and doesn’t look too bad at all.

We had a flash of sunlight too for half an hour, so I sanded down and vacuumed the shelves over the stairs, and then put the first coat of varnish on them and also on the landing celling. That all took me until 14:20 – a good 20 minutes after my normal lunchtime pause,but I’m less interested in pausing than I am in doing the work on the place.

After lunch I went into the barn to find the doors for the bedroom and the shower room and then cut down one of the planks that I’ll be using for an end-piece for the stud wall. And it was here that I discovered the issue with the hinges.

Never mind though, there’s still plenty to do. I ended up finishing off the routing for the wiring on the first floor (although I’ve since remembered two things that I’ve missed) and then put the second coat of varnish on the shelves and ceiling.

Tomorrow I have to nip to Marcillat and record the Radio Tartasse radio sessions, and when I come back I’ll be putting the third coat of varnish on the shelves and fitting the recessed light on the landing.

And until I can sort out some hinges for the doors, I’ll be fitting as many end pieces as I can and then starting on the bedroom. No reason to stop working just because I’ve messed up these hinges.

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Tuesday 27th January 2015 – I’M POSSIBLY BEING A LITTLE OPTIMISTIC …

… about finishing the landing by the weekend. It’s been slow going today.

Mind you, it hasn’t helped in that I had a lot of housekeeping to do here this morning. I ran out of both kindling and logs, and the compost bucket needed emptying too. Doing that latter task, I found that the tie that’s holding up the collapsed apple tree had come apart and so that needed sorting out.

Eventually, I managed to start to attack the landing and Shock! Horror! all of the plasterboard is on the wall now. And not only that, the wiring is all tidied up and the light switches are in place.

I’m not going to post a photo of it though, because it’s a mess. What didn’t help the artistic impression was that I had spent an hour carefully carving a piece of plasterboard to fit perfectly and to take the pattress for the light switches, and then I dropped it from a height right onto the edge of the steps upon which I was standing, and knocked a huge lump out. Never mind, I can fill it but it isn’t pretty.

I had to put loads of battens in place too for the plasterboard, and some of the wood took a while to find. My aim to have it all done by lunchtime was thus totally missed. It was 17:00 by the time I had done all of the plasterboarding.

I’ve fitted the rails for the suspended ceiling – and that wasn’t easy either. And even though it was after 18:00 and knocking-off time, I fitted the symbolic first piece of ceiling. It was 18:35 when I finally made it up here. What helps about working late is having really good music to listen to. I’ve made it round to Hawkwind’s Astounding Sounds; Amazing Music, which features, inter alia, two of the most magnificent rock music tracks ever recorded – “Reefer Madness” and “Steppenwolf”.

As well as that, as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … that Ryobi Plus One percussion screwdriver is immense – it pushes 6×100 screws in like nobody’s business.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the rest of the ceiling and putting the first coat of varnish on. And if I have some sun (which isn’t likely, I have to say) I’ll be cutting the end pieces for the plasterboard runs and seeing if I’ll have the time to fit them.

It does however occur to me that in order to fit the end pieces on the stud wall between the landing and the bedroom I’ll need to have the bedroom door in position and the hinge lets cut out. That’s going to take a while and will be the big reason why I’ll miss my target of this weekend for the landing to be completed.

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Friday 23rd January 2015 – WE NOW HAVE …

beading around window and doors stairwell les guis virlet puy de dome france… some nice and pretty beading around the window and the doorways on the stairs up to the attic. Yes, I’m going all suburban and pretentious, aren’t I? Whatever next?

The Ryobi mastic gun did the business here, along with a tube of contact adhesive. Cut the beading to length (remember to cut the bevels the correct way round – GRRRR!), stick some glue in the angle, press into place and then tack down with a couple of 25mm lost-head nails, and there we are.

And doesn’t it look pretty too? It’s not like me, is it?

plasterboard on wall on landing les guis virlet puy de dome franceIn other startling news, we have also turned the corner. at least, as far as the plasterboard goes. I’ve put the first pieces on the stud wall for the stairs that go down to the ground floor.

This is quite symbolic progress. All that’s now needed is one more piece of plasterboard on the reverse side of the stud wall to the bedroom, three end-pieces, some filling and sanding down, and then I can wallpaper the walls on the landing and that will be finished too and I can start on the bedroom. I shan’t know myself.

I know that I said that I would be sanding down the stairs and vacuuming them ready to varnish them this weekend, but several things have conspired together to put an end to that idea.

Firstly, I’m not going out tomorrow. Cécile is having a visitor to her house in the morning tomorrow so I have to go round there early. That means that I won’t have time to varnish it before I go out.

Secondly, Mondays radio recording sessions have been cancelled due to illness at Radio Tartasse, so the third consecutive day that I need for varnishing isn’t going to happen either.

Thirdly, we’ve had a hanging cloud over the mountain all day today and I’ve received precisely nothing in the way of solar energy. There’s plenty of power in the batteries of course, but not enough to run a power sander for a couple of hours and a vacuum cleaner afterwards.

Fourthly, the temperature didn’t rise above freezing all day today and the next few days are likely to be the same. The temperature downstairs is just 4°C and the varnish won’t ever stick in that kind of temperature. It’ll just sit on top of the wood and freeze, and then break off when it’s knocked.

Accordingly, I left the varnishing for another time. Never mind. There’s plenty of other things to be going on with.

I was invited out this evening. It’s the annual dinner for FCPSH – the Football Club Pionsat St Hilaire, and I was invited to go along. I didn’t stay to eat because you can’t expect them to cater for my diet, but I was there chatting for a couple of hours.

And it really was freezing when I returned. I had a hard job to keep my feet on the concrete. And in my room the temperature had fallen to 9.8°C – the coldest for quite a while, but a roaring wood fire soon had that back up to normal again.

I’m glad that I bought this woodstove.

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Tuesday 20th January 2015 – I’VE HAD ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… today. And it all went wrong as early as breakfast time. I was thinking to myself that my breakfast coffee tasted pretty awful, and closer inspection revealed that I was in fact drinking merely hot water in a coffee-flavoured mug. That depressed me for a start.

And then going downstairs I fell through the trap that I had made yesterday, and only quick thinking by grabbing the beam as I fell through it prevented me from plummetting down to the concrete floor about 3 metres below.

I’ve done myself quite a mischief, but while I was hanging there from the beam working out the best way to haul myself back up, I came to the conclusion that maybe the hatch was not such a good idea after all.

I mean, it is an excellent idea but it won’t work here, because there’s not sufficient support around the edges to carry the weight of whatever is going to be walking across it, as I had just demonstrated. Consequently, once I had ccrawled back up onto terra firma, I ripped out the hatch and the surround and spen the rest of the morning refitting both layers of the floor. I’d nearly finished by lunchtime but I carried on regardless until it was finished.

I know that I said that I was going to vacuum out the bathroom and put the first coat of varnigh on the floor, but as you might expect after I’ve talked about such things, we were having a slight snowstorm and there was a hanging cloud here for most of the morning. That put the kybosh on the vacuuming.

After lunch I fetched a pile of wood into the house for the fire, but all of a sudden, the sun put in a bried appearance. Out came the vacuum cleaner and I cleaned out the bathrrom and then did the first coat of varnish.

As for the vacuum cleaner, there will be some who would complain about the lack of efficiency, but these people would have seen the price tag (€29:99 reduced to €14:99) and not seen the power of the machine – 600 watts instead of the more usual 1500 watts. I knew exactly what I was buying and I knew exactly how it was going to work, and so I was not disappointed at all. It did exactly what it said it would and did it quite efficiently too, and I was delighted.

I spent the rest of the working day cutting a board that I need for the head of the stairs – I’d forgotten about that. I’ll fit that next time I’m working here as I’m out all day tomorrow.

I’ve also fitted the handrail for the stairs. Two huge screwed eyes and a length of 14mm hemp rope, and that’s made quite an effective handrail.

It’s not 100% my own idea though. I knew that I had seen something like this before, and the other night, watching the absolutely outstanding Green For Danger, there it was, on the stairs of the Nurses’ Home. It looks as if I’m going back in time.

I was working long after 18:00 but I had a phone call that interrupted me for 10 minutes. Terry had the census people round there and they didn’t speak English, so I was required to interpret.

So tomorrow, I won’t be here as I have things to do. But I’m going to put the second coat of varnish on the bathroom floor before I go, and if I remember, I’ll put the third coat on when I come back and that’s the flooring all done down there.

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Monday 19th January 2015 – I HAD A LOVELY EARLY SUMMER’S DAY …

… working outside this morning. And I do mean early summer too because it was glorious.

First job was to empty the beichstuhl – such are the delights of my mode of living – clean it out and recharge it ready for use. Ohh the joys of low-impact living.

Next job, which took me right up to almost lunchtime was dealing with the water butts. You may recall that the tap on the front tank had cracked in the severe cold that we had the other day. Good job that I had fitted a series of isolation valves so that I can separate one tank from the other. I’ve been drawing the water off the front tank as it all slowly leaked away and by the end of last week it was finally empty.

When I was in Montlucon on Saturday, I bought everything that I needed, and so I set about dealing with the tap as well as giving the tank a good clean while I was at it. It’s a testament to the effectiveness of the system that I’ve designed and built here that aftera couple of years, the front tank wasn’t particularly dirty. It didn’t really need a clean but nevertheless I gave it a good going-over.

Then, I dealt with the tap. That was soon fitted, and not only do I have the tap but I now have an overflow as well as a depth gauge. Now I can see how much water there is in the tanks.

The tap has been insulated and I’ll need to insulate the clear plastic pipe that forms part of the depth gauge once I work out how to do this. I’ll have to give the matter some thought.

This afternoon I sanded down the floor in the bathroom, seeing as how we had plenty of sun. Tomorrow morning, I’ll vacuum up the dust, which will give me an opportunity to see how well this dust cleaner will perform, and then put the first layer of varnish on it so that it will go dry while I’m havine lunch. I’m out on Wednesday so I can put the second coat on before I leave, and the third coat as soon as I come back. I want to do this while I’m not doing any work, so that there’s no dust about to stick in the varnish.

So as well as sanding down the floor, I’ve been working on the floor on the landing. The first board is nailed in place, the trapdoor has been cut out, and the second board has been cut to shape and filed down to take the recessed hinges. If I can finish this on Thursday, then I can varnish this at the same time that I’ll be doing the stairs – namely on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

I’m really crcking on with this place now. If I’m not very careful, it will start to look as if someone is actually living here.

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Friday 16th January 2015 – AFTER ALL THAT I SAID LAST NIGHT …

… about having loads of sun so that I could sand down the floor of the shower room, then I woke up this morning to a hanging cloud. I suppose that that was odds-on, wasn’t it?

So having put the kybosh on the sanding, first thing this morning was to put the second coat of wood treatment on the old exposed beams. That didn’t take too long, From there, I attacked the floor on the landing on the first floor.

And cutting the first floorboard took almost all of the morning. It needed three lets cut in it so that it could fit around the verticals, and they had to be cut pretty precisely. Once that had been done, I had to cut a couple of countersinks into it so that the hinges that fit into it will be flush with the surface.

go on table saw bricomarche commentry les guis virlet puy de dome franceI needed to cut some floorboarding planks into 50mm lengths to make a framework for the trapdoor, and so despite the absence of electricity I decided to put the new table saw to use.

As I suspected, it is a cheap rubbishy thing (as I suspected) but it did the job well enough once I’d worked out how to fit the guide rail. But in news that will surprise most people, but not the more cynical amongst us, the built-in measure is reading 4mm short. Good job I measure up after I cut the first one, isn’t it?

After lunch, I filed down the offcuts that I had cut so that they made a neat line, and then went off to look at the painting. My masking isn’t up to much, it seems, as I have plenty of white spaces where the masking tpe prevented the wallpaper from reching, and also some of the wood treatment on the old beams has filtered down behind the tape. I’ll have some touching up to do on Monday.

Last job tonight was to cut the second “long” plant to size. That needed trimming off and a couple of lets cut into it to fit around the verticals. That’s now done and so on Monday, another thing that I can be doing is to cut out the trap door in the lower layer of floorboards. Whnen that’s done, I can fit the last two sheets of plasterboard on the studding on the landing, and then cut out the trap on the upper layer of floorboards.

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