Tag Archives: osb flooring

Sunday 15th February 2015 – ONE THING THAT I LIKE …

… about Sundays is being able to lie in bed. And when I have nice clean bedding to lie in, it’s even better. I must admit that I’m looking forward to having a nice bedroom and nice brand new bedding to lie in too, and that day is coming closer and closer too.

So despite being awake at 09:15, it was 10:30 when I crawled out of bed, and I do have to say that that was probably the hardest work that I have done today. I did manage to bring up a small load of wood and a couple of kettles of water too, but I can’t think of anything else.

With the rain that we were having (12mm today) I didn’t plan on going out anywhere anyay.

I did have a look in the bedroom though, and the crepi that I had put on the OSB wall was drying nicely and had changed xolour to match the crepi that I had put on first from the almost-empty tub. I’m pleased about that.

Funnily enough, the part that is taking the longest to dry is the part that is on the piece of OSB that I had brought in from outside.

And I did say that, after fitting this piece, I found a complete OSB board that I had forgotten about – and in the house too.

I’ve been making the most of my day off working with this 3D program and I’ve overcome another major issue that was holding me back, as well as finding a “hidden menu” – something that completely baffles me. It doesn’t baffle me that there’s a hidden menu – I can in fact see the prupose of it – but why it should be set as the default and needs to be switched off, rather than the items in the hidden menu being shown in the default mode and “hidden” being an option. It doesn’t make sense to me.

But I have had a tragedy here today. I accidentally closed my browser window (with 22 tabs open) leaving a pop-up window open. Consequently when I reopened the browser (configured to show the last open configuration) it was the pop-up window that came up and I’ve lost my 22 open tabs.

That’s a tragedy and no mistake.

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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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Saturday 28th May 2011 – The first thing …

… that I remembered this morning was the usual cacophony of bells and whistles and the like. Second thing was the boulangère outside. And I hadn’t left her any money and I wanted to see her to cancel the bread while I’m away. Ahhh well.

And so after a leisurely morning of not doing much it was off to Commentry. And no OSB in the DiY place either. That’s a blow. I’ll have to use one piece of anything that I’ve got around here and then get the rest in the UK. But they did have a bundle of coving stuff there – end of series and the like – all for €3:00 and so that ended up in the back of Caliburn.

At the Bonnes Affaires I bought another one of the huge casseroles with lids, and that will be the beichstuhl for outside, when I come back.

And at the swimming baths at Neris something quite unusual happened. I was there before it opened and in the queue in front of me was a young kid. When she got to the ticket office to pay, the attendant asked her how old she was.

She was 11, so she said, and the age limit for an unaccompanied child is 12, so the attendant turfed her out. The kid burst into tears and so, feeling quite sorry for her, I found myself saying to the attendant “that’s ok – I’ll keep an eye on her”

When I was the stepfather to Roxanne we used to go to the swimming baths every week. I taught her to swim and to do lots of other aquatic things too and we used to have a great time there. It was something that I really missed after I split up with her mother – I was such a good dad to her, I reckon – and so with this girl we had the same kind of fun in the swimming baths. I taught her to do somersaults underwater, to swim on her back, and then we did a quick 12 lengths of the pool, and it’s quite a long one too and I was shattered. I have to say that I haven’t had so much fun for ages. It’s what I really miss, doing something useful and productive.

But just imagine that in the UK!

simca aronde commentry allier franceAnd while I was at Neris-les-Bains I encoutered another old car from the early 1960s parked up outside the swimming baths. The Simca Aronde was one of the most popular cars of its size in France during the 50s and early 60s, selling almost one and a half million examples, and there are still quite a few about here and there.

This is a P60 model, launched in 1959 and manufactured up until 1964. This one here is in surprisingly good condition for its age and looked really nice.

Tomorrow it’s the final matches of the season. We have Pionsat’s 1st XI, having blown their season last week, playing against Manzat who are already relegated. That’s at 15:00. That clashes with Marcillat’s 1st XI playing Commentry, but Marcillat’s 2nd XI are playing at 13:00, also at home, and so I reckon I’ll go there first and make a good day of it.

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Thursday 27th May 2010 – One of the things I did today …

… was a job that I had been putting off for a while.

well, not exactly putting off but one that I keep on meaning to do but always forget about – until today, that is.

When I did the lean-to roof back in August I did the guttering but due to the lack of stock in Brico Depot I couldn’t do the downspout so I just had a length of pipe shoved in there. After several months of this I suddenly remembered about the downspout when I was in Brico Depot once not so long ago and as they had the stuff I stocked up.

I prmoptly forgot about it and the occasional flashes I had always seemed to occur when I was too busy to do it. Even the tempest blowing it down coincided with something else of urgence that I had to do.

fitting guttering lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut not today! I was wandering somewhat aimlessly around the place this morning after my customary 2 hours on the computer and so I searched out all of the stuff and did it.

I’ve not finished off the bottom as I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I have it simply draining onto another piece of guttering and that runs away down the field as a temporary measure.

I’ll now have to think of more permanent arrangement to complete it because I can’t leave it like this. It’s a waste of water for a start.

I’ve also done some more gardening. I’ve put out some of the aubergines and planted some spinach and more radishes. I’ve also sown a few lettuce seeds in a pot to create some kind of succession. The radishes that I planted 6 weeks ago are looking good and I reckon that on Monday it will be lettuce and radishes from my own garden.

OSB wallboarding wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceTo finish off, I’ve started boarding the back wall in the bedroom where the wardrobe is going to be, and as you might expect, I don’t think that I have enough OSB boards left over from when I did the barn floor. That’s a disappointment.

Still, it’s almost the weekend and I can nip off into town and buy some more to finish the job. But it is depressing that I always seem to run aground just when I’m in the right kind of mood to press on regardless.

In other news, we were in the studio on Tuesday recording our programme for June. We didn’t have a guest because the guy I was trying to contact didn’t call me back. So of course, he called me back yesterday. Our programmes that we recorded are for the month of June so today I received an e-mail from a Tourist body telling me about events in the Puy-de-Dome in … errrrr … June.

You can’t make up this kind of nonsense, can you?

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Friday 11th September 2009 – I HAD ANOTHER ONE …

space blanket wall insulation attic flooring counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome france… of those days where I couldn’t seem to get going.

Mind you, I was so exhausted after yesterday’s exertions that I had a lie-in until 10:00 to recover and it wasn’t until 11:00 that I got to work.

I finished the wiring at the far end of the room and then finished off the insulation down the two side walls. That involved fitting the battens and then xylophening them to protect against woodworm and the like. Then I had to stretch the insulation across the battens and staple it on.

space blanket insulation attic flooring les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I started to fit the rest of the floor.

This involved pulling up the old pallets that I’d been using as flooring, xylophening the beams and then fitting the sheets of OSB.

A couple of them needed trimming down and cutting for shapes and I did such I good job of this (I even impressed myself!) that one piece took about an hour to tap into place. And I was giving it such a whack with the mallet that I’m convinced I’ve broken my finger when I missed my aim with the mallet
“Your whole finger?”
“No – the one next to it”
I’ve done almost as much as I can now before the major engineering starts and it was at 19:45 when I came down from the attic. By the time I’d unloaded Caliburn ready for the fray around Brico Depot tomorrow it was 20:15.

It’s all working though. The lowest temperature in the house is higher than the lowest temperature in my room – and that’s saying something. Just wait until the floor and the insulation are finished and there’s a wall around the head of the stairs.

Today was grey. miserable and overcast. No snow though although we have been told that it’s on its way. Only 13 amp-hours in the barn but over 60 in the house. A good move putting these panels on the roof.

And in other news, the footy restarts tomorrow night. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

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Wednesday 9th September 2009 – IF ANYONE MENTIONS "PADDED CELLS" THEY WILL BE DISQUALIFIED;

counter battens wall space blanket insulation attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve fitted the insulation and the counter-battens on the far wall, and insulation to half of the two side walls as you can see.

If you look closely you will see that I’ve started to lay the flooring and install the wiring for the power sockets that I’ll be fitting.

But it’s blasted slow going and I’ve no idea why. I was up there working until 19:30 today yet you would never tell. I reckon it’s going to take at least a week longer than planned to get this room finished.

attic space blanket wall insulation counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Remember that there is no door or wall to the stairwell and that there is no floor to the room either. Yet the temperature in the attic reached 27.5 degrees – a full degree higher than in my room and a record temperature, whilst even as I speak, at 00:18, the temperature up there is 23.2 degrees.

Tomorrow I’m having another day off – helping Terry with his woodpile. He had a lorry-load (and I mean 35 tonnes or thereabouts) delivered and although he and Liz have moved a good deal of it there’s still plenty of heavy stuff that needs to go. There was some mention of vegan chocolate cake, and as you know, that would entice me away from just about anything else, even Kate Bush.

In other news, I see that Caligula and her horse are actually calling for volunteers to sit on a couple of panels – one to help students with visual impairments and one to look at the role of students under OUSA Sutures. You may well be wondering what on earth Caligula and her horse are doing calling for volunteers – it’s not the norm for anyone on the Executive Committee to be interested in the opinions of the students.

It’s probably due to the right sandbagging that one of the previous committees received over the idea that they wouldn’t be interested in nominating a student voice for a committee to consider … er … student support (you really couldn’t make this up, you know – even the OU’s hierarchy couldn’t believe it – never mind the students).

But don’t be misled into thinking that any opinion voiced by any student is going to be of any interest to Caligula and her horse. There was this very ephemeral discussion group called “OUSA Consultations” where students were encouraged to publish their views on OUSA and the Executive Committee. One student wrote “load of crap” (well, he or she didn’t, but that was the gist of his or her message) and Caligula and her horse were so impressed by this remarkable display of honesty that she banned the poster from the airwaves for a month. Such is the manner in which dissent is dealt with in OUSA. Even Pol Pot would be impressed with that.

But the interesting point about this committee to look at OUSA Sutures is that it is charged to “consider the role that OUSA will play in the future“. You don’t need a committee to sit and consider this. I can tell you the answer right now without leaving my seat – and that is “bugger all”.

As long as OUSA has Caligula and her horse in charge, aided and abetted by your friend and mine Turdi de Hatred, OUSA will do as the OU tells it and likes it. Not a single member of the committee has the b@ll$ to stand up to the University and tell it to p155 off. Someone needs to be reminded that it is the students who are the customers and they are the people in the chair – they are the ones with the dosh.

The University exists to support the students, not the other way round, and it should therefore be the students – not the hide-bound chairborne wonders – who should be calling the shots. When are the students going to elect delegates with courage instead of this rabble?

But even more interesting is that OUSA Sutures has been on the cards now for well over two years, and OUSA has now reached the stage where we are going to have a committee to look at the implications.

And only after two and a bit years. Rip van Winkle, eat your heart out!

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Saturday 5th September 2009 – LAST SATURDAY, FROM MY…

laminate click flooring plastic wall boarding les guis virlet puy de dome france… €400 budget for my attic, I spent €354

Mind you, that didn’t include the shower base that never made it as far as the cash desk so that’s about quits.

Today, out of my €400 budget, I spent …. er …. €578.

I did get the shower base though, so you can knock €38 off that total, but I also made an unexpected expenditure of €170 while I was at Brico Depot.

I’m intending to put down on the floor some of this tongue-and-grooved laminated flooring and I had my eye on some at €5.74 per square metre, of which I shall be wanting about 28. But today, in the clearance lot was some at €3.67 per square metre. And not a miserable 4mm thickness or even a decent 6mm, but a whacking great 7mm.

Now I don’t think much of the style or the colour but there’s absolutely no dispute about the quality of the stuff. And I have to do what I can to get my budget back under some sort of control, so I can live with the colour and style at this kind of price and this kind of quality. I wasn’t going to miss out.

I also have the bathroom to do eventually and I was planning on tiling it, which would cost an arm and a leg. So when I saw some of this plastic tongue-and-grooving on special offer – just enough to do the bathroom and for just €56, then again in the interests of expediency and budget I wasn’t going to miss out.

I don’t like the stuff, especially as it’s pink marble, and the bathroom will probably end up looking like a tart’s boudoir, but it’s not as if I’ll be spending much time in there and it will do the job as well as anything else, especially at that price.

I ended up with 18mm OSB for the attic floor. That was the thickest they had and they seem to think that it will be perfect for the job. The reason why I went for OSB over chipboard is because having done the barn floor in chipboard and remembering how heavy the 2.8 x 1.4 sheets were and how I’m going to have to maul them up a ladder, the smaller and lighter 1.7 x 0.65 sheets will be much easier to handle.

I made three trips around Brico Depot today – a record. On the third trip through the checkout the young girl on duty there asked me if I had a lorry.

They ask you for your postcode when you go through the checkout and while I agree with Dave that it’s an invasion of privacy, it it helps bring a branch of Brico Depot closer to me then I’m all for it. The checkout girl was quite cute and when she asked me for my postcose I told her that she could have my address as long as she came round to help me fit it all. Ahh well, I have to keep trying … “You’re certainly very trying” – ed.

When I finished loading up Caliburn I went back inside the shop to get a coffee. She saw me coming back and hid behind her till. Serve her right.

I also spent a few bob in LIDL. I popped into the one by the bridge over the Cher at Montlucon, and they still had 7 of the 12-volt LEDs. Not any more, they don’t.

And in other more ominous news, the temperature in the heat exchanger dropped to 3 degrees last night. Winter is acumen in.

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