Tag Archives: standard

Wednesday 14th October 2009 – This should keep Krys and Rhys happy

tongue and groove attic ceiling plasterboard stud wallWhat I did today was firstly to make the framework for the top of the doorframe into the cupboard and then to make the door (which you can’t see in this image).

And after that. I roofed the cupboard (and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either).

Next job was to finish the rear half of the ceiling. This involved trimming lengthways quite a few pieces of T&G but I’ve sussed how to do this now. You may remember me talking about standards (battens of wood 25mm x 25mm cut to a specific length), and how I have a 600mm standard (as a gauge for sheets of insulation) and a 1195mm standard as a gauge for sheets of plasterboard). I now have a 2000mm standard (2000mm being the length of a piece of t&g) and I’ve knocked a row of nails into it that protrude about 3mm out the other side. My circular saw has a bed of 50mm so the cut is 25mm inside the edge of the bed (if you see what I mean). So when I’m measuring up the width of a piece of t&g that I need to cut, I overstimate the measurement by 25mm, press the standard into the wood at the overestimated widths so that the protruding nails hold it to the piece of t&g, and then run the bed of the circular saw along the piece of t&g while being guided up against the standard.

Works every time!

So after much vicissitudes and a major rerouting of the wiring, I finished the rear half of the ceiling.

After lunch I set about doing the front half of the ceiling, but I never got anywhere. The phone went non-stop – firstly Bill wanting to borrow the towing dolly (I have to run that round to him tomorrow morning so that’s put paid to the early start), and then someone wanting to talk to me about fitting some solar panels to a new house in Montlucon (I have to go and look at the job on Monday afternoon so that’s that put paid to any work on Monday afternoon but I’m not complaining) and I can’t remember what the other call was.

After that, I had a visitor. Someone is rebuilding a house and wants to have solar panels on it so he talked to someone who talked to someone else etc etc and eventually my name crept into the frame. So he came round for a chat.

He was here for ages and it was dark by the time he went so that was the entire afternoon spoken for. But again, I can’t complain. I could do with earning some money.

And tonight, I finally succumbed and I had the heater on. The temperature outside has dropped to 2.5 degrees and winter draws on. After all, you know what happened to the three brass monkeys.

Thursday 1st October 2009 – You can’t really tell from this image …

tongue and groove ceiling attic
… how late it was when I finished work, because I’ve lightened it considerably. But the timestamp says 19:26 and the only reason I stopped then was because the light had given out and I could no longer see what I was doing.

The tongue and grooving is coming on fine but I reckon I was somewhat over-optimistic about allocating 2 days for it. A week is probably a better bet. I’ve been fitting battens on the ceiling 60omm apart and fitting 40mm insulation inbetween the battens and then nailing the t&g on top of the battens.

It helps having a “standard” – a piece of wood cut to size so that you can instantly size up the gaps. I’ve been using 2 standards in the attic, a 600mm (the width of a sheet of polystyrene insulation) and a 1195mm (width of a sheet of plasterboard). But because of the undulating walls and beams, each strip of t&g has to be cut individually. You can’t set up a pattern and chop a dozen off with the chopsaw.

There’s probably a lot more I wanted to say but I’m exhausted again and going to bed. I dunno what’s the matter with me recently. Gone are the days when I used to be still up and working at 03:00.