Tag Archives: stud wall bedroom

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.

tongue and groove ceiling wooden plasterboard ends les guis virlet puy de dome franceThere’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

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Wednesday 5th January 2011 – I bet …

… that you’ve all been waiting to see what my room looks like with the plasterboard on the front wall, haven’t you? So you are all in for a disappointment today.

stud wall bedroom shower room studding wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceMost of the studding is now done and it was a realistic expectation to put some of the plasterboard onto the walls, but we had a slight logistics problem about that. If I were to do the walls, I wouldn’t be able to get the wiring for the lights into the correct position – that needs to be done first. And so I spent all afternoon wiring. And that also involved putting some of the studding onto the ceiling in between the beams so that I can fasten the conduit in position.

And so all in all, there wasn’t much visual progress even though a lot of work was done.

At about 17:30 it was too dark to work in the bedroom and so I went outside and did a little clearing of where the new raised beds are going to be. And at 18:05 when I knocked off, it was just about possible to see what it was that I had been doing. The nights are getting shorter whereas my vegetable garden is getting bigger.The heap of wood in the lean-to is getting smaller too and I can actually see the concrete floor in places. A really good fire of garden rubbish to get rid of all kinds of stuff including the kindling in the lean-to that I am never going to use – that will be something to aim for in March when the weather improves.

But the weather today was good. This morning was bright and sunny with a cloudy and windy afternoon. The batteries in the barn are fully-charged and in the house we managed to get onto “float” mode – where the batteries equalise themselves. So it’s not far short of fully-charged here either. These last 3 days of good weather have done wonders for my charging system.

In fact, all in all, I was mostly in a good mood today with the way things ae panning out here. But sorting out my … gulp … 2400 photos of Canada is filling me full of nostalgia and I’m wishing I was back there.

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Thursday 30th December 2010 – SPRING IS SPRUNG.

Yes, quite unexpectedly we had a Spring day today. A weak, hazy sunshine for most of the day with a cloudy late afternoon-evening. And it was quite warm too – 10°C outside for some of the day.

I chopped up some more wood for burning and I’ve had to start on a second pile as the first pile is in danger of overbalancing. Wood is not something that I’m short of, although I do wish that it was of better quality.

I’ve carried on in the bedroom as well and most of the wall is now studded and insulated. It won’t take long to finish that off but it’s unlikely to be tomorrow as I have to go out to move this famous bed.

Mind you, it’s nice having music to work to. It seems to make the time pass quicker and it makes me more enthusiastic. In fact I’m quite pleased at how this bedroom is coming on and I’m thinking that maybe it won’t be all that much longer until it’s ready for occupation. Maybe a month or two. And then I can start on the bathroom.

But of course there’s the gardening to do. I need to build the new greenhouse, shift the old Ford Transit around, make some more vegetable beds and so on.

Even though things are progressing quite nicely at the moment, the work is just backing up and backing up. No danger of it ever being finished.

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Saturday 19th December 2009 – Sometimes I wonder …

… how far I might have made it in the world if I had had the ability to think straight!

This morning I woke up in the freezing cold and still more snow so the first thing that I did was to brush off the solar panels, or as far as I could reach anyway. As the snow continued to fall I had to do it a couple of times and although I was getting a charge off the first bank that I was keeping clear, the second bank had too much snow on it to register and so I was pretty much regretting the waste of energy when suddenly it hit me! So I rushed downstairs and sorted out the chimney sweeping brush, and then back upstairs and onto the roof.

sun clear sky les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt’s not very good and it’s difficult to wield but it’s better than nothing and it was just as well that I had a go because at about 16:00 that golden thing came out and hung around for half an hour or so – and we struggled up to 25 amp-hours of charge, the most I’ve had for a while.

I should have gone shopping today as it is Saturday but the snow put paid to that idea. There’s no point going out in this kind of weather if you can manage as you are. I was also supposed to go to a birthday party tonight and I was really looking forward to going, but there isn’t just the snow to contend with, the temperature had dropped to minus 6 while it was still daylight and it was still snowing! God knows what it will be like at midnight coming home. But it’s so cold that the kettles, that I filled from the water butt after smashing the ice, froze to the concrete floor and the tin of peas and carrots that I opened yesterday and put the rest in a container for tonight – they were frozen solid.

fitting stairs upright stud wall les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo today in between keeping the solar panels clear I carried on with the Stairway to Heaven. I’ve fitted two more uprights as you can see – this is where the turn in the stairs will be. I’ve started to fit the rails that carry the treads and if the weather is too bad to go to this Carol concert tomorrow I’ll be finishing them off and hunting down some scrap wood to use as the treads. It won’t be long now until it’s finished.

And once that’s done I’ll be fitting the stairs in to the ground floor. There’s two that I need to fit that I’ve already cut, and I have a cheap builders’ staircase that I’ll use for the rest. That shouldn’t take much longer either and my plan to have them in for Christmas may well come to pass.

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