Tag Archives: varnishing floor

Friday 27th March 2016 – WE NOW HAVE …

varnished floor skirting board les guis virlet puy de dome france… a fully-varnished floor – three coats of varnish on there and I hope that that will do the trick and seal it all properly.

It does look nice, I do have to say. And at 90 minutes per coat, so it ought to. It’s much better than my first idea of putting laminate over the old floorboards and I do wish now that I had done this in the attic.

You’ll also notice the skirting board. That’s fitted all of the way round now. Glued and nailed on two sides, and just nailed on the third side whzre it’s packed out from the wall. I had some long nails and they went through the packing and right into the battens up against the wall, so the tack nails will hold the skirting board to that. Which is just as well, because this glue is rubbish. More Brico Depot garbage.


glass pane in frame above door bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceWe also have a glass pane in the frame above the door.You can see the transit sticker on there, which I left on for the purpose of the photo.

What astonished me was that I managed to bring it home the other day, carry it upstairs via the obstacle course downstairs and then fit it into position, without dropping it or otherwise breaking it. That has to be somethig of a first.


clothes rail wardrobe bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd this is certainly progress.

We have some clothes rails now in the wardrobe/ I’ve emptied one of the wardrobes in the attic and hung the clothes in the wardrobe. This is a sure sign that the work has practically come to an end in the bedroom.

I’ve started to dismantle the big wzrdrobe in the attic, and I’ll finish that off, empty the other one and dismantle that, and them move the rest of the clothes and the chests of drawers downstairs too. I can’t believe how much room I’m going to have in the attic when I’ve done that.

It was however astonishing to see how much dust had accumulatred under the wardrobe. It was a case of shovelling it out rather than brushing it out.

Last thing was the shower. The verandah was a warm 24°C and the water was a hot 59°C so a heated shower was absolutely gorgeous. Now I’m nice and clean, with nice clean clothes and nice clean hair.

How long can I keep this up?

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Thursday 26th March 2015 – ONE MORE COAT …

… of varnish on the floor and the varnishing will be finished. Every vertical surface has already had two coats of varnish, and every horizontal surface three, except of course the floor. And that will be done first thing tomorrow morning.

That new varnish from Mr Bricolage seems to be okay- it needs a really good mixing but then it spreads quite nicely. I’ll have to remember that varnish next time I’ll be varnishing.

That really is all that I’ve done today – as if that isn’t enough. You’ve absolutely no idea of just how much bare wood there was in that bedroom and it took ages to do. But it all looks so nice now and so it was well-worth the effort.

Tomorrow, once the varnish has dried, I’ll be fitting the skirtung board and then trying to install the glass over the door without dropping it. Putting the hanging rails in the wardrobe will be the final job and that bedroom will finally be finished. I can then move all of the clothes and the chests of drawers down there, and my attic will be so much emptier.

That’s not quite true. I need to sort out the lights in there. At the moment there are just some LED lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling and I’m not sure what I can do to make that look pretty. I have one or two ideas and I’ll have to see how they pan out.

I had yet another small fire in here tonight seeing as the temperature was just 14.9°C. That’s 2°C higher than my threshold temperature, but I made a huge pepper and chickpea curry tonight and that cooks nicely in the oven, so why not light the fire and be comfortable while i’m doing it? And it took the leftover wood from yesterday, a floorboard offcut and half a log. Talk about cheap cooking and heating.

Yes, this little wood fire with tiny oven is the best thing that i’ve ever purchased for here.

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Wednesday 25th March 2015 – I DID WELL …

… to light a little fire up here last night. I awoke to a relatively balmy 16.2°C and yet outside we had 5cms of snow. So much for Spring, hey?

And I’d been on my travels during the night too. I had aroused the antipathy of the factory bully who ended up chasing me around the factory brandishing an enormous club. He was intercepted by a few of his colleagues who persuaded him to use a slightly smaller club. But it all ended happily ever after as I ended up walking across the park towards some buildings in the distance, hand in hand (and later, arm round the waist) of a girl who, over the past two or three weeks, has appeared out of nowhere to accompany me on several of my nocturnal adventures. I’ve absolutely no idea at all what has prompted the strange inclusion of this unexpected companion, no matter how sweet many of the people in the park described the pair of us last night.

After breakfast I used up the rest of the cheap varnish on the window and the shelves in the wardrobe, and then I varnished the floor with the first coat. After that, I went off to Montlucon as I predicted.

First stop was Pionsat to sort out the boulangère. Sophie, the regular Friday livreuse, is off sick and so they’ve been taking on anyone that they can get. That explains all of the confusion about the delivery of Friday’s bread, and I hope that we’ve managed to sort it out.

At the LIDL I witnessed a very disagreeable incident of a young guy verbally abusing the young female cashier over the price of an article (but he cleared off before I could have a word in his shell-like) and then at the Auchan I stocked up with the next month’s major supply of food.

At Brico-Depot I managed to forget the floor-join and the brush for the bedroom door but I managed to fix myself up with some tackle to make a couple of Heath-Robinson hanging rails for the wardrobe, as well as a couple more 4-watt LED light bulbs. I also bumped into Pete Marsh and his friend, who were stocking up on supplies for their next contract.

I was disappointed though – the cheap but good varnish is no longer carried. It seems that the supplier has closed down. So to be on the safe side, I bought another large tin of the expensive stuff just in case. If I don’t use it, it’ll come in handy for the ground floor.

Problem solved though over the road at mr Bricolage. They had big tins of cheap clear varnish on offer so I bought one,as well as the glass that I need to do the window over the door. I’ve managed to bring that home in one piece – it’ll be interesting to see if I can manage to get it into the doorframe without dropping it.

NOZ came up with nothing so I came home, crashed out for an hour and then made myself a Heath-Robinson meal of a handful of pasta, sone peas, carrots and green beans, and some olive oil and mustard sauce. Cooked on the oven because I’ve had the fire on again tonight. The left-over wood from last night-s fire and a floorboard offcut and that was sufficient. It’s amazing what you can do with a good fire.

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Thursday 22nd January 2015 – FIAT LUX!

12 volt lights bathroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd we aren’t talking about Italian cars and washing … "you’ve said that bedore" – ed …

Anyway, we now not only have a varnished and shiny floor (covered in cardboard while it hardens) in the shower room, but we also have lights. To fit these was so straightforward that I can’t uderstand how it is that I haven’t fitted them before this.

And I’ll tell you something else for nothing too – those push-in spring-loaded wire connectors really are the business and I’m glad that I discovered them.

In fact, all in all, what I’ve learnt since I’ve been doing up this house has made me wish that I could go back and do the attic all over again.

12 volt lights bedroom les guis virlet puy de dome franceFitting the lights in the bedroom was not quite so easy.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve not installed one of the cables that needs to connect up the main lightswitch to the pull switch that I wanted to install. It’s not possible to install it no and so I had to rewire it into a single way switch.

All the four lights, bulbs and bulb holders were fitted but wiring it all up was something of a struggle, particularly as I’d forgotten which wire went where (I hadn’t counted on a three-year lay-off from finishing it off) but I eventually worked it all out and wired it into the 12-volt wiring circuit, even though all together it took me most of the day.

The beichstuhl is now temporarily installed in the shower room and then to finished, I sanded down, shaped and installed the skirting board at the head of the stairs.

And if the evidence of the last couple of weeks is anything to go on, my regular working hours have now gone out of the window. I think that having the music certainly helps.

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Wednesday 21st January 2015 – I HAD A NICE …

… day out today. I needed a couple of things from Terry and he needed a couple of things from me, and so I went round there this morning.

Mind you, it didn’t mean that I did no work here. I was up bright and early for once and after breakfast I put the second coat of varnish onto the shower room floor and then off I went in the deep sub-zero temperature to Liz and Terry’s.

We spent all of the morning dealing with some things for Terry and then after lunch we had a look at a couple of things that I needed doing, which included a trip out to Montaigut.

I was back here by 17:45 and first thing that I did was to put the third and final coat of varnish on the shower room floor. That’s now all nicely sealed in and in the morning it will be lovely, and ready for me to move the beichstuhl into there.

In other news, we had near-record days of sunshine while I was out. I had 95 amps of surplus solar energy and that pushed the water in the dump load up to 46°C. It’s all looking quite impressive

And it will be even more impressive if I can have a good day here tomorrow.

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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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Wednesday 14th January 2015 – WELL, HERE YOU ARE THEN.

painted stairwell attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceThe stairwell, all painted a nice blue.

It wasn’t going to be as nice as this though, because the paint was a lot darker than indicated on the tin and I didn’t fancy that idea too much. So into the can went a litre of white paint and that lightened it up a little.

And it was a good job that I did that too, because there wouldn’t otherwise be enough to do a second coat, which is what I’m going to be doing tomorrow. And it needs it too because I’ve been doing it with a brush and it doesn’t go on particularly thoroughly.

painted stairwell attic les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took ages to do too, and it was long after 14:00 when I knocked off for lunch – more like 15:00 in fact, but I wasn’t going to stop work until I had finished the painting.

After my very late lunch I tidied up again and then carried on with the floor in the shower room. That is now all down and fitted in position, apart from the end block which will go under where the door will be.

For tea, I found an old tin of curried mixed beans and so I fried some onions, garlic and potatoes in olive oil and spices, and then added the tin of curried beans and a large tin of vegetables. Now there’s enough there for a good few days and that suits me fine.

For tomorrow after the second coat of paint, I’ll be cleaning up the exposed woodwork of the beams and rafters and painting it in the dark brown wood preservative. Once that is done, I’m going to go for it and start on fitting the door for the shower room. At least if I can do the door frame that will be a great advance.

I’ve worked out that I need three clear days to varnish the stairs and leave each coat to dry before I walk on it. If I go to the shops in Montlucon a week on Saturday, we’re rehearsing the radio programmes on the Sunday and then recording on Monday, then it looks like I have almost a week and a half to do as much of the flooring and woodwork that I can and sand everything down ready to start the varnishing on the Saturday before I head off to Montlucon.

That sounds like a good plan.

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