Tag Archives: wood treatment

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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Thursday 14th August 2014 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again today.

I went out this morning to go to visit someone who was finishing off the work on his house as there were some bits and pieces up for sale. One of the items on sale was a solid, proper Indespension Plant Trailer – 4-wheeled close-coupled low-loader with built-in ramps, 3 metres long and built to carry a tank. It has low loader sides but they can be raised by boards so that the trailer can carry sand and gravel too and it isn’t half an impressive beast, especially when you consider that it will carry all of my scaffolding too as well as the Kubota tractor and whatever else is lying around here.

But not only that – it was what was on the trailer that caught my eye. I had a goot poke around at that and although it’s old, it was in good condition, not leaking and not smoking, and the price for the trailer and the load would have been what I would have had to pay for one of the brand new trailers that I had been looking at if I had to go to the UK to pick it up. Consequently, I bit the bullet and that was that.

I’ve got to go back with some money and then I can take a photo of my new toy and you can see what it is that I bought. UNtil then, I’ll leave you all in suspense.

Back here I put the second coat onto the fascia panel and the beams of the roof on the front of the house (at least, as far as I could reach). Then I went to lunch.

While I was eating my butty I was interrupted by a visit from a couple of people from the Mairie. They were newly-elected councillors familiarising themselves with the area, and they had a little moan about one or two things here.

And that was my clue. I explained firstly that the untidy and unkempt land isn’t mine but is actually the commune’s land. And why I can’t move my stuff around any better is that the commune hasn’t maintained the land for years so I can’t move stuff past it. ANd so if the commune wants me to do something, they need to do something first.

Furthermore, I had applied to the commune to buy the land. Readers with long memories will remember that I deposited my application on 8th May … errr … 2009 – over 5 years ago. And the commune has taken no action about my demand.

This led to an animated discussion that went on for an hour or two, and finally they saw my point. They promised that they would bring up the matter of my application at the next meeting of the council.

We shall see.

After they went, I spent a pleasant hour or so sanding down the facade of the house where I’d drilled through for the air vents and then filled it. That’s comparatively smooth now and almost ready to paint, but a sad discovery was that the crepi had dried out and so was no use at all. I need to buy some more now before I can paint the facade.

I then spent a while sorting out all of the electrical fittings and making a bracket to mount the outside light that I want to fit. And by the time I had everything ready, it was time to knock off.

It was a dull day today with just a couple of odd sunny spells – at least until about 22:30 when we had today’s torrential downpour. This summer is really getting on my nerves now.

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Wednesday 13th August 2014 – WHAT A DISASTROUS DAY

Wasn’t it just?

I hadn’t gone to sleep by the time dawn broke, and I remember switching off the alarms before going to sleep – that was at 07:30. But the reason for this was the worst rainstorm yet for the summer. Even with all of the windows closed, it was deafening on the roof and I really haven’t heard anything quite like that which was falling through the night. It really was most uncomfortable and depressing.

It was 11:50 when I awoke – that was the morning gone of course – and after breakfast (at midday!) I carried on with the website – no point in going outside.

By about 15:00 the rain stopped and so I went outside and started work. First job was to put the expanding foam under the eaves of the house. I did as far as I could reach and then had to clean out all of the insertion pipes with acetone so that I can use them again. But this stuff is interesting – “there’s enough expanding foam in the can to fill 85 litres” – yes, and enough propellant in the can to get about half of it out.

Next job was to dismantle to guttering, and the far end didn’t need much help from me to be dismantled, leaving me with the thorny question of how I’m going to refit the far end later, where I can’t actually reach it.

Once the guttering was off, I covered all of the wood that I could reach with a thick layer of LIDL’s famous wood preservative, and that took me up to knocking-off time.

Tomorrow I’ll do the second coat of wood treatment and then make a start on tidying up the wiring. Once that’s done, I’ll refit the guttering. I’ve a feeling that we’ll be going to need it.

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Friday 6th July 2012 – This weather really is …

… getting on my wick right now. It’s still raining outside.

Luckily the rain did manage to hold off for a few hours while Marianne and I went to survey the village of Bussieres where Marianne will be holding her walk next Wednesday

eglise bussieres church puy de dome france.First place that you visit in any of these little rural villages scattered around the countryside is the church and here at Bussieres, the church was another one that merited a visit.

Again, it’s an early church that has been expanded and enlarged over the centuries but because it’s in such a tight situation, the expansion has had to take place in all sorts of unusual directions and unusually there is no north chapel.

eglise bussieres pionsat puy de dome franceIt was another one of these churches that was visited in 1842 by the same person who visited the church at St Maurice près Pionsat and, once again, he considered the church here to be of no merit.

You can tell by the photo here that quite clearly that he didn’t have any idea of what he was talking about, because this is another magnificent little structure well-worth a visit.

marianne contet school bussieres ecole puy de dome franceThe old school here at Bussieres is well-worth a visit too. It’s one of those that was opened following the “Universal Education” decrees of the 1880s and although it’s now converted into housing, it has a very interesting history.

Not because of the building, but because of one of the teachers here. Back in the inter-war period he organised the children of the school to prepare some kind of communal diary of daily life in their homes and in the area and it’s become something of a classic of rural life here in the Auvergne in that period and is used extensively in research.

Back here, I decided that I would put the second coat of paint on the woodwork on the lean-to outside. So I cleaned the brush, washed out the pot, filled it with the paint, climbed up the scaffolding, and then it started raining.

LIDL wood treatment charpente lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceHowever I wanted it done today at any cost so an hour later, at 19:10, soaking wet that I was, that’s the woodwork on the lean-to all finished. And A good job it is too. That wood treatment from LIDL isn’t ‘arf some good stuff.

Next time the weather is half-decent for working outside (weekends excepted of course) I’ll dismantle the solar shower fitment outside the lean-to and then paint the facade with the pale yellow stone paint.

It should look quite pretty with that.

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Thursday 5th July 2012 – 24mm of rain.

hanging cloud les guis virlet puy de dome franceThat’s what we’ve had so far today. And this photo aside tells its own story – a nice hanging cloud drifting slowly up the valley behind the house. That sums up the weather – it was like that all day and I’m fed up.

In other news, I had to make more muesli for breakfast, and it seems that I have run out of desecrated coconut. That’s not very good. And after breakfast I worked on the web pages for a while but I’m also not ashamed to say that I went back to bed for half an hour too – this weather is so flaming depressing.

Later on, I switched the inverter on and sanded down the polyfilla that I had put on all of the joints of the plasterboard in the cupboard – may as well take advantage of the weather. After lunch, I put another layer – the final one – on the joints. At the next available opportunity I’ll sand that off, paint the walls and fit the new laminate flooring. Then I can build the shelves and start moving the stuff in there from out of where the bathroom is going to be.

I had an hour in the lean-to too and I’ve sorted out a pile of stuff in there too. That was something else that needed doing. And then, by way of surprise, it stopped raining briefly at about 18:00. Briefly, I say, but long enough for me to finish putting the first coat of of wood treatment on the exposed new wood on the lean-to. When I have the chance, I’ll put the second coat on there and then paint the rendering.

It’s amazing how much you can do when you have the time and place to do it all. I really Am starting to become organised.

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Monday 2nd July 2012 – What do you think …

creeping plant growing up kwikstage scaffolding puy de dome france… about my nice environmentally-friendly scaffolding? I’ve no idea what that plant is that has decided to grow up it, but it has heart-shaped leaves and small green berries and it’s growing like crazy.

Yes, you’ll notice that I’ve lowered the scaffolding. The roof is finished and, seeing as how I finished the rendering off around the front this afternoon, I’ve started to paint the woodwork with the LIDL wood treatment. That means that I have to lower the scaffolding. I’m only doing the outside now – the inside can wait until the weather is bad.

Once the woodwork is painted, then I need to paint the rendering off around the front of the lean-to so that it matches the house. For that, I need to move a pile of stuff that’s around the front, although I’ve not worked out where I’m going to put it yet. Still, It’ll All Work Out in Boomland, so they say.

Once all that is done, then I can start on my secret project, to put Krys out of her misery, or else I can carry on rebuilding the wall that you can see in the photo and then put the guttering on. Probably guttering is a good idea as Thursday I’m hoping to have the water butts for there. That’ll mean that Krys will still be in suspense for another couple of weeks.

So that was this afternoon. This morning I was on the website again, and then I was outside in the garden. Apart from tbe usual weeding, I planted another row of carrots and some more beetroot and then spent a pleasant hour thinning the cabbage and cauliflower. The sprouts need thinning too but I’m not sure where to put the ones that I pull out.

But this is all progress, isn’t it? I’ve never ever reached the thinning stage with the brassica. Usually this time of year I’m hunting for the survivors but there aren’t half some impressive plants – and all grown from seed too. 

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Sunday 4th July 2010 – Even though it was Sunday today …

xylophene wood treatment chevrons barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… I’ve been working today. Yes, it does occasionally happen.

In this photo you can see the huge stack of wood that I treated with xylophene wood treatment – the stuff that kills all of the nasty beasties.

In fact it didn’t take all that long to do – not if you line all the bits up adjacent to each other and attack them with a paint roller soaked in the stuff (that’s what the black container is for). All you do is to whallop the stuff on, turn the wood on its side and do the next side and then keep on going until all of the sides and all of the pieces are done.

Before that I was up a ladder repositioning a gutter mounting bracket and then taking down the mast for the wind turbine – that’s going to be mounted elsewhere as you know. And I took the opportunity to hunt down a spare blade (and that wasn’t easy either) to replace the one that broke a while ago.

Lieneke came around for a chat too – she’s going to talk to Terry about some work. And once she had gone it was shower-time, and we aren’t talking about the Open University Students Association either. 36°C the water was at 18;20 when I knocked off and so I took full advantage. After all, I missed the swimming baths yesterday.

This morning though I didn’t do too much. After all it is Sunday. 2 telephone calls one after the other summoned me from my reverie at some ungodly hour … “you mean 10:10” – ed …  and after breakfast I entered the stats onto the computer, something I hadn’t done since March and there was a lot of catching up to do.

And talking of stats, on the 1st of July I started a new record book as the old one is now full. August 2007 I started keeping records and there were just four items that I recorded. Today there are about 35 entries that I need to make each evening. But filling the first book is definitely progress.

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Wednesday 19th May 2010 – This trailer is taking shape …

caravan chassis trailer sauret besserve puy de dome france… as you can see if you peer through the flare of the sunlight reflecting off a car window onto something inside the barn (I’ll take another better pic tomorrow).

But the trailer has now grown four chevrons between the metal frame pieces, and it’s also grown some outriggers too. The trailer base is half-done although it needs wood-treating (we ran out of the LIDL wood treatment stuff half-way through).

It’s not going to be the floor that will cause us any problems, that’s for sure.

But it’s slow going though. We’re doing it properly and that includes threading the wire through conduit and then through the chassis leg and out to the back rather than having wires dangling everywhere. We’ve also properly rebated the timber ends so that they fit nicely inside the U-profile channelling, and it’s all bolted down. It won’t half be impressive when it’s finished – which may well be tomorrow with any luck.

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Thursday 27th August 2009 – WORK ON THE ATTIC …

fitting of chimney tube into wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… has started in earnest this morning. And in fact if I had been able to find my heavy bolster chisel when I started to look for it instead of having to search for two (yes, two) hours to find it, I would have started this morning.

I’ve whacked a huge hole in the wall that took me through into the chimney, and I’ve passed in a piece of enamel piping 125mm in diameter. This is the outlet for the woodstove that I will be putting up here for the winter to keep me warm memo – buy a woodstove.

I then mixed a huge bucket full of cement and cemented up the hole around the pipe and filled in the cracks that were in the wall. when I finished that, it was 18:00 to the second, so I knocked off. Not like last night where I was so carried away by enthusiasm that I was still working at 19:15 when I noticed the time.

You can always tell when I’m absorbed in an interesting job by how late it is when I knock off.

12 volt LED lightbulbs les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis morning I went chaud-pied to St Eloy to get the LED lights. And, major disappointment, they only had 7 GU10s, 7 MR16s and 6 E14s.

Needless to say, after I had left they didn’t have any at all.

They also had a few cans of the wood treatment that I like (albeit increased in price to 8.99 instead of 7.99) and they are two tins lighter of that stuff now too. It’s very good stuff, this LIDL wood treatment.

I went to Pionsat afterwards to pick up my new bank card and to empty the chemical toilet when I get the time, get the new improved beichstuhl up and running.

While I was emptying the toilet, a woman came in to use the facilities. She made about half a pace in, grabbed her nose, said “God, it stinks in here” and piddled off, giving me a huge grimace. And that took me completely by surprise – I had thought my chemical toilet was known the whole world over by now.

And back home, while looking for the bolster chisel I measured up everything that I’m going to need to do my room. It’s going to stretch my budget considerably but then again, comfort has its price but it is its own reward.

And talking of cracks, an ugly crack appeared on the wall of the OUSA office the other day. But Als Ryan had it papered over before Turdi de Hatred could read it.

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Tuesday 11th August 2009 – I’VE BEEN PAINTING FOR MOST OF THE DAY.

With all of the slates off the roof, it seemed like the right thing to do. All of the beams and rafters that are still up there have had two coats of xylophene and one coat of LIDL wood treatment.

And they needed the xylophene too. One or two of them have some pretty big bug holes and galleries so they have been well-soaked in the stuff. They aren’t too badly damaged so it’s not worth replacing them. The xylophrene should do the job.

But it was pretty awkward painting them as they are too long to paint in one go, too short to do in two goes, there’s a central beam right where I want to put my chest when I’m lying full-length and a scaffolding just above my head. So I’ve been in some awkward positions and I’ve got aches in some places I didn’t even realise I had.

Three rafters are pretty bad though – the two outer ones and one of the inners. But I have about 20 here so I cut three to size and gave them two coats of xylophene and two coats of LIDL wood treatment.

All in all I used about 8 litres of xylophrene (good job Brico Depot had some 35-litre drums the other day) and 5 litres of the LIDL stuff. I always buy a few tins of it when I see it on offer and I’m glad I had a stock. I’m now down to just three so I’m hoping they’ll have some more pretty soon.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the new beams and cementing them in place ready to fit the plywood over the top. Then the damp-proof membrane and then the slates. No insulation and no laths either.

In other news, my potential customer came round. I thought that I could talk, but I’m an amateur by comparison. Still, we have to be nice to our potential customers (something that a certain UK company might wish to take on board) and I’ll go round to inspect his premises once my roof is done.

And in other other news, I see that Aung San Sun Kyi is to continue in detention, much to the chagrin of the entire western world. Now I’m not going to get involved in the rights and wrongs of her case (although followers of my organ from many years back will recall my involvement with the myserious and exotic War War Soe who came dramatically into my life for a while in Belgium and who tried to get me to help her escape Burmese justice) but one thing that I have noticed is that not one single western source has mentioned exactly WHY it is that Aung San Sun Kyi is so detested by the Burmese Authorities.

And so I hasten to put the matter straight for the record, so that in the words of the late, great FE Smith,even if you are none-the-wiser, you will certainly be better-informed.

The fact is that Aung San’s father was a former Burmese general prior to World War II. He mysteriously disappeared and later fetched up in, of all places, Japan, where the Japanese feted him and honoured him, lavished loads of money on him and so on. He then went back to Burma.

In 1941 when the Japanese colonial expansion got into top gear there was a revolution in Burma. And who should be leading this revolution, but Aung San’s father. He invited the Japanese into Burma to help with the “liberation” and of course it is no surprise that they duly obliged.

I’m not going into the horrors of the Japanese “liberation” (see “occupation” or “colonialisation”) of Burma as they are fully-recorded in all kinds of other places, but most people lay them fairly and squarely at the feet of Aung San’s father.

it’s no surprise therefore that the establishment of Burma is deeply suspicious of Aung San’s motives and cannot understand why it should be that she is calling herself as a “true democrat”. To give you some idea, just imagine what westerners would say if a child of Adolf Hitler were to stand for election as a Communist in Germany.

LIke I say, I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of what is happening in Burma right now, but it’s important that both sides have an equal opportunity to have their views aired, something that is sadly lacking in the west these days.

And on the same day that a 90 year old German is convicted of war crimes dating from World War II and jailed for life, the hypocrisy of the western world in criticising Burma for dealing with its own World War II legacy in its own fashion is quite simply staggering.

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Tuesday 4th August 2009 – A PHOTO FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE TONIGHT

painting facade kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceand if you look closely you will notice that the facade of the house has been painted down to the level of the decking on the scaffolding.

That was this afternoon’s task – the morning was taken up in cementing underneath the rest of the eaves. It wasn’t easy without a bricklayer’s trowel, that it until I tried out a piece of recycled plastic slate. What a good finish you can get with a few offcuts of those!

Lunchtime involved a visit to the bank at Pionsat. The temporary insurance certificate for Caliburn has run out
and they haven’t sent me a new one yet.
“Well, you haven’t sent us the log book” was their story
“You didn’t ask for it” I replied. “You just asked for proof of Caliburn’s new registration number and I dropped off the certificate three weeks ago”
“Yes, but we still need the log book”
So GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to the Credit Agricole! I wish they’d make up their blasted minds!

And it was so hot today that the 15 litres of water in my mini-heat-exchanger was scorching. So I took advantage of that and had another shower. Two in a week! I’ll wash myself away at that rate.

I also connected up the fridge. I’ve decided just to run it during the daylight hours in sunny conditions. I have to do something with the excess solar charge seeing as how the batteries in the house now top out after just 30 minutes and isn’t this a change from a short while ago? I’ve filled it full of these ice-packs so that it should retain the cold for a while and I’ll have nice cool orange juice for breakfast.

After the shower I xylophened the two planks that I’m going to be using for the fascia boards on the house, and put the first coat of wood preservative on. I’ll do the second as soon as I wake up and then put the second coat on the house under the eaves while the planks are drying. When they are dry I’ll fit them and then fit the guttering. After that, the scaffolding will come down another level.

And in other news, I had a phone call from a guy I met in the Auchan. He wants to come round and talk Solar Energy so we’ve arranged for Saturday at 18:00. Good job it looks like we’ve been working around here. I’d hate him to think that this total disorder is habitual.

Perish the thought, hey?

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Saturday 1st August 2009 – Saturday is a sort-of day of rest …

… so I didn’t set the alarm clock this morning.

And when I woke up my mobile phone had gone flat and so I didn’t have a clue about the time, so seeing as I was wide awake I reckoned it was getting on for 10:00 so I hauled myself out of the stinking pit to find that it was 08:15!

After breakfast I went up onto the scaffolding at the side of the house and gave it all a really good soaking in xylophene and then walloped some of the brown staining all over it – nice and thick. That won’t rot away any time soon.

By now it was 11:30 and as there’s not much to eat round here I wandered off into St Eloy and the LIDL and Carrefour. I didn’t meet Bill today (just for a change) and once stocked up (to a value of 20 Euros) I dropped by on George but he was going out so I came home.

In the afternoon I cleaned up my room (you’ve no idea how much rubbish was in here that had gathered over the last 4 weeks) and the verandah so I have places to eat ond cook again. All of this was done to music as I coupled up the hi-fi seeing as the power situation is resolving itself more permanently. Even now at 02:00 I have Lindisfarne going on in the background.

And I noticed on Facebook that Terry was praying for rain. And he got his wish almost as soon as he posted for we had a tropical storm. In 3 hours or so about 17mm of rain fell on here. That’s some going. I’m glad we got the roof on in here beforehand.

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Saturday 18th July 2009 – TERRY AND LIZ HAVE THIS WHACKING GREAT BARN …

owl barn liz terry messenger sauret besserve puy de dome france… and it’s home to a couple of owls. Whenever you open the barn door first thing in the morning they fly out of the air vent. And after a couple of days trying, I finally managed to snap one as it fled.

You’ve no idea just how impressive it is to see them take to the air.

Terry came up in his own car this morning as he wanted to leave at lunchtime. Unfortunately the days when you were allowed to chain your workforce to the workplace are long gone and so I had little say in the matter.

Whatever happened to the days when employees were happy to work 24 hours per day seven days per week with just a crust of bread to keep them going? A sign of the times, I’m afraid.

concreting roof joints les guis virlet puy de dome franceBut we managed to do all of the concreting and cementing none the less and that was a good sign.

An even better sign was that the batteries and the rainwater held out. We used 5 bags of cement, about 120 litres of gravel and about half the sand, which shows you how much we saved by mixing the concrete ourselves, and we even repaired the chimney.

wood treatment roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter Terry went I had a pause for a couple of hours and then painted all of the old woodwork on the roof and then started to tidy up the barn.

I’m feeling a bit homesick so I’m staying here tonight even though I don’t have any electricity to speak of as we took down the wind turbine and the solar panels on the house and I forgot about that. I’d better hurry up and finish my posting before the battery on my laptop goes flat and I run out of

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Wednesday 15th July 2009 – NOW THAT I HAVE THIS IMAGE THING SUSSED …

new woodwork chevrons roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… and I’ve also sussed out how to use my laptop on Terry and Liz’s internet connection, I can post some work-in-progress photos of the roof.

We fixed the remaining rafters to the front of the house, dismantled the rafters at the rear, cut the new ones to size, fitted them, sprayed them in wood preservative and then began to paint them in the brown stuff that I like that comes from LIDL (although that was after I took the pic). We also dismantled one of the new windows to see how it fitted in.

That sounds like quite a lot and indeed it was. We were totally exhausted by 17.15 and it was a good job that Liz summoned us back to the house as we were having visitors.

In fact the phone rang twice, which is no joke when you are 8 metres up in the air on a scaffolding. If it keeps on ringing like this, badger the ladder – I’m going for a batpole. When I worked as a chauffeur for a diplomat, our garage was about 4 floors underneath our office and I did suggest that in our next budget we made provision for a batpole. No wonder they kicked me out.

Tomorrow we are finishing off the painting and then concreting the rafters in. When that sets we can start fitting the insulation.

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