Tag Archives: worktop

Monday 22nd June 2015 – BACK TO WORK …

… although I didn’t feel much like it. I didn’t have anything like a late night, but it was still difficult to crawl out of bed.

After breakfast, I did a pile of work on the computer again and that took me though to midday. And then I attacked the shower room.

worktop sink tap shower room les guis virlet puy de dome france The worktop is now in position, and all of the plasterboard has been fitted around it (except on the stud wall where the pipes will be running).

And I remembered why I hadn’t fitted the mounting rail on one side too. That was because there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre the worktop into position with both mounting rails in place. I had to take it out, fit the worktop and then refit the rail

But tiling the walls is going to be interesting. According to the plasterboard that I have fitted, the walls are out of plumb bu 25mm over a distance of a metre. So with 18m² of wall to tile, you can imagine what that is going to look like when it’s finished.

There were some bits of blank wall that needed plasterboarding too, and I had forgotten about these. I’ve made a start on them – one part has been done and I’m fitting the studding for the second. The third doesn’t need studding but just a bit of “dot and dab” – I’m sure that I have some stuff for that somewhere, and I’ll look tomorrow.

Water in the home-made immersion heater was really hot – off the scale in fact – and the water in the solar shower was at 32.5°C. 8 litres of water out of the immersion heater into the solar tank took that up to a glorious 38.5°C and I had the best shower that I have had for ages. But the wiring on the immersion heater is heating up again. I’m really going to have to have a good look at this next time we have a grey day.

Later, I made a mega-red pepper and lentil curry, enough for four days. Three says’ worth has gone into the fridge in the vacuum jars and that will keep me going quite happily for the next few days.

But I might not be working here tomorrow. Rob rang up and there’s the possibility of some folding stuff for the next few days.

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Friday 19th JUne 2015 – I’VE HAD AN INTERESTING DAY

I was actually working this morning when the alarm went off at 08:00. That’s not something that happens every day, so you need to make a note of it. I did!

I was putting the coat of varnish on the underside of the shower-room worktop. The top coat was dry from yesterday evening so I could run it over and begin. I wanted to do that as early as possible so that it would be dry by the end of the afternoon.

Back up here after breakfast, and seeing as I was on a roll, I did another live concert for Radio Anglais, editing and engineering it to make a continuous stream. Now I don’t know why it is but sometimes I’m there for days and I can’t ever set the joins correctly. At other times, it’s as if the joints go together automatically with only the most minimal effort, and today was one of those days.

The only real problem that I did have was with the original engineering and I found myself at times editing out the faults in the original mixing. One was particularly troublesome but I managed to overdub the following track and fade out the previous track where I’d overdubbed it, so that the annoying click is inaudible. Studying the waveforms of the two tracks, you can usually find a length in each tracks that is pretty much identical, and you can superimpose them at that position.

I’ve also restarted a radio project that I had begun in 2013 but with all of the issues that I was having in that year, I had set aside. I’ll tell you more about it at a later date when it’s complete (whenever that might be) but I need some info from Radio Tartasse that won’t be available until the end of the month.

After lunch, I found to my delight that the worktop was dry. So I could turn it back over and put the second coat on the top. This is bang on plan as the second coat always takes ages to dry and it can stay like that until Monday now.

I tidied up the shower room, brushed everything up and removed the debris. It’s looking quite tidy in there now, for a change. I’ve also fitted the missing mounting rail for the worktop (I should have done that yesterday but I forgot) and then I measured up the doorway so that I can make a start in making the door frame on Monday.

This evening it was shopping in St Eloy-les-Mines and if there was a big queue at the checkouts, I was in it. One of those days.

I didn’t buy anything extra, except for the strawberries. A huge punnet for €1:99 and the ones that I ate tonight (there’s enough for three or four days) were delicious. Well, i did have some soya cream that needed using up.

And seeing as how there were no yellow paper collecting bags out on the streets in Montaigut last week, I imagined that tonight would be collection night so I took all of mine down there. But there were none about so it can’t be every fortnight like it is in most places. But the two slugs and a snail enjoyed the run out anyway.

And now, just for a change, I’m going to have a very early night. My efforts this morning have caught me up.

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Thursday 18th June 2015 – I’M FED UP …

… with this weather.

It started off okay this morning but it clouded over slowly as the day progressed and by the time it was going dark it was teeming down with rain again. It’s really getting on my nerves. I recon that during the last week we’ve had more than 150mm (6 inches) of rain.

I had another morning spent on the computer dealing with these hardware issues that I’ve been having. I’m still nowhere near fixing them but I’m not ‘arf learning a lot on my way around.

enlarged holes in stud wall for pipework shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs far as working on the house went, I’ve finished drilling and enlarging all of the holes for the pipework in the stud wall. There were a couple more holes that I had forgotten and so I drilled those too.

I then turned my attention to the worktop.

That has now been completely drilled out for the pipes. Then I measured all up for fitting the sink and the tap. All of the holes have been drilled for them now (and I spent some time trying to take off the holecutter from the spindle – that wasn’t easy either) and the top surface has now had the first coat of wood treatment. It looks quite nice, but it’s still too dark if you ask me.

Tomorrow first thing I’ll do the underside of the worktop and then towards the end of the day I’ll put the second coat on the top surface. In between times, I’ll have a go at attacking the door frame and see where that takes me.

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Thursday 11th June 2015 – I DUNNO …

… what’s happened this last day or two, but today I’ve had another roaring day with the Radio programmes. In the space of two and a half hours, I sat down and dashed off 2000 words on taxation. And that includes having to read a taxation document written in official French and to translate it in my head as I’ve been going along.

So that’s not like me at all just recently given my lengthy spell of lethargy.

I had a very late night as well and struggled to leave my bed this morning. For the first half hour or so I was all ready to go back to bed, and that’s what makes this morning’s efforts all that more remarkable.

composting toilet beichstuhl fitted installed shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’m glad that I chose light oak for the preparation of the surfaces of the oak worktops that I bought in Eching. I shudder to think how it might have turned out had I bought mid-oak or dark oak.

For the kitchen, I’m going to try to find a transparent surface treatment if I can. The stuff that I have is nothing like as good as this stuff that I bought.

But it has turned out rather well – you can’t deny the quality of the stuff. And here’s the worktop for the beichstuhl all in position with the fitted hinge on the lid covering the sawdust container and also with the bracket and peg to hold the lunette in position.

It’s all worked out rather well.

This afternoon I’ve been plasterboarding, spending much of the time trying to extract the plasterboard sheets from the back of the pile. But anyway, they are out and I’ve now plasterboarded the back wall and half of the wall to the left on the stud wall.

I’ve also fitted the shelf for the “bathroom books”

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully finish the plasterboarding in that corner and then I can start to empty more of the rubbish out of the shower room.

That will give me much more room to work.

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Tuesday 9th June 2015 – I HAD QUITE A STRUGGLE …

… to leave the bed this morning. I had something of a late night and a restless sleep – I dunno what I’ve done but someone was clearly talking about me.

During breakfast I started to doze off again and for half an hour or so it was a real effort to stay awake, and at times I didn’t quite manage it.

However it must have done something because in the space of a couple of hours I dashed off the additional notes for the next batch of Radio Anglais programmes – 14kb of text without a pause. I’ll check it over tomorrow and make sure that it makes sense.

After lunch, during which I fell asleep again for 10 minutes, I cracked on with the beichstuhl.

top for dry composting toiletles guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve now finished the worktop for the composting toilet as you can see. The hinges over where the sawdust container will be aren’t fixed yet but it gives you an idea as to how it will look.

The lunette over where the toilet drop will be isn’t going to be hinged. There will be a peg to locate it in position and it will slide out on rails to provide easy access for the drop container which can be lifted out quite easiiy for emptying into the compost bins.

It’s now been varnished too, and I do have to say that I don’t really like the colour. It’s called “light oak” but it isn’t all that light – at least not as light as I want. I should have gone for clear varnish but they didn’t have any.

shelf in bathroom over composting toilet les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhile the varnish was drying, I found the pine offcut from the previous worktop. I’d varnished that because I intend to use it as a shelf over the beichstuhl.

I dunno about you, but in my bathroom I have a dozen or so of what I call “bathroom books” – books with little easy-to-read sections such as dictionaries of quotations, unusual facts, jokes, that kind of thing.

I like to have them handy as it gives me something to read. And being all in little segments, they are easy to pick up and put down.

I made a huge green-pepper-and-lentil curry this evening, enough for four nights. I’ve not been eating regularly and i need to do something about that. At least there are three more meals that only need heating up.

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Thursday 4th June 2015 – IF THERE WERE ANY DOUBTS …

… about those worktops being made of oak, you just ask the jigsaw.

The thing gave up after about 6 inches – a broken blade being the issue here. Terry had given me a little cheap low-powered one that I tried, but that was a thankless task. There wasn’t enough power to work the blade properly and we ended up with a scorched surface where the heat from the blade had singed the wood. In the end, the ancient Scorpion electric saw was put to use and although that struggled a little, it did the job.

So after I don’t know how long, the other worktop for the top of the beichstuhl was cut to shape, and it’s a much better fit than the first effort, and looks so much nicer too.

To cut out the trap for the container of the beichstuhl I resorted to the circular saw, trimming off with the Scorpion, and that’s also a much better job than the previous one

To cut out the hole, I had to trace a line around the lunette of the toilet seat, drill out the angles and then go and find my box of jigsaw blades – no easy task. However I did eventually find them and I’ve cut out the hole (3 blades later). It needs trimming off but that’s a job for tomorrow as it was quite late when I knocked off.

I had a late start – that’s why nothing was finished. I’ve been working on the radio programmes – in particular the rock programmes – for Radio Anglais this morning. I need to push on and try my best to get ahead while I am still here. I’ll be off to Canada before too long. Time is closing in.

And what a gorgeous day today. Not a cloud in the sky, 33.3°C temperature, water in the solar shower at 38.5°C and the temperature in the dump load going off the scale at 14:00. In the end I had to drain out 10 litres of hot water and put in 10 litres of cold in an effort to keep the temperature manageable.

It’s going to be like this for the weekend too apparently. That will be nice.

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Wednesday 3rd June 2015 – THOSE OAK WORKTOPS …

… that I bought in Eching the other week and which I doubted were oak due to their astonishingly good price, they are indeed certainly oak, or something very much like it. You just ask my Ryobi circular saw. The poor thing has gone to lie down in a darkened room to recover, and I had to fetch out the 650-wattmains-powered circular saw.

Even that struggled, but eventually it cut the worktop as required and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.

As for trimming off the corners, I didn’t even think about the Ryobi – I just grabbed the 400-watt mains jigsaw and after much binding in the marsh, it managed to do the job.

Yes, I’ve discovered a little bit of motivation today and I’ve been out working. Cutting the worktop for the bathroom and, as an aside, using the off-cut as the top of the beichstuhl to replace the pine plank that’s there. I may as well go for co-ordination while I’m at it.

bathroom worktop tap sink les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis is how the bathroom will look when it’s finished, whenever that might be.

I’m not going for an inset sink, following my catastrophe a while back. This type of sink, a mounted sink, will be just as good and will keep the strength and rigidity of the worktop, something that was sadly lacking with the previous one.

I will however need to lower the mounting rails by 15 cms so that the top of the sink is at a consistent height.

In other news, I’ve found (at long last) a decent ripper for downloading streams from popular video and music channels on the internet. It’s offered as an add-on for my web browser and came on line on 15th April.

My plan with this is simple. I have about a thousand LPs from the good old days and it has been my intention to copy them to *.mp3. I’ve even bought a USB turntable for just that purpose. However, it takes far too long to do that and all of the setting up that you need to do and the editing afterwards, it’s a never-ending task.

What I’m planning to do is to download the albums corresponding to those that I already own and have paid for. That way, there won’t be a royalty or copyright issue and that way I can bring myself up to date. I’m currently listening to one album that I’ve downloaded – Neil Young’s Ragged Glory – probably the best rock album that Neil Young has ever made – a real powerhouse album and one that I haven’t played for … ooohhh … it’s 15 years since I last had my real hi-fi set up.

As well as that, I had a lovely solar shower today. And a sign of the times is that it wasn’t a heated shower either. Just the sun – that’s all it took to bring the water up to 37°C and it was glorious. We had that much sun that the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater went off the temperature scale (over 70°C) in mid afternoon and it’s still there even now.

Now I’m all clean and ready for bed. But not before I tell you about my travels last night. I was back playing in groups again (we had this the other night, remember?) and the guy with whom I mostly played and I were trying to get a band together. We were however woefully short of equipment and people kept telling us to ‘go and see so-and-so – he has piles of stuff that he will lend you that he has spare”. And everyone that people mentioned were people with whom we had played all those years ago but we had “moved them on” for various reasons. The irony was that we were the ones struggling and they had all gone on to make it big.

And we had a few young groupies too. They all lived in a big heap under a continental quilt and there was a pile of loose underwear floating around. I kept asking them wbout each piece – to whom it belonged, all that kind of thing. But no-one owned up to anything so I threatened to have them all out of bed and do an identity parade.

I know that I’ve said it before … "and you will say it again" – ed … but I wish that my real life was even half as exciting as what goes on when I am deep in the arms of Morpheus.

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Thursday 7th May 2015 – WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME …

morris minivan carrefour car park brussels begium may 2015… that you saw one of these? I can’t even remember when it was that I saw one in the UK, so I never expected to find one parked in a supermarket car park in Brussels.

I can’t remember when it was that they stopped making them but I don’t recall any later than the mid 70s so this one is at least 40 years old.

But make the most of it, because it’s not going to be here for long. To be frank, it’s an absolute nail, full of rust and rot and simply painted over, rust, rot and all, as a display advert. What a waste of a good old BMC Minivan

motorway service area nijvel nivelles brussels begium may 2015Here’s where I spent the night last night, at a motorway service area at Nivelles, on the outskirts of Brussels.

I didn’t think that I had had a particularly comfortable sleep, but I must have done, for I was off on my travels during the night. Playing in goal for Pionsat’s 3rd XI as it happens. And then I was off to see my friend Kris. She was living up on the moors right near the crest, and had a huge pile of wood that needed sorting out and would I help her?

Not too far away, on the edge of a village right on the crest, was a Muslim monastery (yes!) just like a huge castle but with an enormous tower in the centre. Round and comparatively modern (like Flemisn 15th Century architecture) it was 14 storeys high but the 14th storey had fallen off. each of the remaining storeys was let out as a separate apartment.

Each time Krys and I went somewhere we saw the tower from a different viewpoint and each time I asked her what it was, and each time she told me.

I’ve sorted out the gas issue by buying what I needed from a sports outfitters here. I reckoned that it would be cheaper then paying to eat out every night, but having had to buy it in Belgium, I’m not so sure. The price was totally shocking.

I’ve solved the beichstuhl issue too. Seeing as how IKEA was right next door to the sports outfitters, I paid them a visit. I’ve bought a galvanised metal pail, and also the curtains seeing as they had the exact colour that I need. And as you might expect, it was the most expensive that they had. I always seem to have the most expensive tastes and I just wish that I had the money to back it up.

stone kitchen worktop IKEA brussels begium may 2015Talking of expensive tastes, I’ve found exactly the worktops that I want for the bathrrom and the kitchen.

A mere €295 per square metre, but it really is beautiful and I would love to have this about the house. The biggest problem is that the worktop in the bathroom needs to be 45cms and in the kitchen 50cms, and the smallest sinks in IKEA (they have to be factory-fitted) are 45cms for the bathroom and 50cms for the kitchen.

That’s clearly not going to work so I need to have a really good think about this.

woman feeding ducks and swans etangs mellaerts brussels begium may 2015For lunch I stopped off at the Etangs Mellaerts to eat my honey and nut bread, and to watch an old woman feeding the ducks and swans.

As you can see, she had quite a crowd around her – clearly the most popular form of waterfront entertainment.

And at least, I could watch it from the van. For tea tonight I went to my favourite restaurant in Ixelles for a falafel supper, and ended up having to park a hundred miles away . Parking in Brussels these days is something of a joke, that’s for sure.

I’ve also been to sort out the bank as well. I needed to activate my bank cards for my forthcoming trip to Canada. And I took advantage while I was there of sorting out a few financial arrangements. I visited the Post Bank too – I had completely forgotten about an account there and that has been frozen. I need to contact them to reactivate it.

But here’s a thing – it’s the first time that I’ve ever been to the Post Office at Schuman and been served straight away without ever having to queue. That’s a record.

So tonight I’m on the motorway service area not too far from Leuven. I hope that the showers are working because they weren’t this morning at Nivelles.

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Friday 17th April 2015 – SO …

… after the vicissitudes of yesterday, it was “keep calm and carry on” today.

But it nearly wasn’t. I shouldn’t have had that coffee when I knocked off yesterday evening because at 02:45 this morning I was still up and about. Serve me right.

And having slept on it, I’ve decided that the next worktop that I fit, I’ll cut it, fit it into position and then build the cupboard around it BEFORE I cut out the insert for the sink. That way, it might just withstand the whole process.

After breakfast, I made a start on the new stud wall. I’m building it downstairs and then I’ll take the bits into the shower room and assemble it. It’s had a couple of design improvements too, there are also the brackets fitted for a couple of shelves, and even though I say it myself, it’s much better-built than its predecessor – the joints are tighter for a start – but so it should be, seeing how I’ve taken more time over it.

By the time knocking off came round, it had all been built, shaped and had a trial fitting. Now, all it needs is for some wood treatment to be applied because the wood has been stored in the same place where the other two bits (that I mentioned yesterday) had been stored.

At the shops, I didn’t meet anyone that I knew, but I had to go and pick up a parcel that was awaiting me – more of this anon. I spent the grand total of €19 in the shops at St Eloy this evening even with a couple of little extras – it’s definitely cheaper here than at the Intermarche in Pionsat.

So now I’m off to bed for an early night. I need one after yesterday.

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Thursday 16th April 2015 – WE HAVE HAD A CALAMITY.

Yes, and you have no idea just how miserable and fed up I am.

worktop fitted in shower roomles guis virlet puy de dome franceMind you, at about 11:00 things were going pretty well, as you can see.

Here is the worktop in the bathroom. It’s been cut to size and shaped to fit. And now I’ve put it into position just to make sure that it’s fine.

It is in fact milimetre-perfect, except that it’s going under the rails, not over them. But that’s not a problem

star pattern for cutting out inset for sink shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceNext plan is to cut out the inset for the sink.

It’s not as complicated as you might think. First, you draw around the perimeter of the sink, to give you a maximum area. Then using a straight edge and a pencil, you draw straight lines from the perimeter – these correspond with the outline of the inset that you need so that you can drop the sink into the hole that you’ll be cutting.

Then you remove the sink, and continue the lines into the inside of the perimeter and they will all join up and you’ll have an internal perimeter. If you enlarge the photo, you’ll see exactly what I mean.

And then you cut away the internal perimeter. Drilling out the corners with a 10mm drill, you can use a jigsaw then to cut out along the lines.

sink set in worktop fixed into position shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd here we have the sink, inset into the worktop, and the worktop screwed in place.

Well, in fact the sink is just set into the hole. What you need to do of course is to smear mastic everywhere and then drop the sink in, and that will make a permanent fixture.

So it’s looking good, isn’t it?

worktop collapsed shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceWell, actually, no it isn’t.

If you look at my thunb, you’ll see that the worktop has collapsed – and collapsed under its own weight too (I put the sink in afterwards for a demonstation).

That’s right – more rubbish from Brico Depot. Cheap, nasty worktops that aren’t fit to be used as firelighters. This went into the bin. And there will be another pile of Brico Depot stuff following it too.

I’ve been complaining for ages about the quality of Brico Depot stuff being worse and worse, and it’s hit rock bottom today. I’ve wasted 5 hours on this piece of Brico Depot garbage

Anyway, I went and had a coffee and called it a morning. I also had a listen to Neil Young singing about Brico Depot products

And if that’s not bad enough, then this afternoon I made a start on another job that I had intended to do now that I’ve dismantled the shower room. And that was to rebuild one of the stud walls, only with the shelf rails in the correct place.

dry rot demi chevrons les guis virlet puy de dome franceI sorted out he two demi-chevrons left over from when I bought a pile of stuff years ago to repair the downhill lean-to that had collapsed, and then marked them off and started to cut the lets.

That was when I noticed that both the demi-chevrons had somehow acquired a dose of dry-rot. Consequently, they’ve followed the shower room worktop into the pile of firewood.

Believe me – I’m totally p155ed off by all of this. On Monday, after the radio, I’m going to go and have a look at the real worktops in IKEA and I don’t care how much I have to pay. I’m totally fed up with this Brico Depot rubbish.

The good news is that we had a storm tonight and 8mm of rain fell in 90 minutes. That’s filled the water butts back up and no mistake. If the good weather comes back, I can carry on with the washing.

And I was on my travels last night – around the pubs in the East End of London. and I had to go and change my clothes and disguise myself, and the best place to do this is in the toilet of course. So there I was in the ladies’, of all places, in a cubicle with a woman banging on the door. But I was too busy checking through the stuff in there to make sure that some stuff that I had left a previous time was still there. And when I came out, the woman had gone and the toilet was empty. From here I went on the Holmes Chapel and Shearings depot, wandering around carrying a huge pile of plates. People were telling me that there was a load of new faces for the new season that was starting, but of course that was nothing new as coach-tour driving is something of an itinerant job. Still, there I was, wandering around all of the rooms, and it suddenly occurred to me – why don’t I put the plates down? Why do I need to carry them about?

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