Tuesday 23 December 2014

Achievement for the Year

I wrote last January that a written list of tasks can be a bit depressing as it just looks insurmountable and has the opposite effect to what is intended.  I had a realistic list of a few jobs planned for the year, so I thought that I should update my progress (this is also a self test as I haven't already checked!):

a.  Finish the small brick wall and the barbecue stand at the back of the garden - Done
b.  Get some more limestone and finish the wall down the side of the house/lawn - Done apart from the far end
c.  Get some more limestone and do the other end of that wall, where I want to make a ramp up to the lawn with a retaining wall in front of the shed. - Done except the coping
d.  Finish decorating indoors (includes lime plaster repairs) - Done except for painting the repair at the kitchen door
e.  Plaster the walls of the wardrobe - No
f.   Fit the bath panel properly - No
g.  Refurbish at least one of the sash windows - Still not even one!
h.  Construct an 8' x 12' shed in the side garden - Done, and painted
i.   Construct a store (for camping equipment and rarely used tools etc) round the back - Well, I rebuilt the earlier shed for that purpose
j.   Repaint various bits outside where the black paint is peeling off (why?) - No

Other minor jobs here included a new lounge carpet (or was that last year?), finishing the tiling in the kitchen, laying some more turf, cleaning all the secondary glazing.  I also fulfilled the promise to my oldest brother to go and help him do a job on his equally old house for a few days. That involved four days to remove a flat concrete roof built on corrugated iron, mostly using an angle grinder, mallets and bolsters... 

In a sense, that's a lot of work achieved here as we had a £200k job done in the Grade I listed church opposite - fitting a limecrete floor, new boiler and toilets (Whoopee!) - as well as planning for next year's £200k of stonework repairs (thanks to an HLF grant).  Anyone who has ever been churchwarden at the time of having no vicar, and had to take on the treasurer job as well, will understand how busy I have been, even before the fight through the hoops of the CofE and the HLF and at the same time managing a contractor on site.

I should add a brief word on my operation - everyone (including the surgeon - "is it really a year?") thinks that the year since that event has just flown past.  My brother is in excellent health and my old kidney is now helping him to enjoy life as he used to (i.e. pre 2006 or so).  He really does have his life back.  As his daughter said to me: "we have had a good time doing things as a family this year - we had got used to Dad just being asleep every afternoon!"  I too am in excellent health and have had no real issues at all; the nephrectomy was effectively just two days of discomfort followed by a week or so of feeling delicate.  I cannot even say that I had any pain as I just avoided doing certain things for the few weeks, like stretching in an odd direction, or lifting things etc. For the whole story see http://diaryofakidneydonor.blogspot.co.uk/

I have to confess to one downside - although I recovered my strength very well, I do feel that I have lost some stamina and get tired (or fed up) quite easily.  Or is that old age just creeping up more quickly than I would like?

Monday 18 August 2014

More Odd Jobs

We've been living here more than three years now, and I still have jobs left over from before we moved in. Recently I finished another of these, and 'Er Indoors is very happy with the result so I can feel quite smug.

The hall and lounge both have a wooden corner bead at each vertical right angle; this photo shows the hall as it was after the initial plastering and decoration:

The original feature was to maximise the amount of the visible wood by having a chamfer at the edge of the plaster instead of plastering flat up to the wood in which case you would only see a very small amount of wood. The chamfer allowed perhaps even half of the wood to be seen; of course at some time someone had papered the walls and covered all the wood!  I have been told that this plastering detail used to be quite common and is called a "quirk". 

My plasterer found the chamfer difficult although at each one he did make some sort of effort. As ever, there was no time to sort it before we moved in, so it has waited for my attention until this summer. Back in March I removed the paper and cleaned up the wood. Then in June I cut back the plaster to give a rough 45 degree chamfer on each side, and plastered these chamfers to make them smoother; finally today I applied the limewash to each of the four corners in the lounge (two for the window bay and two for the chimney breast), as well as limewashing various bits (replastered but unfinished) after the fitment of the new window in June 2011.

I'm very pleased that the limewash has dried to match the earlier stuff so you can hardly see the new application. Overall a messy job but well worth it. Now I just have to do the same to the ones in the hall!

I've been busy all summer with various jobs in the garden, as well as finishing a few other old jobs inside like the last of the tiles in the kitchen. One job that got done outside was to attach two pieces of coping on one end of the front wall which had also been waiting three years; as ever, the sort of job that you hope would take one hour actually took almost six.  At least I was right to delay doing it!! Now there's the other side to do, which I already know is a longer job as I have to rebuild the end three feet of wall as well.

The main reason for the lack of progress is that we have had contractors in the church for over four months.  They have laid 50 sq m of limecrete floor with underfloor heating and limestone tiles 2 cm thick, installed toilets and a servery, fitted a new boiler in the tower (instead of in the old damp boiler room) and all the associated drainage, electrics, pipework and the water and gas supplies this entails.  Since the church is Grade I listed, this is all far more complicated in preparation, design and approvals than your average house, and so has occupied a good deal of my time (being churchwarden). Now we just need £400k for the rest of the nave floor.

Sunday 11 May 2014

The Shed I've Always Wanted Part 2

I've finished the shed - first read Part 1 (second post below) if you've not done so!

After doing the frame and the roof, I did the horizontal cladding.  It might not be the normal way, but I found it much easier to work downwards, starting by tucking the top piece of tongue and grooved cladding under the eaves.  Later on I fitted a small piece at the top between the rafters; the need for this piece is why you can't do the roof before the sides, although I did add the battens and membrane at this stage.  As the front has a higher wall plate than the other sides (to allow for the door), I did that side last, but I carefully checked continually that everything was level so that the cladding looks OK.  Doing the cladding is quite a noisy job as there are so many nails and also the structure naturally acts like a sound box; hence I took my time and tried to do it in short noisy periods spread over several days.

The roof was next.  I decided to use slate as (a) all other roofs in the vicinity are slate and (b) when I looked at the cost of modern "tiles" they were all quite expensive.  When you add in the extra cost of decent boards on the roof, the total is only a bit less than buying slates (which only need battens not boards).  There's also the other point that I like to experience doing things myself in the traditional way, and a shed is a good place to learn.

I made sure that I had everything ready before I started.  I had some membrane left from doing the extension (see this post and others at that time) so I needed slates and some ridge tiles, plus nails.  In anticipation of this task I had already acquired slating tools as my birthday present from 'Er Indoors, and the cutter was invaluable.  When I had a roof structure ready, I found that my ridge tiles were all the wrong angle and I was one short; I went back to the yard and got four swapped plus an extra, all for £10.  I also found when I had finished that I had too many tiles, like, 35 spare! This was a bit of over-supply but I'd rather do that than run out when I need two to finish.  I also had to buy some NHL5 for the mortar under the ridge tiles; fortunately the only place within 30 miles that sells this had precisely one bag when I called in on my way back with the ridge tiles.  The roof was also a noisy job, and I bet the neighbours were pleased when I finished! The last two day's work were done on Tuesdays when my immediate neighbour is out all day.
After the roof there were a lot of little jobs, plus the small question of the door, which used my last pieces of cladding - somehow I had EXACTLY the right number of 3m and 2.4m lengths without having a load of 1m bits left.  Well, there were some 60cm bits and these were used as one of the storage shelves.  Another shelf is comprised of old floorboards resting on two of the rafters from the old extension (all left lying around in the garden for three years!) .  Even better, the sturdy workbench has a horizontal frame which is the lower half of the old front door (also left in the garden), and the top is two spare pieces of our 4cm bamboo kitchen worktop (found under the stairs).  As I've said before, I like recycling things, and the garden is a lot neater now.

So, here's the finished shed, at last:


It's not practicable to take a photo that shows the shelves, but the storage ones are on the right inside, and the work bench is on the left under the window. There is a final job which is to provide mains electrical power to it...





Tuesday 6 May 2014

Feeling Older - Postscript

I wrote earlier this year (see here) about feeling older.  I now have a couple of postscripts to that entry.

Firstly, I have now used my senior's bus pass for the first time; mind you, I did forget the conditions and boarded a bus at 8.57am, only to be told that I could not use it before 9.00 am. I was tempted to try to beat him to the next stop, but then decided to wait for the next one.

Secondly, I recently had my hair cut in a different hairdresser's as my usual one had a queue.  I had a nice chat with the young woman and, when she finished, she charged me just £5.20. I thought this was cheap as the usual one costs £11, so I gave her a decent tip; then on my way out I checked their prices - she had charged me the "seniors rate" without me asking! Not good for my self-esteem, but I'll go back there.

Thinking of haircuts, when I had just moved to London a few years ago, I tried several places for a decent haircut.  At one unisex place, the young woman did a very nice cut and trimmed the hair in my ears (nasty sign of ageing) with the clippers.  Then, to remove the loose hair, she BLEW in my left ear!!  I think she realised that this was not the done thing (even though I was too surprised to comment!) as she didn't do the same on the other side.  I didn't go back there - I found a proper men's barber (just a few yards from Bermondsey Tube Station, if you're interested).

Saturday 3 May 2014

The Shed I've Always Wanted Part 1

I've been building a shed! Not just an ordinary shed, but a shed that looks good, will be useful and should outlast me. 

I already have one shed which I bought in 2011; it arrived on the back of a small truck and I was able to assemble it myself.  It only measures 7' x 5', which is a bit small for anything other than storage.  In fact, it is so small and crowded that I can hardly get inside it.  Frankly, it's a bit cheap and cheerful, and the roof is already sagging, so when I have finished Shed #2, everything will be moved from #1 so that I can repair that one.  My intention is that it will remain a storage shed, whilst #2 will be the place where I can do things in a decent amount of space; it will also store a few things like our camping kit which is currently kept in a large metal cupboard in the garden. The cupboard needs to go, as it is kept partly dry by an ugly old green tarpaulin.

The new shed is, I admit, a bit over-engineered (I am a chartered engineer after all!). It is basically designed as though someone was going to live in it (which I am NOT going to do).  I designed my shed in my head; the only drawings were a couple of sketches when I was ordering materials, just to make sure that I didn't forget something.  I also used Excel to get the dimensions of the sloping roof etc - even I cannot do hyperbolic functions mentally! The structure is tanalized C16 4 x 2, with an insulated floor supported on 9 brick piers, plus a slate roof (because it looks right).

The house shed measures only 10' x 6', but I feel that this is as large as the available space allows.  The only space large enough is on the raised ground beside the house, just inside the back gate, so it looks larger than it actually is.  I felt that 8' x 6' was a bit small but didn't want a huge shed, so 10' x 6' was a good compromise.  This gives 60 sq ft and I worked out that two sheets of 8' x 4' plywood were 64 sq ft, so a careful bit of cutting gave me four pieces for the floor and a 2' x 2' bit left over.  The long side is the side visible from our kitchen so I wanted the ridge of the roof to go across the short length, so that a gable end is seen. The visible long side has a window (see later) and the door.

Firstly I had to make the nine brick piers to support three beams.  The holes were dug and 4" of concrete inserted, then recycled bricks were set and built up - levelling was fun but a 5ft spirit level helped.

Then I had to make sure that my joists were going to support the edges of the bits of floor plywood, so the floor has ten joists (including two edges, plus the other two edges at right angles) which are separated by a slightly irregular gap of about 10 inches.  I used one inch structural grade plywood for the floor which is probably over-designed but I did not want to risk a sagging or bouncing floor. The floor also has 75mm Kingspan (= Celotex) insulation between the joists as I didn't want it to get cold (although I haven't yet decided whether to insulate the walls; they can wait).  Then there is a bit of thin OSB ("oriented strand board") on the other side to seal it in - I made the frame first and put the OSB on top (so it was now rigid) and then turned it over, did the insulation and then fitted the plywood floor.  As well as getting the edges supported by joists, I also fitted some half inch plank where the cuts in the floor were at right angles to the joists, so that those edges are nice and rigid as well.  Oh yes, I should mention that everything was screwed not nailed - I did try to hire a nail gun but no-one seemed to have one available.  Some photos:


Having done the floor, I used it as the platform to assemble the frames for the walls: two identical rectangles for the short ends, and one larger rectangle for the long back wall.  The two ends were erected and held in place by temporary supports, then I put up the back frame and screwed it all together, with a temporary joist at head height across the front to hold the sides in place.  The roof was next - I cut both ends of ten 5x2 rafters plus a bird's mouth, and a board to fit as the ridge, with five rafters each side.  The question was  - how to erect this on my own? My solution was to screw rafters #2 and #4 to one side of the board, and rafter #3 to the other side, then lift it all up, placing the bird's mouth cuts on the top of the two end frames, and then screwing them down (having previously marked the positions). I could then screw on the other halves of rafters #2, #3 and #4, and fit a horizontal member to each pair of rafters to complete each truss.  Finally, I could fit the 5th truss at the back, then remove the temporary joist at the front to fit the front truss.

The front wall had not been built as the height of the door was higher than the temporary joist that I had fitted, due to my desire to keep the overall height down.  This could now be done and I incorporated a space for the window.  The I finished off the top of the back wall, where I put in another window.  More photos:
The two windows were recycled from an old bathroom window (from the old extension - see here) which had large lower window and an opening narrow top window; I fitted a temporary plank across the top window, cut the frame at the bottom of the top window and made a new frame for the bottom of it, thus giving me two useable windows - the larger for the front and the other for the back. Sometime I will replace the glass, but it's not a high priority!

To be continued...

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Feeling Older

I've just experienced another of those shocking things that happen as you get older: I found out that I was entitled to a Concessionary Bus Pass! It was bad enough last year when I found I could have had a Senior Railcard for a year or so, but the Bus Pass as well - what next?

Of course, I now have both these documents, as they save me money. I remember my mother was still paying full price for things like entrance tickets (she never travelled by train or bus!!) when she was 75 or 80 as she didn't want to accept that she was over 60! The Senior Railcard does cost money, but if you are likely to travel by train a couple of times a year, it would pay for itself very quickly as you get 30% off.  I paid for the three year one (£70) and that has already paid for itself in less than a year; I was slightly disappointed last year when I got it as I could have saved money on my earlier visits to my brother's hospital had I known. The Bus Pass has yet to be used, but free local bus travel anywhere in the UK really sounds like something that I will use. It irritated me only a week ago to be charged £1.80 on my OysterCard for a short bus journey in London. 

Talking of my OysterCard, another little way of saving money is to get your Senior (or any other sort of concession) Railcard linked to your OysterCard, so that you get the 30% discount there as well. They don't always tell you these things clearly and so you do have to look after yourself.  It's rather like booking ahead on the trains - if you travel off peak and are happy to get a specific return train as well as outward, you can book on-line and save a lot there as well. 

I have to say that I am feeling a bit older since my operation - I don't have quite the same energy levels, and am happy to sit doing nothing sometimes. If I mention this to t'other half, she says "welcome to the real world!"

Sunday 26 January 2014

Plans for the Year

A belated happy New Year to you all! I've just about got over my operation and my brother is doing very well with his new kidney. The convalescence has been a good excuse for a couple of months but now I've got to focus on the house again.  Even so, I've not posted here for a few weeks as there was really nothing to say; the weather has generally been so bad that I have been avoiding the idea of going out in the garden - it's just cold, wet and muddy.

However, I know from past experience that to make progress on a large job like a house, you have to "eat an elephant" - i.e. do a little bit at a time, but just keep on doing it. So I need a plan and a set of targets; I'm hoping that by writing them down here they will cause me to actually do them, whereas a written list at home is easily lost (and I do lose things easily anyway!).  Also, a written list can be a bit depressing (especially if you put in too much detail) as it just looks insurmountable and has the opposite effect to what is intended.

So, here's my realistic list for what I want to do on this house and garden this year:

a.  Finish the small brick wall and the barbecue stand at the back of the garden
b.  Get some more limestone and finish the wall down the side of the house/lawn
c.  Get some more limestone and do the other end of that wall, where I want to make a ramp up to the lawn with a retaining wallin front of the shed.
d.  Finish decorating indoors (includes lime plaster repairs)
e.  Plaster the walls of the wardrobe
f.   Fit the bath panel properly
g.  Refurbish at least one of the sash windows
h.  Construct an 8' x 12' shed in the side garden
i.   Construct a store (for camping equipment and rarely used tools etc) round the back
j.   Repaint various bits outside where the black paint is peeling off (why?)

Now, I've been pretty brief on the detail and left out completely a lot of small jobs but even so it slightly depresses me.  However, the next stage is to decide the priorities and hence what to do in each month (trying to pretend that the weather will be great). I've also omitted a promise to my oldest brother to go and help him do a job on his equally old house for a few days.

The main priority is the shed as that will give me a home for all my tools and also allow me to do dirty jobs (like sanding a door) when it's wet. In fact the first job then is to do the retaining wall as the lawn and shed are higher than the ground around the house.  Of course, the shed is an outside job so all I can do on that right now is to plan and wait for some decent weather. So the next jobs to be tackled are the internal ones like the re-decorating - somehow I find I have difficulty in mustering any enthusiasm for that but I know that once I start it won't seem so bad.

All this makes me realise just how much work I got done in Nov 2010 - June 2011, how well I did the project management and how committed I must have been then: I think I worked 9 or 10 hour days, six days out of seven in most weeks, initially in very cold weather (remember that snow?) and then it brightened up in the Spring. Looking back I am impressed with my own performance but I doubt that I could do it again.