Kitchen wall boarded -finally

I've finally gotten the last of the kitchen board up, along with removable panel, low level sockets for the appliances, high level sockets, and fairly well fixed plumbing, albeit pointing in different directions to originally intended. There's a
small problem of a waste pipe fouling a socket, but that's not insurmountable, it just needs extending slightly. The house has also been tidied, all tools gathered and relocated, again, this time to the office, which isn't getting an accoustic wall.

All in all I think I've learnt a lot this weekend that will help speed the false wall installation in the rest of the house, the kitchen was by far the most complicated, and would have benefitted from slightly better planning, but the end result isn't too much of a compromise, and will largely be hidden from view anyway.

plumbing arg!

Still struggling with the plasterboard in the kitchen, having found that the drywall electrical boxes wouldn't fit on the plasterboard with the OSB behind it, so I then had to remove the plasterboard (again) and chisel out 'wings' in the OSB to allow the clips to sit behind the plasterboard.

I then had the spigots for the water pipe to solder the elbows and joints onto, this itself was difficult in keeping the pipe flush to the wall I had to put the solder joint tight up against the
plasterboard. I then realised that I hadn't allowed enough space between the pipes to allow the flared fitting of the appliance hose, thus I had to rotate the hot water fitting away to run horizontally (I'd originally wanted them both to hang vertically). Now they fouled the waste pipe for the appliances. I gave up and went to bed at that point.

cladding the walls

Finally getting some walls clad, whilst was S cutting and installing the accoustic fiberglass
into the frame in the kitchen, I cut the OSB chipboard and then the (accoustic blue) plasterboard to go on top. That was a challenge in itself, as the kitchen wall is quite busy with water & waste pipes, as well as electrical & data outlets, the pic to the left shows the wall before the board goes up, the data outlet is on the right with the white tubing dropping from above.

I'd originally intended to do the wall with the smallest number of joints in the board possible, however a small element of doubt over the integrity of the waste pipe (turned out to be justified, I'd forgotten to glue one joint) caused me to rethink that plan and fit a removable panel over the waste pipe in the bottom right corner.

Most of the OSB was up by the end of saturday. S, having run out of walls to lag started removing the plaster from the chimney breast in the sitting room, she quickly found how effective the SDS drill is on this task, and had the wall bared in very little time. This will
enable us to batten and board the breast wasting as little space as possible, most the plaster was loose anyway, so now the board can be closer to the brickwork.

Ceilings boarded

I'd taken wednesday, thursday & friday as holiday to assist the plasterer in fitting the ceiling boards, given their size (8x4) they're more than one person to handle, so a second pair of hands
would have been needed. Wednesday was to finish off all the little jobs that were required before the ceilings could go up - largely connecting data socket positions via 20mm conduit to a location in the airing-cupboard so I can pull cables to the sockets later, also little things like completeing the installation of the cooker extract ducting.


My brother also popped by and we removed the patio door dividing the living room and the dining room, more suprises were unearthed, amongst them a really nice hardwood frame (sadly useless to us) wierd glue still semi-fluid, and yet more carpet under the footboard. Still not sure what to do with the patio doors, they're currently parked around the side of the house, awaiting inspiration/sale/destruction.

The ceilings went up largely without incident, though we did discover one joist was of unusual toughness and just snapped all the screws we tried driving into it. Thankfully they were mostly level (only one or two were a bit high), though of differing spacing, so each board needed to be cut at least once to finish on a joist (the idea is that the imperial sized boards will fit onto ceiling joists without needing to be cut - yeah right..)

So by the end of friday we had ceilings - already a change could be felt, especially for the cat who was quite unnerved by the sound of someone moving around on the floorboards upstairs. Unfortunately we're still largely without lights downstairs, and will be until second fix gets the lighting circuits terminated. We have several useful shaped offcuts and also a whole sheet of ceiling board left over, which will be useful in doing the ceilings over the stairs and the porch. I'm glad I over-ordered, rather than under ordered.

Plumbing, framing and a plasterer

Saturday was all hands with my brother & his wife coming around to fit the framing to the kitchen wall, removing the door to the cupboard under the stairs (where the electricity meter and fuseboard live), pulling the plaster off the chimney breast in the dining room (it was falling off anyway).

S continued with the PVA-ing whilst I was in the airing cupboard straightening out some plumbing and fitting yet more wiring conduit. By Saturday evening we had the framing up on all shared walls, and I had made a start on the kitchen plumbing.

Today we had a visit from the plasterer. The original plan was that he'd be plastering the ceilings this weekend, however as the schedule had slipped some we had to put him off, and re-work a new timetable.

The rest of the day was largely concerned with kitchen plumbing, S had been dispatched for building supplies whilst I fired up the gas torch and dug out the solder. By the evening we had running (and not dripping) cold water in the kitchen again. Just the hot water and the waste to do..

We have ignition

Today we had the return of the electricians to complete first fix, and also the gas fitter (a stand-in as the original fitter has been taken ill) to complete the heating installation.

We also had the gas suppliers come out to fit the gas meter, and a delivery of plasterboard from our preferred DIY supplier. This involved a 28ton truck, with Hi-ab, and blocking the passage of traffic through the entire estate wilst the delivery was made.

Both S and I were around, so there was a house-full. By mid afternoon we had a working heating and hot water system - another milestone reached! I was concerning myself with fitting the extractor ducting and putting a large hole in the wall for the outlet.

My brother came by that evening to help me shift the plasterboard into the house (it's all 8x4 sheets and very heavy). S has been largely occupied with painting the shared wall with several coats of thick PVA in an attempt to control some of the odours that seep through - it's not just noise that's an issue with next door.

At the moment the boards are just piled up wherever, we'll have to move them around to work on each area, bit of a chore, but no other alternative.

Gas gas gas!

The gas transport company (wales & West) came out to fit the gas supply today, which went quite well, though they did manage to disturb one of BT's phone cables that crossed the route of the gas pipe, resulting in no phones for half the street.

Thankfully ours was okay. I spent most of the day finishing off more wiring chases, and installing socket boxes and tube for network and tv outlets.

Appliances..

Today saw the oven and hob being delivered to me here at work, which we managed to squeeze into the back of the blue-dude for the trip home. Yet more struggling got it out again and they now sit in the living room, on a wheeled dolly for easy pushing around.

No idea when they'll make it out of the wrapping. Guess we'll be cooking on the camping stove for a little while yet. At least we can say we have an oven now.

Digging the garden

Both digger & skip arrived on friday, the skip whilst I was out running a (pointless) errand, though thankfully the electricians were in so they signed for it. I got a prettty brief description of how the digger worked from the hire delivery driver, and then was left to it.

A small amount of trench was started on friday afternoon/evening, on reaching the required depth the first things I dug up were a ceramic drain, and several tonnes of bricks. I get the impression tha the foundations and plumbing from the old huts of the POW camp were simply buried under about a foot of topsoil, and also fairly well embedded in the clay that this place is built on. There also appeared to be a fairly uniform layer of flat sandstone-coloured stones at between 12 and 18inches deep, I'm guessing these may be the old floors of the huts.

Alas no buried treasure, secret tunnels or other interesting WW2 artifacts were found.

Saturdays digging was a lot more productive, having mastered (to a point) the controls, and also knowing what to expect down there, progress was a little more rapid. S spent a large amount of the day sifting through what I'd dug up, removing the larger stones, bricks, and slabs of concrete. When she got bored of that, she set to pruning the pampas, in preparation for it's final destruction.

My brother & his wife showed up about 5ish with his chainsaw then chopped down the remains of the dead cherry tree, chopping it up into nice, fire sized logs which we put aside for when we get a working fireplace again. He then set about chopping up the pampas grass with the chainsaw, which he admitted was a first for him.

Mid pruning a wasps nest was found in the pampas, which we dispatched with a gas-torch. We then had to extinguish the pampas which, as you can imagine, burned pretty well - this was mostly out of concern for the phone line that ran above it.

Once the last of the trench was dug, or could be dug with the digger, it was then turned over to digging up the remains of the pampas, of which everyone had a go, but my Sister-in-law proved the most proficient.

We wound things up around 8ish, scrubbed up, and headed off for a curry.

The following day was started with a trip to our favourite DIY stoer to buy wall insulation, which they didn't have, and look at doors, which they did have, but we didn't buy. The afternoon was spent tidying up the remains of the trench, extracting a lump of concrete from under the hedge at the front of the garden, as well as breaking up the concrete path immediately in front of the house under the meter box. Meanwhile S set to removing the odd shaped glass from between the living room and the stairs, this we will replace with glass-bricks or something similar, we think.

Framing going up

Started installing the framing for the false walls.

Borrowed a mitre-saw from my brother, it's handy, but the calibration is out- the 0degree detent is slightly skew.

Things are being complicated slightly by the fact that the front bedroom is being used to store all the fiberglass loft insulation. I've no idea what to do with it right now, there's tons of it, so I've just dumped it where there's space- the same room I'm trying to build a wall.

Also got the boiler going in this week, though it won't be working until the gas supply is connected up, and that's not til the 19th Aug.

Alien eggs

Bit like a scene from Aliens..

They also move around on their own, though I think this is due to the gas fitter working in that room during the day and having to move the bags around to access the relevant floorboards..

A boiler - woo!

The boiler is now in situ. How the bloke managed to get it up into the loft on his own is still a mystery, but it's there, fixed to the wall, and mostly plumbed in.

Its on the gable-end, with the flue vented out through the wall under the eaves. It connects to

the rest of the house plumbing via the airing cupboard, which has mains cold water, as well as DHW and CHS pipework from the old system.

Thoughtfully there's also a pressure gauge and a filling loop fitted at that level, rather than having to scuttle up into the loft to check such things.

Last of the ceiling down

Pulled the ceiling down in the front room this weekend. Figured it would be easier for the electricians to install the cabling, than working through floorboards, and it would mean we retain the use of all the rooms upstairs.

Interestingly enough you can get approximately 20sq m of artexed ceiling into the boot of a 3-series bmw. I know, cos I did it. Said BMW is also now sporting a set of roof-bars, and is the chariot of choice when collecting anything too long to fit in the blue-dude. The dude is preferably otherwise, being a sensible hatchback.

Also started bagging up and removing the insulation from the loft, this'll make it easier for the electricians to install the lighting upstair, and reduce the risk of someone putting a foot through the ceiling. There's tons of it up there, the regulation 450mm and then some. As the boiler is going up there as well, it makes sense to clear a space for the gas fitter to do his thing as well.