Plastering!

Despite my desire to plaster in daylight, it was dark by the time I'd started. Small details like trying to find enough drywall boxes, then going out and buying drywall boxes, clearing enough space to work, disconnecting and removing light switches and sorting some unrelated electrical niggles, all conspired against me. Despite this by the following morning plaster was drying nicely.

Yeah.

Master bedroom boarded

I'm definitely getting quicker at this plasterboard business.

Master bedroom done in 2 evenings. Admittedly it's not the most challenging of walls, with only 6 openings for sockets, but it's good to get it done, and all the leftover board back downstairs.

This means I can plaster on saturday, in daylight for a change, hopefully with outside temperature above freezing, I don't fancy cleaning my buckets & tools with ice.

Another milestone: another room done

Finished the 3rd bedroom last night!

Finished wall papering on sunday evening, then the floor was put down on monday evening - cheapest laminate possible, but went down quick enough, over a foil & foam underlay. The last row was fun as it was against the wonky wall - over the 9ft length of the room it runs out by over 3". Skirting went down last night and tuesday. So now the room is useable. There's a few snags, but nothing that can't be sorted retrospectively. The room barely had time to 'settle' before I'd started filling it with boxes:



Moving some of the junk that was in the master bedroom into the 3rd bedroom means I can start on getting the plasterboard on the wall in there, then a skim of plaster, wallpaper and we can get the electricians back to finish second fix.

We need to collect the living room chairs this evening, as we've been putting it off for months and Furniture village have finally given us a deadline as they need the space for christmas stock.

They'll stay in their boxes until the living room floor is down. Hopefully before the holidays though. We'll see how the weekend goes.

Hob and heater now working..

After the previous evenings efforts I opted to wait in this morning until the gas fitter arrived, just so I could brief him on what I'd done and make sure everything is acceptable. He seemed happy enough when he arrived, despite there not being quite enough copper pipe to do both gas and heater in the house. Also the electrician was there to fit the socket front for the hob supply (it had previously been left off due to a lack of space to work beind the carcass). Whilst he was there he also fitted the isolator switch for the cooker, which now means that as of this evening we have a working hob, oven and kickspace heater.

The hob has an auto-igniter which has a flame sensing safety interlock. I'm beginning to hate this already as when the hob is cold you need to hold the knob down to keep the interlock override on for a good few seconds. I much preferred the manual pushbutton igniter on my old hob/oven, even if it did give me the option to gas myself. meh.

Preparing for Hob installation

I prepared the 2 base units in question by cutting holes in the back - the one under the hob had a hole already for the electrical connection, though this needed to be enlarged to allow the gas pipe through as well - irritatingly Hotpoint have moved the gas inlet between the 2 models. I'd have preferred it on the other side as it's now right in front of the electrical supply on the wall. The other base unit (to the left) is under where the gas pipe drops, and behind it is now the isolating valve for the gas supply to the hob. I cut the hole quite generous for this as once the worktop was glued down the base units weren't moving and the poor gas fitter had to somehow manoeuver a couple of bits of 15mm copper pipe into the 40mm gap behind the base unit. I also notched the sides at the back to allow the pipe to pass.

The worktop was carefully measured and then cut to the dimensions of the hob using a router I'd borrowed off a mate. (during this the dyson overheated and died -argh!) The position was worked out to allow the gas supply to drop inside the base unit (rather than behind the back board) to allow easier access. With the drawers in there's about 30mm behind the rear of the drawer for the gas connection - plenty. This did however, push the front of the hob quite far forward - leaving it about an inch from the post-formed edge. Not a problem in itself, though the fixing clamps for the front of the hob now foul on the cross-brace that supports the base unit sides at the front. Oops. Reluctant to remove the brace (knowing how tightly wedged the base units are, I had visions of the sides being pushed in and the drawers jamming) I opted to put a pair of holed under the clamp mounting holes on the hob. Bin the clamps and put a slightly longer screw into the hob with a large washer to catch on the underside of the crossbrace - much tidier.

Once the base units were cut they were replaced in position and the freshly routed out worktop was then repositioned in it's final resting place. Despite the fact that the dog-bone worktop joint bolts say they're not suitable for a trend-jig cutout, I found they still fitted, so in they went. A tube of jointing/filling compound was squirted over the cut ends of the mitre and the worktop was then bolted together. A quick rub over with the solvent removed the excess and I've now got a nearly-tidy worktop joint.

At the same time I also cut the hole in the plinth for the kickspace heater. To support the heater in situ I screwed a couple of bits of batten to the back of the plinth that sit unde the heater keeping it at the right hight. The flexi hoses that come with the heater are a bit short, so I think the 2 spurs that are under the corner unit will need extending with copper pipe before being connected. Likewise the power lead is shorter than it needs to be. Arse.

Lining the hob up in it's intended hole has highlighted the poor build quality of this hob unit as well. Even screwed down there's a gap of a couple of mm all around where the top surface doesn't reach the worktop. This is poor, Hotpoint.

Now it's over to the professionals..

Another weekend, still no floor

Saturday AM(ish) S got to work painting the ceiling in the 3rd bedroom then started cleaning up all the woodwork for a coat or two of gloss paint. I finished putting all the handles on the kitchen cupboards (apart from the one where we're short a door) and fitted the pelmet lights The wiring for which passes up the back of the wall cabinets in the slim void behind the back board to the transformer. I'll fit the pelmet boards once the tiling is done. The transformer for the lights will sit on top of the wall cabinets, behind the cornicing, and is switched via one of the kitchen lighting circuits.

I also managed to track down the elusive little bit of plumbing required to allow me to complete the plumbing under the sink. The kit that came with the kitchen didn't seem to have the right bits to joint 2 outlets at different heights, and kitchen plumbing has a few conventions that defy logic (a different thread on sink outlets to the rest of the system -for example). Up to this point the half-basin drained into a margarine tub, which required frequent emptying (into the correct bowl!).

We've decided that I'm to build a narrow wine-rack that will sit in the gap behind the breakfast bar this will fill the gap nicely, and give us a useful wine storage solution that we'd otherwise have to put in a cupboard somewhere.

I also fitted some more outside electrics - the 2 PIR sensors for front and side lights, and the front dome light. Just the light by the back door and the front power socket to do - the front socket I want to flush into the brickwork, which will be a challenge, as being weatherproof, it is quite bulky.

The 'Narnia' cupboard was also emptied to allow me to get in there to line it with more accoustic stuff, and finish off positioning the electrical services for the electricians to terminate. The contents of Narnia is now mostly under our bed in the spare room -how many people can say that? The intention for that cupboard is for storage of CDs and dvds, though to keep future options open I'm putting lights, power and Cat 5 data sockets in there.

We managed to get the boxes containing the wardrobes and bed-frame upstairs (no mean feat at over 40Kg and 2m long). Then the sofa (still boxed) was plonked on one of the recently liberated wheel-boards. This enabled me to get to the end wall of the dining room, this is one of the last areas downstairs needing plaster, so was keen to do that corner as now the dining room can be papered.

As S spend most of saturday painting, sunday she could start papering the office. We'd chosen a coloured and textured wallpaper again (reminded me of lemon meringue) however as it was going up we were a bit concerned to see the patchy blue paint of the original wall through it - we checked again this evening when the paste and paper has properly dried, and thankfully the patchyness has gone -we were hoping we wouldn't be needing to paint as well as paper in every room. I've also discovered the importance of batch numbers, as we have 2 slightly different shaded of yellow going on in there.

I avoided cutting the hole for the hob. I've decided to leave it as late as I can as we're finding the additional uninterupted worksurface useful. Need to chase the gas fitter on that one.

This coming week will hopefully see a bit more progress, I still have to level the floor in the front room, not totally decided how I'm going to achieve that yet, lots of latex levelling I'm guessing.

More second fix materials delivered

Also recieved the second part of the second fix order - this time mostly the decorative styled socket outlets, plus also a couple of bits that were missing from the first part. Irritatingly the suppliers seem to have forgotten a bunch of switched spurs. This is a nuisance as they're on the kitchen ring. Managed to get through (eventually) and had a promise that they'd look into it. I'm starting to realise why this particular supplier is so cheap. The products are fine, the service is poor.

I also need to order a different face-plate and switches for the living room lights. I've got a double gang socket, where I only need a single. Maybe I'll put a pair of dimmer modules in, they're twice as wide.