New bathroom

So this is the current project, the new downstairs bathroom. I say new, but its actually the original bathroom, that was changed in to just a toilet, and is now being moved back. Most of the stuff, sink, toilet and shower are coming across from the downstairs en-suite which is being removed. It should have been relitivly simple, but was always, there's been a few surprises!

Firstly, we had to get the stopcock moved, as it would have been in the bathroom once the new wall was in. Which is odd, as we were putting the wall back to its original position, so the stopcock must have been moved at some point inthe past.

One the wall and stopcock were moved it was a while before I gotta chance to get the rest moved. Once I did however, things got messy again. This was mostly due to moving the toilet and shower wastes. Now the shower was easy, simple 40mm pipework, but the toilet was in 4" and was a right pain, especially when your working in a crawl space under the house! It took me a lot longer than I thought it would and was a lot harder! However it is all done and dusted and more importantly its water tight.

New toilet position, the old one can be seen sticking out the wall on the left.

My work space, I quite often get told off for the mess! I just have a habit of just shifting the rubbish around the room to which ever corner I'm not using!

The next stage of the build was sorting out the woodwork. This mostly involved building the frame for the shower/cupboard space ( below). This was simple and easy and took very little time to build.

It got more complex when I started on the door area. This area was a mess of different surfaces, with lots of steps in the plaster boards. The idea was to smooth it out and build up the area around the door to make the recess for the door more snug and less makeshift. Unfortunately, things didn't got to plan. The stairs needed some repair, mainly replacing the screws with bigger better ones but the top step needed a lot more. For some reason it was build using 2 pieces and there was some movement in the structure. It took a lot of work to remove the movement, and to be honest, its still not perfect. I will replace the two bits with a single board when we redo the upstairs landing, but for the moment, this will have to suffice.

The wood work under the stairs. Not pretty but it works!

Hopefully by the time your reading this, the woodwork and plasterboard  will be complete and the floor will be down, ready for the tiles!

Change of direction

Well, this blog has been ticking along for the last few months aand I've  been struggling with the balance of the blog. I initially started this as a blog about being a stay at home father but for several reasons I have found it difficult to find the right balance between public and private and have in many respects been avoiding the blog and one mote than one occasion have considered deleting the blog and all the posts, however, I have decided to continue but change the direction.

So what direction is the blog going in? Well it won't be a dramatic shift, but the main focus of the blog will be on my DIY and my car, there maybe a few parenting posts but they will be few and far between.

There is always plenty of DIY going on, currently moving a bathroom and there is always something up with the car, currently two of the door handles don't work.

Car, Mid service by torch light

Bathroom, Post plumbing nightmare

So the blog will continue, and hopefully there will be more regular updates, hopefully!

More rooms complete

So it was the young ladies turn to have a shiny new room. In truth I finished before Christmas but we waited to get the carpet done until after we got back from our travels south at Christmas. 

It want the longest project so far, that still resides with the front room, which still isnt technically finished! However, this was one of the most challenging ones so far, mostly due to the new window. 

The room, messy as always!

So what did I do? Well, its was going to be a short little job of moving a door frame and building the loft hatch properly, it turned in to something a bit more, as is always the case! I ended up re building the whole of one side of the room aswheni went to take the door frame out the whole wall wobbled, a lot! So, new properly built wall and door frame, new window and loft hatch. I also had to rebuild the surround for the roof window in the hall way to take account of the new loft hatch.

Sounds simple but it wasn't! The wall was simple, I've built lots of walls now, im an old hand at that bit. The door frame is only the second I've built from scratch, the first was done under the watchful eye of the father in law (and master DIYer), but im pretty happy with the result, a slight twisting at the bottom but nothing g that will cause any problems for the door. The loft hatch was simple but was time consuming to get right, as I wa Ted as smaller gap around the hatch and the frame as possible.

Loft hatch

Its still bigger than I would have liked but I don't think its getting any smaller without some clever joinery, which is out of my expertise. The surround in the hallway was also relitivly straight forward, although I have made a slight error as you now can't fully open the window, as in rotate it to clean it! You can open it about 6 inches, which is about 5 more than we have ever opened it, and it works perfectly well on the just vents at the top.

Hall skylight

The real beat of a job was the window! There is something truly terrifying about cutting a whole in your roof. It was not only a worrying job but a pain in the arse one too! A must for next time is a slate ripper to get the tile nails out, as our tiles not only have nail but a ridge as well, making them neigh on impossible to get out, but after much swearing and a few broken tiles, i managed. Putting the window in was a lot simpler, it definitely played to go the extra mike for the Velux windows, fitting was simple, especially once we got the right flashing kit!

New Velux window

Im currently working on the bathroom downstairs, and there are one or two more headaches to deal with there as well!

House guest

As I mentioned in the last post, we currently have a house guest, one of my wife's old uni mates and one time house mate and close friend of both of us. Its has been really enjoyable having her visit us and has the added bonus of freeing my up from childcare duties to get on with the DIY. I've been busy moving a bathroom across the hall and trying to deal with the nightmare plumbing that the last lot leftme with! There will be more on that in a later post.

The other advantage for me is that it has freed up my evening a bit and enabled me to get on with some model painting (on my other blog), while the girls catch up on gossip and chick flicks, oh, and having a few cheeky drinks!

An easy night for the girls.

I did my share of babysitting though, mainly for the Up Helly Aa night and the morning after, as the girls had been out to one of the halls and needed the morning to recover! Trouble is there is very little open, none of the regular haunts, so we had to try somewhere new and not so child friendly.

Post up Helly Aa lunch

Up helly aa

Its that time of year again, Up Helly Aa 2017. The event went without a hitch, at least from our stand point! Not even the (standard) wind and rain could dampen the enthusiasm.  Here's a few pictures of the event.

Lighting up the torches.

Ready for the off

Marching

The line of torches.

Moving in to the play park, yes, they burn the galley in the town play park!

This year for the first time the wife and a few friends attended the Halls after, where the various squads come and perform a little sketch and everyone consumes a vast quantity of alcohol. The wife got home fairly early, half 4, but the halls don't close till 8am. 

For more info, go here