Thirty Three
On Monday night we do cake stuff, on the basis that the plaster is still drying out in the front room so we can’t mist coat it yet… we have a fairytale castle cake to do for Friday, so we prepare the turrets. Very pretty. Very unshedlike.
By Tuesday the plaster is beautifully dry – and even looks smooth! We mist coat the whole of the front room, as I have a day off on Wednesday and can paint the ceiling – Dave the Tree Surgeon is coming to chat with us about the beech. Except by Tuesday evening he no longer is coming, having cancelled. I’ll have my day off anyway!
So on Wednesday I have a lie in till, ooh, at least 7.30 and then spend a gentle day painting… first the ceiling in the front room, then all of the back room. Then mum comes round so I have a break, then I re-do the front room ceiling, then the back room again. The storage area is white (white was cheaper than ‘Magnolia’) and by the time I stop I have something akin to snow blindness and can’t see if I’ve missed any bits. I then chip all the plaster off the floor, sweep up and hoover so that we’re ready for flooring at the weekend.
Guy comes round after work and makes suitably admiring noises, then we finish the fairytale castle cake. It has turrets filled with sweeties, and white chocolate buttons, and lots of icing and flowers and stuff. Bit of a sugar-fest really…
Thursday night sees us back out in the shed woodwashing the stud wall. We’re not sure about the colour – it’s a pale green and it looked good when we tested it on a postcard. We press on and when we stop and stand back, we like it! Which is probably just as well really.
Before the weekend I go to the hire shop and hire a floor nailer and a bow wrench (in case any of the boards are warped). I get instructions in how to use the nailer (dead easy) and lots of supplies of nails. It looks fantastic! And you get to thump it with a big mallet… excellent for working out any frustrations! We’ve had battens and polystyrene for the floor delivered, so now we’re ready to get started. I’ve measured each piece of flooring and written the length on the back, which should speed things up and minimise the waste. We feel Very Organised.
The weekend is bright and clear – very springlike, hooray! We start with the battens, drilling them into the concrete, placing the weirdly spotty polystyrene between them and filling in the gaps with bits round the edges… Guy does all the drilling, which is incredibly noisy, so he wears ear defenders. Or it could be that I keep wittering on and he just wants some peace! Then we start on the floor. We lay all the maple lengths out on a tarpaulin outside (thank goodness it’s dry) and pick the ones closest in size to what we want and trim them…
We can’t use the nailer for the first couple of pieces, so we drill recessed holes in the planks and screw them – we’ll fill over the screws later. By row 3 we can get the nailer going, and Guy is a whiz…I help with the lining up, he whacks it and it shoots a nail into the tongue at exactly the right angle. Brilliant piece of kit!
In no time we’re getting a nice rhythm and we’ve done about 7 rows. Then BANG. Something goes wrong with the nailer and it jams. We manage to unstick the jammed nails, but it just won’t work… We try phoning the hire place but it’s Saturday afternoon and they’ve all gone home. We try shaking it, swearing at it and yelling, but nothing helps, although we do feel better for it.
We decide all we can do is carry on with the cutting and fitting, and take the jammed nailer back to the hire place on Monday and get another one (and instructions on how to un-jam it) for next weekend… HUGELY frustrating. And of course the trouble is that if the floor isn’t fixed tight, it’s difficult to cut pieces for round the door edges… We decide the only thing to do is bung more screws through the occasional floorboard to hold the whole thing in place. We’ll take them out eventually and fill the holes when the planks have been nailed… We plod on and make it to nearly half way across the front room when we’re too tired to do any more - then we have to move all the lengths from the tarpaulin into the shed or back into the pool cabin overnight. In the dark we walk up to see Derek the Dab in case he can magically unjam the nailer, but he has no ideas either. We all agree that the whole thing needs to be dismantled, but also agree that if we can’t put it back together again, taking it back to the hire shop in bits in a cardboard box probably wouldn’t be popular… We’ll just have to do what we can without it.
On Sunday morning, after a quick dash to the farmer’s market, we carry on cutting and bung a couple more screws in for good measure. We cut bits for round the doors, and even chisel something off the underneath for the planks that meet the internal door. Blimey, this is almost carpentry!
The back room is easier – the planks are either 43” or 23” and we can alternate them to avoid joins being together. Except the battens are slightly warped so the lengths vary - Guy calls out ‘fat 23 with tongue’ or ‘not quite 44 with groove’ and I cut the right piece. It feels like we’re yelling out MacDonalds orders…
And we finish it! Well, ok, it’s not nailed. We haven’t fitted the back room as tightly, so we’ve cut a few spares and also not cut in around the door yet. We have a pile of unusable planks, remarkably few offcuts, and still a large pile of unused lengths. It looks fab, and will look even better when it’s sanded. And nailed.
Achieved: We’ve FINISHED THE FLOOR! Well, ok, not quite, but that was down to the lack of a working nailer, not us. Although it was dark when we stopped, so we probably wouldn’t have got it all nailed anyway…
Purchases: Battens and spotty polystyrene.
Pressies: Mum bought me a meerkat keyring for the new shed key. She said it reminder her of me. That means I have a long neck, stand up straight and look inquisitive. Could be worse…
Wildlife update: The mole has given up making mounds under the birdseed feeder. He’s started on the lawn.
Plan for the week: We can sand the ceiling beam, admire the flooring and do more work on the pew ends. And we have three cakes to do…
Injury of the week: Countless cuts and notches out of my fingers. I’m not quite sure how, although I suspect the new and very sharp vegetable knives are partly to blame.
How to treat your mother. On Wednesday when mum came to see how I was getting on with the painting, I was about to take stuff to the dump anyway, so she came along for the ride. Other people take their mothers out for coffee – I take mine to the dump. She seemed to enjoy it though…
Amazing foresight of the week. We know we have holes to fill in the floorboards. So we saved sawdust from the cutting to mix with wood glue and make filler that will match the maple. Forward thinking or what?!
By Tuesday the plaster is beautifully dry – and even looks smooth! We mist coat the whole of the front room, as I have a day off on Wednesday and can paint the ceiling – Dave the Tree Surgeon is coming to chat with us about the beech. Except by Tuesday evening he no longer is coming, having cancelled. I’ll have my day off anyway!
So on Wednesday I have a lie in till, ooh, at least 7.30 and then spend a gentle day painting… first the ceiling in the front room, then all of the back room. Then mum comes round so I have a break, then I re-do the front room ceiling, then the back room again. The storage area is white (white was cheaper than ‘Magnolia’) and by the time I stop I have something akin to snow blindness and can’t see if I’ve missed any bits. I then chip all the plaster off the floor, sweep up and hoover so that we’re ready for flooring at the weekend.
Guy comes round after work and makes suitably admiring noises, then we finish the fairytale castle cake. It has turrets filled with sweeties, and white chocolate buttons, and lots of icing and flowers and stuff. Bit of a sugar-fest really…
Thursday night sees us back out in the shed woodwashing the stud wall. We’re not sure about the colour – it’s a pale green and it looked good when we tested it on a postcard. We press on and when we stop and stand back, we like it! Which is probably just as well really.
Before the weekend I go to the hire shop and hire a floor nailer and a bow wrench (in case any of the boards are warped). I get instructions in how to use the nailer (dead easy) and lots of supplies of nails. It looks fantastic! And you get to thump it with a big mallet… excellent for working out any frustrations! We’ve had battens and polystyrene for the floor delivered, so now we’re ready to get started. I’ve measured each piece of flooring and written the length on the back, which should speed things up and minimise the waste. We feel Very Organised.
The weekend is bright and clear – very springlike, hooray! We start with the battens, drilling them into the concrete, placing the weirdly spotty polystyrene between them and filling in the gaps with bits round the edges… Guy does all the drilling, which is incredibly noisy, so he wears ear defenders. Or it could be that I keep wittering on and he just wants some peace! Then we start on the floor. We lay all the maple lengths out on a tarpaulin outside (thank goodness it’s dry) and pick the ones closest in size to what we want and trim them…
We can’t use the nailer for the first couple of pieces, so we drill recessed holes in the planks and screw them – we’ll fill over the screws later. By row 3 we can get the nailer going, and Guy is a whiz…I help with the lining up, he whacks it and it shoots a nail into the tongue at exactly the right angle. Brilliant piece of kit!
In no time we’re getting a nice rhythm and we’ve done about 7 rows. Then BANG. Something goes wrong with the nailer and it jams. We manage to unstick the jammed nails, but it just won’t work… We try phoning the hire place but it’s Saturday afternoon and they’ve all gone home. We try shaking it, swearing at it and yelling, but nothing helps, although we do feel better for it.
We decide all we can do is carry on with the cutting and fitting, and take the jammed nailer back to the hire place on Monday and get another one (and instructions on how to un-jam it) for next weekend… HUGELY frustrating. And of course the trouble is that if the floor isn’t fixed tight, it’s difficult to cut pieces for round the door edges… We decide the only thing to do is bung more screws through the occasional floorboard to hold the whole thing in place. We’ll take them out eventually and fill the holes when the planks have been nailed… We plod on and make it to nearly half way across the front room when we’re too tired to do any more - then we have to move all the lengths from the tarpaulin into the shed or back into the pool cabin overnight. In the dark we walk up to see Derek the Dab in case he can magically unjam the nailer, but he has no ideas either. We all agree that the whole thing needs to be dismantled, but also agree that if we can’t put it back together again, taking it back to the hire shop in bits in a cardboard box probably wouldn’t be popular… We’ll just have to do what we can without it.
On Sunday morning, after a quick dash to the farmer’s market, we carry on cutting and bung a couple more screws in for good measure. We cut bits for round the doors, and even chisel something off the underneath for the planks that meet the internal door. Blimey, this is almost carpentry!
The back room is easier – the planks are either 43” or 23” and we can alternate them to avoid joins being together. Except the battens are slightly warped so the lengths vary - Guy calls out ‘fat 23 with tongue’ or ‘not quite 44 with groove’ and I cut the right piece. It feels like we’re yelling out MacDonalds orders…
And we finish it! Well, ok, it’s not nailed. We haven’t fitted the back room as tightly, so we’ve cut a few spares and also not cut in around the door yet. We have a pile of unusable planks, remarkably few offcuts, and still a large pile of unused lengths. It looks fab, and will look even better when it’s sanded. And nailed.
Achieved: We’ve FINISHED THE FLOOR! Well, ok, not quite, but that was down to the lack of a working nailer, not us. Although it was dark when we stopped, so we probably wouldn’t have got it all nailed anyway…
Purchases: Battens and spotty polystyrene.
Pressies: Mum bought me a meerkat keyring for the new shed key. She said it reminder her of me. That means I have a long neck, stand up straight and look inquisitive. Could be worse…
Wildlife update: The mole has given up making mounds under the birdseed feeder. He’s started on the lawn.
Plan for the week: We can sand the ceiling beam, admire the flooring and do more work on the pew ends. And we have three cakes to do…
Injury of the week: Countless cuts and notches out of my fingers. I’m not quite sure how, although I suspect the new and very sharp vegetable knives are partly to blame.
How to treat your mother. On Wednesday when mum came to see how I was getting on with the painting, I was about to take stuff to the dump anyway, so she came along for the ride. Other people take their mothers out for coffee – I take mine to the dump. She seemed to enjoy it though…
Amazing foresight of the week. We know we have holes to fill in the floorboards. So we saved sawdust from the cutting to mix with wood glue and make filler that will match the maple. Forward thinking or what?!
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