Alastair and Jaimin have installed the flooring - 13.5/3mm engineered oak boards, brushed and oiled, fitted with a click-lock system. 13.5mm is the total board thickness, 3mm refers to the layer of real oak on the top of the floor board. Once it was laid, Jaimin oiled it with Osmo Polyx Matt hardwood oil. Once coat on Saturday and one on Sunday, to protect the floor and prolong the life of the wood.
Finn is intent of having a house with an upstairs, given that we are currently in what the grown-ups call a "bungalow". So Alastair (local joiner who did the plastering) has been on hand to push things along. We now have pine stairs fitted, which came as a pre-fab kit from StairWorld.com.
It's been quiet at Broombank for a few weeks. Jaimin has been working offshore, then Christmas and winter happened which meant little was done. Lucy managed to paint the upstairs in full, leaving downstairs to be painted over the past week. This was completed on Sunday by Lucy and special guest star Heidi. During the past week Lucy, Jaimin and the kids(!) have managed to team up and get it all covered.
Bare plaster paint was applied to the mare plasterboard walls. This was painted over with a single coat of Valspar Matt Putty White. The ceiling was painted with Cuprinol Pale Jasmin, one coat on the boards and 2 on the joists. This was the same in the bathroom although the boards received 2 coats. The kitchen wall was coated in Valspar Matt in "Gina's Eyes" blue/grey.
After a good build up of momentum, punctuated by James's solid input and (as mentioned in the last post) hiring a local joiner (Alastair Robertson) for the plasterboarding, we have completed a major phase.
The plasterboard is fitted and now needs taping:
The roof light surrounds took a long time to complete but are now done, as well as the final strips of cladding.
James worked hard to get the bathroom roof light surrounds as tidy as possible with a lovely outcome.
For anyone that has been wondering if we'd ceased operations, let's just say we've had a hiatus. July was taken up with work and August was taken up with the devastating and tragic loss of a close friend, Ben Abrahams, who featured on the blog a good few times.
Though it seems trivial, the work has kicked off again and progress is as follows:
The ceiling cladding is 90% complete and only requires 2 strips to be ripped using a table saw to fill in 2 gaps - one above head height to close the ceiling up, and one on the south eaves. The north eaves are all done. The window reveals also need to be done, but again table saw will sort that fairly quickly we hope. Rockwool was placed in between the bathroom boxes and the cladding as soundproofing.
Above the stairs. Some boxing in required but not much.
The bathroom boxes and the south side of the bathroom are complete, fixed and faced, and plasterboard has been fitted to the same wall. The yellow/cream board is Tilebacker (waterproof) and the blue is Moisture Resistant.
We have got a joiner in to help out and speed up (and improve the quality of) the plasterboarding, and he is making good progress:
James and Jaimin also cut out new MDF resistant windowsills for the bathroom, as they will last longer than the planned plywood ones.
Next up we need to finish the ceiling cladding completely, and once the plasterboarding is done, internally anyway it will be on to priming for paint.
This update is a combination of 2, as it's been a while. Sorry about that - things have been a bit busy.
The ongoing job at the moment is plasterboarding and ceiling cladding. With the help of James, and a new helper on site -Phil of Foot'Dee, we managed to complete the bathroom ceiling. While James & Phil were doing that, Jaimin was sealing up the chimney register plate with fire cement.
Phil nailing the ceiling cladding in the bathroom.
That meant we could move up to the upstairs room. The length and flexibility of the boards made this a 3 man job at first, until we had worked out a suitable system of glue, nails, sliding grooves in to tongues and so on.
Jaimin had to head offshore, so a special mention goes out to the indefatigable James, who along with another newcomer to site - Gavin - paired up on Sunday to continue the ceiling cladding.
Such a generous offer and so highly appreciated.
In the intervening week, Jaimin spent a few evenings making the boxes out of 9mm and 12mm plywood that will sit in the bathroom alcove and provide some storage (towels, linen??).
Here is a timelapse of one of the boxes being created.
Since then, Jaimin carried out the first west test on the plumbing system. Before the water could be used, there were far too many attempts at one particular 28mm T, which simply wouldn't seal. After literally hours of effort, it was sorted on Friday.
The wet tests were otherwise successful apart from one connection which is not compression or solder, and therefore not a concern and needs to be worked out... No biggie. Plumbing success then!
The wood burner has been hooked up and is waiting smoke pellets for the smoke test, but passed the wet test.
Today the plastetboard began with a little more vigour, starting in the bathroom. Cream is "aquapanel" or "tilebacker" (waterproof), and blue is moisture board (moisture resistant).
Also the view- if you'll allow us - kicked ass on Friday night, Here it is.
