Day 416: Tight spaces

One of the reasons that I actually enjoy doing DIY is the inherent problem solving. Especially when fixing up an old place, things don't always fit as expected and a little ingenuity is often required. Problems can be often fixed with some creativity and/or new tools in the arsenal (in other words some new DIY war stories and kit for show-and-tell)Today's story involves both....THE PROBLEM: How to mount shelving in a space that won't fit a drill or even a stubby screwdriverLong story, but what happened is that there is a pillar right in the middle of where we wanted to put the base cabinets (see previous post on the corner unit for an idea of all the aggravation this has caused). The kitchen design tool ignored this pillar and just freely placed the cabinets. I anticipated that the corner unit had to be "notched" but didn't realise that the pull-out spice rack needed also needed to be shifted. This created a gap (a problem, or an opportunity depending on the fullness of your glass).Scott's idea - cover the gap with a panel and be done with itCarolyn's idea - utilise the space as shelving for cutting boards etc.You can probably guess who's idea won .. this would otherwise have been a quick post.So I needed to mount shelves, except as the rest of the cupboards were already installed, this presented a challenge. Nothing useful would fit in the space to do the work. Taking the cabinet apart, although possible, wouldn't have been very fun (and wouldn't make a very good post either). If you really want to see what this would have worked, just navigate this site backwards.  So first the easy part, cutting the shelves. By now I've accumulated lots of excess wood. I just needed to pick out a few pieces with good edges and cut them to size. I also mounted some white paneling to the back to make everything look neat.Next came the hard part - how on earth to mount these things? For the bottom one, I cut some smaller pieces of wood to fasten from the bottom. These will be behind the plynth and won't be seen. Now the creative part. I fastened a drill bit to the chuck of my Dremel tool and used the 90 degree attachment to create a "tight space" drill. This worked a charm and using my stubby screwdriver, I managed to get the bottom shelf fastened. 

So far so good .. but for the middle shelf, even my MacGyver drill contraption wouldn't get into the space. More creativity/tools was needed.

I opted to use some shelf support clips to hold it in place. To make the holes for these clips I needed to order some crazy long (30cm) drill bits. Thanks Amazon. 

First, I drilled through the corner cabinet side and then progressed to go 1cm into the other side. I found that these drill bits can actually bend. Kind of like a small scale horizontal drill string. Using the ring in my adjustable wrench as a guide (bare hands not recommended), I positioned the inner hole exactly where I needed it.

And voila, a new home for our cutting boards! So for the average person visiting our kitchen, they will not think anything of this great feat of engineering. But for the informed Suburbiton Project reader - they will know that this isn't just an average shelf.

DIY war stories +1

New kit +1

Just need to think of what else I can do with a set of 30cm drill bits now ...

Day 270: Things are lookin' up - aka my neck's a hurtin'

Before people start thinking I'm some combined Mike Holmes/Bob Villa on steroids. This posting spans a couple of weekends .. and a bit of mid week magic.

So the task at hand was to finish framing the ceiling void in the extension, install insulation, run the ducting and plasterboard the lot. Piece of cake

You'll have seen in the previous posts that the old area was a bit of a falling apart Artex mess. The whole thing came down with minimal effort. As usual, putting it back took a bit of extra work. All the key bits were in place however; Tom re-routed the hot water pipes and got his mate to install the vent hood for the 150mm kitchen exhaust.

So first, I decided to put on the insulation. Given that it was pretty cold with single paned windows, a grossly undersized rad and no insulation whatsoever, I'm expecting big things now. The kitchen may even end up being a bit too warm with the big vertical rad, double glased windows and now insulation. Let's see this winter. I'm expecting super cold temps to make it all worthwhile.

I grabbed 50mm Celotex. This was the largest width I could fit between the rafters (and much cheaper than say 100mm). Cutting it was a breeze with a extending knife - although recommend wearing a dust mask and doing it outside as it looked a bit like the North Pole afterwards (or Pablo Escobar's kitchen table). The Celotex is foil lined on both sides for moisture protection and is rigid enough to hold itself in place. The density also gives it better insulation properties. A 120cm x 240cm sheet did the whole area with some left over. Joints were sealed with foil tape (really cool stuff - like sticky kitchen foil).

After the Celotex came the vapour barrier. This keeps all the moist air on the inside of the house so it doesn't escape through the insulation and condense on the other side leading to nasty things like rot/mould/etc. The material looks like old garbage bags fused together in a big sheet. Cost-wise however, it doesn't look a thing like old garbage bags fused together in a big sheet. This was fixed in place in one sheet using a staple gun to hold in place. Good ol' duct tape was used to seal the joints.

Later came the framing for the duct work. This would have been a great time lapse photography piece. Except I'm not so talented nor motivated to set this up myself. Maybe the next reno project. So the challenge - I decided to go with 150mm kitchen ducting. The problem - 150mm is 6" which is BIG. It doesn't turn corners very well and takes up a lot of space. I initially thought I'd do the whole thing with flat channel ducting and put it together like LEGO. That didn't work entirely. So thanks to the Internet, mixed and matched some semi-rigid aluminium round ducting, flat channel pieces and an adapter to connect the two. In all, it somehow worked. Joints were sealed with mastic sealant and double sealed with special PVC ducting tape. The aluminium pieces used my favourite aluminium duct tape. And the valuable lesson/biggest surprise of all .... Duct Tape, the centre of all household repairs .. ISN'T PARTICULARLY GREAT ON DUCT WORK. Amazing! Look it up if you don't believe me. Generations of people have been mislead, including myself. Go impress your friends with this great piece of trivia.

But the duct work worked after all. 150mm throughout. This thing is really going to suck. Whenever the hood decides to arrive.

Last came the plasterboard. With all the duct work in place, I just need to conceal my great work. Good thing there is a blog so it can be appreciated by millions around the world (or at least a few appreciative friends/family). I figured to celebrate my achievement and make plasterboarding a bit easier, I'd go and purchase a new Dremel tool to add to the collection - a hole saw kit. Basically a poor man's router. This think makes cutting plasterboard details a breeze - an a lot more fun.

You can see from the results, it looks much better now. Ready for some finishing work and plastering on top.




The startin' place

Celotex polysomething insulation for roof voids

Lots and lots of plasterboard

Celotex in place

Now some vapour barrier (glorified garbage bags)

Vapour barrier in place now sealed with good 'ol duct tape

Beginnings of the frame for the ducting

Some ductin' in place

Scott's got a new gadget

The finishin' place - ready for cornerin', tapein' and plasterin'