Day 578: A little garden de-construction

So what do these first 2 pictures have in common  ???

1. Both were built from stone (or concrete)
2. Both were made to last for several thousand years
3. And we have no clue what either were built for

The weather was nice this long weekend so I decided to tackle the obelisk in our garden. And by obelisk, I mean some random pole just sticking out of the ground 

I had previously given this a whack with the sledgehammer and a good boot with my steel toes and absolutely nothing so I knew that this wasn't a challenge for the faint of heart.

Today's tools were my trusty angle grinder with the masonry blade, my club hammer, my chisel, a little shovel and lots of TLC (Thumping - Lifting - Cursing)

So the first step was to clear the concrete away from the base of the pole. I later found that this was actually the easy part. I did this until I found dirt all around.

Then I kept digging, and digging, and digging, ...... and unfortunately, still no dinosaur bones

And finally I felt the pole wiggle. And with a little more digging and lots of TLC (mostly the C part by this point), the column finally gave way ..

And as you can see, there was good reason why it wasn't budging earlier on. I'm sure there are columns on the Parthenon that didn't have foundations this deep. What on earth were they trying to build?!!!

As you can see, the post gave way before the base. 

In the end, I had to rock the base back and forth and pile stones underneath to eventually work the structure out of the hole. Lot's more of the "C" here ...

But finally it was out and I was able to fill the hole with the leftover dirt. 

And now there is one big difference to Stonehenge .. our pole is no longer standing ...

Day 400: One hot cabinet

Today's project was to put on the boiler cabinet. Not something we wanted on display in the new kitchen. This was a tougher job than initially thought.

Unlike the other wall cabinets, the boiler one wasn't an assemble by number job. Instead, its a "here's a bunch of panels, have fun" job. Added to that, since the boiler was already in place, attaching the frame to the wall also presented a challenge.

So first, and most important was measurements, this all centered around the door, which I didn't want to cut down as I'd lose the smooth painted edges. So I had a boiler and a 600mm wide cabinet to build around.  

The first piece to go on was the outside cladding, which in this case was also structural. This piece would need to be fixed to the wall using plugs and long screws as it would hold both the frame and the cabinet door. The depth also needed to be sufficient to allow the door hinges to fit but not stick out too far to interfere with our worktop space. And finally, I wanted to mount it as high as possible to allow maximum space underneath - challenging with a sloping ceiling.

The second piece of structure was a 38mm x 63mm piece of timber to hold the cabinet to the wall on the other side. There was just enough space to right of the water pipes to allow for this bracing.

Everything had to be cut to length in my outside workshop. The key here is picking which edges were to be visible and making sure the smooth factory edges faced outwards.

Outside, inside and bottom panels now installed.

Then came the top panel and outside cladding. The top left corner had to use special corner braces as there was no other way to fix it on.

Next went the pelmet at the bottom.

A complication came with the hinges. The soft close ones were far too big to fit in the cabinet. The alternative was to mount the door on the other side, but as it was 600mm wide, you would need to be a contortionist to access the boiler and I had no clue how to get the screws in place. I elected to go with the el-cheapo non-soft close hinges - how often do you access your boiler anyway?

The little bit of plastic is a jig for finding the right spot to drill all the holes.

The added complication was the opening of the boiler control panel door - right where the hinge was supposed to go. As usual, there is a special tool for that .. hello Amazon. The tool in question is a Forstner bit - 35mm in this case - which clears out space for the hinge cup. In all, not a difficult task - just make sure not to go all the way through the cabinet or the concealed hinge won't be well concealed.

And with the door now in place.

The slightly adjusted hinge location.

Finally, on went the cornice on the top to finish things off. As could be expected, this was also not the easiest task. The combination of the sloping ceiling and sloping cornice meant that this involved lots of trial and error with a bevel (angle gauge) and Dremel with a sanding attachment. Eventually however we got there. 

I'd put this down as a more difficult task for the average do-it-yourselfer since it essentially involved building a cabinet from scratch. However, like most things, I'm sure it becomes easier with practice. Hopefully, I don't have to do it again for a little while however.

The only thing left to do here is box in the top part of the piping and build a removable front plate to cover the piping the bottom. All in future posts I'm afraid.

Day 396: The wee cabinet in the corner

Corners are not just for naughty children anymore - cabinets can go in there too. Children can also go in corner cabinets, but that isn't advised.

So this weekend's dilemma was how to fit a fridge and hopefully a somewhat usable cabinet space in a short span of wall. We found some rather slim, but tall 400mm cabinets that should do the trick.

First, I put in some supports onto the wall to hold the countertop.

Next came the base cabinet. This was fixed to the wall using the support and some corner brackets. A bit more stone cladding on the right side to make every thing look tidy.

A countertop was then cut using some of the leftovers from the breakfast bar. There wasn't much material remaining to use, so once again, very little room for missed cuts.The cabinet mounts were then placed on the wall with care .. and some brick dust .. cough. 

And the tall cabinet fit snugly against the wall .. completely level of course.

Now with the doors on and the wee microwave we ordered to just fit the gap. 

Next some pelmet action. Think I was spending more time by now taking photos than doing any real work ... oh well

And some more stone cladding ... I elected to do this after installing the pelmet so that I could measure the exact size needed (much better than trying to add).

And finally I closed things off with a door. Sorry bad daddy humour; builder humour unfortunately can't be printed on a PG rated website.

A little nifty work was required to finish off that small gap between the base cabinet and the wall. I put 2 pieces of cladding together at a right angle so that I could fasten it without any screws being visible from out outside. The wider edge was then screwed from the inside of the cabinet. Very nifty.

 

And the (almost) finished product. I just need to do a bit of cornice work at the top to make things look pretty. So we managed to squeeze the fridge and a somewhat useable cabinet into a very small space in the corner. More great things are planned for this cabinet, but that will be the subject of a future post... stay tuned.Just need to now find a new corner to put the naughty kids ...

Day 284: All the support a builder could ever ask for

This weekend's task was to get the ceiling up. Rather than unleashing Armageddon and raining down a torrent of lathe and plaster on the floor, the "cleaner" option was to overboard the existing. Apparently this is an age old argument that out dates even the chicken-egg debate (chicken BTW), After extensive consultation with google and diynot, I elected to go the overboarding route. The reasons: 1) less mess, 2) less mess, 3) the joists were already marked and 4) better sound insulation between floors. 

Overboarding essentially involves screwing plasterboard to the floor joists above through the lathe and plaster. Since the joists were marked, this should have been an easy task. I enlisted the help of my 2 assistants: Care and the home made dead-man - essentially a 2x4 cut to the height of the room with some extra bits of week screwed to the ends. Both helpers had their strengths - Care proved more versatile in getting the boards up and held in place. The dead-man complained a lot less.The obvious challenge to this task was gravity. It's hard to hold the board in place and get the first couple of screws in place. Good thing Care was using her head ... literally.

I read that you should use 50mm drywall screws for this task. In reality, it's suggest going 70mm as not all the joists were the same height ... uneven=character I keep telling myself. Also the markings for the joists were more of a guidance than an exact thing as I found out. Regardless, with minimal wingeing and cursing, the first board was eventually up. A few more and voila, a new ceiling.

The Boss and Daddy's Little Helper also got into the task. Mostly though passing Daddy screws while he was up the ladder holding a drill in one hand, holding the screw with the other, and holding the plasterboard with the other ... yes, Daddy's are that good. With the lights back in place, all that is left to do is rough and finish plastering. However, as it stands, the room is staring to look much improved. Feels like we're nearly there now.

Support 1: Improvised dead-man

Support 2: Care using her head

 

Support 3 and 4: The Boss and  The Helper come to inspect the work

Obviously something wasn't to their liking

Looking like proper builders .. Ash also has a good set of tools

The kitchen as it stands with new ceiling and lights

Day 191: The door that opened the wrong way

Once upon a time there was a bathroom door. It was a decent door, only it was just too small .. and it opened the wrong way. All the other doors would make fun of the silly little door, with no handles that opened into the hallway.One day, a magical saw named Stanley floated into the door frame and cut the frame in half. It was much easier to get out when it was cut in half. Helped by a magical crow bar and some magical 4 letter words, the frame was soon off to the far away land of backyardia. Stanley the magical saw also cut into the studs above door frame to make the opening much bigger so that giants could also use the bathroom without bonking their heads. An evil, unused wire jumped out to try and stop the magical saw but this was no match for Stanley and was also banished to backyardia. Soon a new wooden header was nailed above the door opening to provide additional support.Stanley the saw found his way into backyardia and united with a mystical door jamb kit. This kit was a good kit, but it was a bit too big. Apparently the DIY stores sell 610mm doors but do not make frames for these 610mm doors. Not a problem though as Stanley came to the rescue and helped the door jamb fit just right. Powerful braces were used to make sure the door frame was square. It was likely one to be one of the first pieces of timber in the land of Suburbiton to be 100% true and 100% plumb.The new jamb was affixed into place with a small army of screws, helped by a spirit level and some more magical 4 letter words. Then ... suddenly .. a new door appeared. Then disappeared.Stanley's cousin, Stanley the screwdriver then got stuck into this door using a 5/8" bit to bore out some holes for the door lock. The kit used was a 2 latch bathroom latch. Lots of teamwork from the Stanley family: the hammer, the chisel and the drill; soon removed enough material to fit the lock. And the door magically re-appeared in the new door frame.All that was left now was to spray some fairy (expanding) foam to fill the void. This was done and voila, a new door was in place. And what a great door it is .. just as tall as the other doors, with a fine set of handles and best of all ... opening the right way. All the other doors welcomed the new door to his new home. All he requires now is some plaster, paint and architrave. But that is another story.THE END