Day 1905: The big clear out

After 5 years we finally are starting the loft conversion. Better late than never I guess.

And after 5 years of careful planning, we've picked the optimal time to do this - the middle of winter at the onset of Coronavirus Lockdown 3.0. Cold weather outside with all of us trying to work / do schooling / keep our sanity inside. Will make for some good stories in reflection I hope.

The first thing we needed to do to prepare for this was clearing out the loft space. If you remember (and I'll help with a link here), the loft was first converted back into storage back during a previous winter. As it turns out, stuff in a storage space has an R value greater than 1.0. Needless to say, the space was getting pretty full. Fine in normal times - out of sight out of mind I guess but not helpful when we needed to clear everything out to convert the loft. We are getting some storage back, but really need to cull a lot of the junk. Christmas / Hallowe'en decorations are protected of course. 

We initially thought about storing everything in the cabin, but given this is my new office / mancave - it was quickly dismissed. This meant that we needed to find external storage. Enter Big Yellow .. easy to reserve a spot, great service and decent prices. Most importantly, just like off-licenses and photo shops it was considered an essential service and allowed to stay open. Just a 5 minute drive away from us as well so happy days there.

I had a bit of fun moving the stuff there .. particularly with the life size skeleton from Hallowe'en which ended up being my passenger on the drive there. It got a few people's attention :) .. He's now guarding the storage locker for us. 

As you can see, the storage is pretty full now. Initially I thought this was going to be too big for what we needed but the R value of stored items came into effect. After 10 weeks, this may be overfilling, let's see.

Most importantly, the loft is now empty save for some bonus items that can be re-used or go in the skip. Fine either way. 

 

   

Monday the skip and portaloo arrive and the work starts in earnest. 

 

Day 1903: And the next project begins

Exciting times, the scaffolding was put up today and the loft conversion officially starts on Monday. I know we've been lousy at posting updates on this blog but we'll try and show progress as this thing develops over the next 10 weeks.

And since a few people have asked me already .. no, I will not be doing the loft conversion myself. I'm crazy, but not that crazy. We've chosen More Than Lofts to do the work for us - they impressed us with the quality of work and service so far. I've been relegated to taking pictures and writing about it now :(

Day 1688: We all need a spur to lean on

Before I get down to business with the patio in front of the cabin there is one thing that I need to attend to first .. a wobbly post.  It's basic biology .. wood left in the ground will decompose over time. Fence posts are treated and covered to delay this but it will eventually happen nonetheless. 

I noticed when prepping for the patio to go in that the fencing between us and our neighbours was a bit wobbly .. definitely a sign of what was happening down below the surface. Figured it was best to take care of this before it becomes a bigger problem down the road. 

Digging a bit below ground the rot became obvious. This poor fence post would need some support. Enter the concrete spur which was designed for this purpose. There is a great video on YouTube that explains this entire process here - but my half ass explanation, please continue reading. 

I first needed to do a bit of digging and put the support in place. The spur was 1.2m so I was targeting 60cm below ground and 60 above. 

Taking on board the lessons learnt from earlier (read here) on overzealous use of concrete in the garden, I wasted no time in putting a call out to Scott to borrow the breaker again. I really should buy one of these one day. 

And on went the chiselling, digging, chiselling, digging, chiselling, digging .. etc. for hours on end until finally the end of the concrete came in site. Finally. 

And while many of my fellow countrymen were finding treasures in their gardens over the coronavirus lockdown period (see here), this hole once again came up empty. I'm beginning to think the dinosaurs, Romans, Vikings and just about everything else notable in history somehow avoided just avoided Surbiton. 

Half a day and 40cm done and still another 20cm to go  .. 

Finally, after some long gruelling hours of work I managed to get down to 60cm. I'm so happy the other posts look to be pretty solid as I couldn't imagine trying to do this for an entire fence. 

The posts would be held in place with square washers (because they looked nice) and 10mm coach screws. Having again learnt from previous mistakes of not having the tools for the job, these impact sockets were pre-ordered from Amazon to make short work of driving in the screws. 

The next step was to get everything level before pouring the concrete in place.. I chopped some scrap bits of wood to use as supports for this.

Looks pretty good. 

Next comes the postcrete. Amazing stuff. Fill the hole 1/3 with water, empty the bag in and stir away. The mix sets in a few hours time - but best to leave it overnight before removing any supports. 

And there you go, the finished product. You can't tell from looking at it how much work this involved. However, the fence is no longer wobbly and hopefully will give us many more years of use before we ever need to think about it again.

 

Day 1660: Child labour ain't cheap these days

This weekend I learned a valuable lesson. Don't negotiate with some sharp kids after you've had a few glasses of wine. The task was to paint the outside of the cabin with some specialist (i.e. expensive) paint to seal the wood, make it look nice and prevent it from rotting. Buying into marketing with a hint of science, I bought the very expensive paint from Tuin (who we bought the cabin from). And by expensive I'm talking £78 for a 2.5L tin. No spillage or drips here .. it's way too dear for that.

If that wasn't bad enough, I was negotiating with the kids to help paint it. Finally, I could get some helpers to share the DIY workload around the house. Unfortunately, sensing an opportunity to earn some pocket cash, this ended up in a negotiation. 

Being the savvy negotiator that I am (or thought that I was after my 3rd glass of wine), I decided to make this a price per square meter bid. I started with £1/sqm each for 2 coats. They worked me up a bit to £1.30/sqm each for 2 coats. Care wasn't helping at all by pushing the bid up a bit more yet. We ended up with £1.50/sqm each for 2 coats. 

We all went to bed happy after a deal well negotiated. Me especially as I thought I'd gotten the better of these kids in their first wage negotiation. Haha!

The next day rolled around and the kids were still happy at the prospects of making some good money - they were already planning on how they'd spend their fortune. In my sobriety I also calculated the numbers....

What?! I'd just agreed to pay each of them £46.62 to paint the cabin! I'd been taken to the cleaners by a couple of pint sized con artists. Don't let those cute faces fool you for a minute. 

For that price, they had better do a really, really good job.

The wood had weathered quite nicely over the 1 month in the sun and it was almost a shame to spoil this with paint. But I'd already spent a fortune on it so there was no turning back now. 

And here is what £78 looks like. I was expecting some kind of advanced carbon fibre / titanium bling factor for that price. But it was just a pretty ordinary paint tin. I guess it does say 'ULTIMATE' on it - that has to be worth something.

The 2 painting princesses ....

And their helper .. who luckily also didn't try and negotiate a 'fair' wage ... 

I have to say, they were quite diligent in their painting. No splashes or drips or complaints all afternoon. They had better not for the price that I was paying them!

"Yes, what do you want?!"

Care did have to help with anything above the 1.8m height mark.

And there you go, the cabin after 2 coats of paint. I must admit, the paint did feel like it went on much better than other brands and it did seem to offer the deep penetration into the wood that Tuin promised. But maybe it was just me rationalising the price tag.

And the rich 2 workers at the end of the day with their spoils. £50 each for a hard days work. Yes, we rounded up. Thank goodness they didn't decide to charge VAT on top of that.

Day 1643: What's a dog's favourite trade?

What's a dog's favourite trade? .. Roof-ing. Bad dad joke of the day today.

The skies were blue and the weather had warmed up a bit so time to get ready for the roofing. 

As the roof was insulated now, I just needed to put on a layer of 9mm WBP (outdoor) plywood and then put the shingles on top. 

I lifted the panels on first, put them in place and cut off the excess by hand. This was the easiest way and most exact way vs trying to cut to shape on the ground. The panels were heavy so would recommend having a helper if you try this yourselves. The biggest problem with a sloped roof is that the panels also tend to follow gravity and slide right off. 

The shingles were laid out on the ground. Given the colour could differ slightly between packs, it's always best to mix them up when installing. 

Also used were the slightly longer 9mm roofing nails to make sure the shingles got a decent hold in the plywood and some roof and gutter tar (bitumen) to hold everything in place. Nasty stuff to work with that sticks to everything (like tar). But needed to make sure the shingles were held tightly and watertight.  

Day 1629: No power tools on Easter

Apparently there is a verse somewhere in the Bible that forbids power tools on Easter Sunday (or at least according to Carolyn).

So today I had to down tools and postpone all the great projects I had for the day. Instead I decided to do some gardening ..

With the contents of the old shed strewn across the lawn under tarp .. the grass had taken real beating this year. Today I decided to get it back into shape. I did some radical weeding and pruning and cut the grass. Then I planted some seeds and watered them. Nothing like watching grass grow! All done very quietly so not to disturb the Easter bunny or our neighbours or break any commandments etc.

And with all that quiet ... Could I hear the birds, the crickets, the wind blowing through the trees?

No, all I could hear was a powersaw across the road and an impact gun 2 doors down. Obviously these people weren't observing Easter .. or didn't get the memo. Who knows?!

Looking forward to creating 2 days worth of noise tomorrow!