More plasterboard, more fibreglass… and more rooms.

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So last time I wrote about the bathrooms I’d forgotten about the shelf that was meant to be in the 3/4 bath. We’d forgotten about it when putting up the cement board, and also hadn’t added in the framing for it. It’s just one piece of wood, in this case, so adding it in after the fact was pretty easy since we’d only done the bathroom side; cutting out the cement board wasn’t too painful either (although I think the roto-zip has suffered from cutting cement board – I think I should probably put in a new bit). I had to wait until we’d done the other bathroom to find out what left-over bits were left for making the sides – which, now I’ve finished the other bathroom, I got to do…

Yes… we have two completely walled bathrooms!

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As has been one of the most enjoyable things throughout this process, the building has changed again. It’s fascinating the way it feels bigger or smaller, and the way the light changes… The gradual addition of plasterboard walls to our framing changes the space in a new way. It’s been a case of having to try and imagine the walls and how the light will be, and now we’re getting to see the walls and the light. It’s interesting in a way that I’d not considered; because while we’ve changed one or two rooms in a house before, we’ve never changed anything so wholesale as the entire structure.

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And it’s starting to feel more like a house again, which is interesting. Adding the insulation was the last big change to the feel, with the road suddenly becoming much less audible. Adding in the new front door when we get it should really quieten things down too, because the current one fits so very badly. Unfortunately, it’s rained and rained and rained, which makes going to get a new door somewhat tricky.

Anyhow, today I set to on the next section of the plasterboarding odyssey. The pantry and the laundry. Much up-and-down with plasterboard later, and we have a completed pantry (at least the walls-of).

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It is the world’s smallest pantry (about 30cm wall-to-wall), and we’ll have to either make or get someone to make a really narrow pull-out set of shelves. It may need some kind of bumper thing to prevent it from destroying the wall, because otherwise it’ll probably shred the plaster. But it is possible to get in there, which means that we should be able to tape and plaster it.

I’ve also made fairly significant progress on the laundry – with two of the walls plasterboarded. I did screw up one section up – unfortunately. I couldn’t use the roto-zip on the sockets in there because that circuit is live and has actual outlets screwed in. It also made using the magnetic blind socket finder less accurate (because the board couldn’t be positioned in it’s proper place – ending up much further from the wall than is ideal).

Unfortunately, the first board I cut for the lower section ended up disintegrating around the socket because I hadn’t quite cut the hole in the right place. It was close enough that it looked like it would fit – but as I lifted it a little to put screws in, it caught and then cracked around the socket. I whipped that one off and recut it, but ignored an earlier smaller error – the light switch has a somewhat large hole, which we’ll have to repair. I also stuffed offcuts of insulation (what I’ve been referring to as ‘scruff’) in the wall in between the laundry and the pantry. There are some slightly bigger bits which I’m hoping will be easier to use in the wall between the bathroom and the laundry – but that’s always going to be a less well insulated wall (because of the shelf – and because it’s full of plumbing). So that’s tomorrow’s tasks… and then I’ll start laying the pipe routing channels in those rooms for the heating.

I’m thinking I’ll use the left over mould-proof bits in the central-heating boiler room, since that’s also got the water supply in it too. At any rate, it’s all quite exciting.

KateWE

Kate's allegedly a human (although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise). She's definitely not a vampire, despite what some other people claim. She's also mostly built out of spite and overcoming oppositional-sexism, racism, and other random bullshit. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, she's here to reassure that it's all fine.