Mostly lemon based

Category: House

Slicing the cupcake.

So, having submitted and paid for the Nova Scotia nurses board registration*, that’s given us a sort of time line for departure. Not a fixed “we’ll be leaving at point X” timeline. But a rough idea timeline. 6 months for registration, a few months for finding a job and selling the house, and lo, we should be gone.

We’d also like to do some travelling. And saving up. But essentially. Timeline.

Which means that however I slice the cupcake (and I’ve tried many ways), I don’t think I can really schedule doing the Minor EV conversion before we go. I’d love to. I look at the sums and say “we’ll spend probably a grand on fuel, just going to my mum’s”. I think, every time I fill up the car with petrol ‘oh god, I hate petrol cars’. I despise supporting Esso, Shell and BP in their destruction of the environment. Whenever I’m stuck in a traffic jam I just am filled with this unutterable disappointment in the modern world, and in the fact that my friend Nikki was so ahead of the curve on this, and I’m still trailing along.

But it’s a simple case of “we aren’t rich enough for that”. The old adage about quick/quality/price kicks in, and to do the project quickly, to the standard I want to do it, would cost vastly more than I have. To do the project at all requires me saving up some cash, but to do it to the standard I’d like to do it, it’s simply not going to happen at this point. And as John pointed out yesterday – I don’t want to get half way through and then need to move, and need to move with an immobile minor. Not a good plan.

On the plus side, most of the bits I’ve got will remain ‘good enough’ for the project. The DC-DC, the pump, the motor and the controller are all fine. I’ll just have to package them up and ship them over… Which is irritating. But the disappointment of having pulled the Minor off the road for months, only to put her back on (when I get the diff fixed) with no improvement in her environmental impact is staggeringly sucky.

The only upside is that when we get to Canada, having a car will be handy, and Rebecca is likely to have to step into that role rather quickly.

Anyhow, I need to get on with cooking, grouting and painting. So, back to the grindstone with me. :)

* So they can tell me whether I’m eligible to sit the exam, which we think/hope I am, which will mean I can sit the exam and then register as a nurse, and then get a job there**
** Anyone want a registered emergency nurse in Nova Scotia?

16/12/2012
Progress

So, despite fairly small progress over the last few days* there has quite definitely been progress on the bathroom. I’ve stripped and sanded the walls, painted them, stripped the paint off where it was reacting or peeling for some reason which is so far unclear**, refilled, repainted… so we’ve gone from this a couple of days ago (after I’d removed the wallpaper and done the first round of filling):

To this, today. Which is slowly drying off:

And I’ve carefully removed the two tiles from behind the taps:

This is because, if you look carefully, you can see the lead pipe which used to feed the hot taps poking out from the wall, meaning there was a hole in one of the poorly fitted replacement tiles. I’ve also spent some time carefully cleaning up the 1930’s salvaged tiles:

They’re now looking adequately shiny to go behind the taps. This afternoon I’m going to make a little treck to the shop to get the chrome pipe to hook up the shower, the paint for the walls… and hopefully get those tiles installed ready for silicone sealant tomorrow.

I’m really hoping to get this finished by the end of next week, including the bathroom floor. So. Wish me luck.

In less good news, I went up into the attic for two jobs. One was the cheery attachment of some wood blocks to add some extra support for the rather heavy ceiling light (oh the fun I have surrounded by glass fibre). The other was to examine where the water leak in the bedroom was coming from.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard to find:

So we’re waiting for roofing specialists to get in touch. The rest of the roof appears to be in great shape, though, unlike the last house we were in where it was clearly a bit tired. But that is ungood. I’m surprised the surveyor didn’t spot it, but if there was anything in the way of it, they wouldn’t have looked.

Anyhow, that, I think we can all agree, needs fixing. And it’s beyond my ken on the whole DIY front, and probably wants a little scaffolding tower up at the front of the house. So we’ll see what they want to do about it…

Also up there is a 1950’s cement barrel, which I think is kinda cool, and would quite like to make a cushion out of. But that’s a whole ‘nother idea.

* We headed down to see my mum… also had to do food shopping, and so on and so forth.
** I am wondering if the filler is reacting with the paint it’s over, which is causing the paint on the top to peel. I have no idea, really. I just keep cleaning it up and trying different things. It’s got better but I’m still not entirely sure what’s up with it. I got through about 15 sanding sheets in a room that’s about 2m by 2m, half of which is tiled…. which is insane.

14/12/2012
Meh

Today is the international day of one word titles. Did you know that? No? I may be lying.

So, onwards with the house! Well, that was the plan. I’ve removed all the bathroom wallpaper apart from the bit behind the mirror (I need Kathryn’s help to remove the mirror). And today I finally managed to scrape off the paper behind the radiator… so I set to with the sander on the new filler and the crud on the walls. After a couple of hours sanding and an inordinate number of power sander sheets it became apparent that whatever hideous crap is on the walls of the bathroom is not coming off in a hurry.

I’ve tried application of sugar soap, steam, sandpaper, scrapers, hot water… it won’t shift. It’s a bit better after a couple of hours sanding, but hardly smooth.

In the end I’ve resorted to covering it with basecoat – and we’ll see how it looks. That is now drying, as is the ceiling which I’ve coated with plaster-primer. So tomorrow when Kathryn’s home I’ll hopefully do the rest of the room prep. Well, the rest of the first round of sanding and painting. Then there’s filling, sanding, and painting again. Then there’s painting with top-coat. Then there’s painting with top-coat. Then there’s installing the shower and curtain. Then there’s doing the floor.

Then there’s doing the underbath storage, although given that we’re not staying in this house forever I’m less enthused about doing that and may just box it in. It’d be lush to do every job properly, but why waste money? Meh, we’ll see how I’m feeling when I get there.

Anyhow, now it’s time for sitting, relaxing and some Dorothy B Hughes, courtesy of Mr B’s.

10/12/2012
Eeek.

So along with shipping everything in the world (USian family prezzies, Ebay soldness) I also sent the Registration documentation to Nova Scotia. Eek.

Good eek, but eek.

I’ve been working on the bathroom… and Kathryn’s present… so after lunch I’ll be going ‘back into the bathroom’ with the sander and a vacuum. Wish me luck.

10/12/2012
More Belf (or Bookbed, or something).

So, despite having been on nights, the impending visit of my mother has spurred progress on the house, or at least on the Belf. The Belf being a Daybed/Fold-Out-Double/Bookcase affair of such astonishing complexity that even I am quite surprised by how complex it’s ended up being.

The bed itself is mainly MDF and pine. The shelves that are at the end are more of the reclaimed douglas fir we used to make the shelves in the other alcove:

Now, we were a bit limited in quantity of fir, so between the wood for the belf and the wood for the shelf, that really is all the wood that we could usefully salvage to make something big – and whilst it would have been nice to have an extra shelf on that one, we don’t really have any spare (mostly because the plank they threw in free with the others we bought was split end-to-end).

Anyhow, so, despite sleep deprivation I spent today working on the belf…

So, today started with it looking like this:

And ended up with it looking like this:

Irritatingly, my centre support is approximately 3mm to flipping wide. So I’ll have to trim that down (which is going to be a complete arse, because it’s both glued and screwed into place (for strength). The end supports are similarly a smidge wide. Still, it gives me something to fix tomorrow. When Kathryn gets home we’ll have to flip the top over and stand it up – which will allow it to be attached to the hinges which give the bed the handy day-bed/flip out semi-proper double (double, but with two single mattresses).

Anyhow, tomorrow we get to populate the bookcase, which is quite exciting.

And we checked, and as you can see, the second mattress does, indeed, snick neatly under the bed. Which was entirely the point :)

Also today I went and collected Chester. He’s now got a new (old) front strut, and the old one is currently in the boot, with the intention of being moved to the garage in case we have another strut failure. This garage didn’t swap the disks over, so the brakes are a bit uneven at the moment, but hopefully that’ll settle down. It was better by the time I got home, than when I set off from the garage.

At any rate, as I was walking there in the mid-day winter/autumn sun, Bristol let out the pretty for a while…

23/11/2012
I understand, but it doesn’t work for me.

So, not having a car and living in a city is the way of at least some of the future, I expect. The zip car / on demand rental / city car club thing has been going for a while, and I keep thinking it’s something that we should consider. Or at least consider dropping our second car*. When Rebecca’s electric (oh, the dreams I have) we’ve discussed the possibility of not keeping Chester anymore (not in front of him, obviously). Rebecca is, however, some way off. And as previously mentioned, Chester is currently waiting for parts, so today I signed up for Hertz on Demand. The reason I opted for this is that they have the fun-‘n-funky option of picking up an iMiev and somesuch, but also a nearby collection point is B&Q.

However, whilst my ordinary approach is to work out roughly what I need, wander around B&Q and get the bits (ideally I’d wander around Bishopston Hardware, but I’m in a hurry, and B&Q is nearer). But obviously, only having a motorbike as a means of transport makes manouvering a 2.5m long sheet somewhat more difficult. Some might say it’s an unrealistic thing to suggest. Hence the van rental (and yes, it would have hung dramatically out of the back of Chester, but he’s used to it).

So, having carefully made a list (with only the one major flaw, at the moment, which I’m just having panicked thoughts about), I made a list on ‘Reserve and Collect’ only to find that the reserve/collect thing only works next day. Which is no help.

So I’m going to have to trundle to B&Q, wander round in my (hot) bike gear, load the van in my (hot) bike gear, unload it at home in my (hot) bike gear, and then head back to B&Q to take the van back so I can get my bike back, and ride home. Which all takes time from my bed and bookcase building. To top it all off, I’ve realised that I cut the shelves for the second shelf unit to the wrong size***. Which makes me doubly unhappy. Feh.

* In that imaginary circumstance where both vehicles were, say, working. Or even one of them, for that matter**.
** The second hand Volvo spares place are very nice, very friendly, and have singularly failed to manage to remove the spare front strut from the spares Volvo on which it currently resides. Apparently my order is blocked by various other vehicles which are on the hoist, being as it’s still on a poor old 340 that’s about to be rendered down for parts. However, our 340, which sports a shiny MOT and was in fairly much daily use, and is badly needed for ferrying parts back from the shops to build a bed, that is sat outside immobile because the much needed part is still on the car in the field. Gah.
*** Well, it would be the right size if the verticals were infinitely thin, but they’re not. This is because we went through a phase of thinking we’d just put the shelves up as shelves, not as a bookcase. Did I mention Augh!?

10/11/2012
For some reason I’m knackered.

Completely, totally exhausted. No idea why. One minute I was peachy keen, the next I felt like kipping on the sofa. I’m resisting, because it almost invariably makes me feel worse. It has been a fairly busy and productive day though, which might explain it.

So, the items on today’s list were: Replace the leaking ballcock washer, gluing the back of the bookcase back together* and making an iphone/ ipod to valve radio cable.

Having watched yesterday’s Rachel Maddow show over breakfast, and enjoyed the Pro-Obamaness**** I diassembled the 1930s ballcock and ‘simply undid’ the piston*****. It actually did come apart with less force than I thought might be required (although I was suspecting that it would need to be replaced entirely, so that’s not saying a lot). The rubber of the washer was fairly brick like and slightly crumbly, so the fact it was working as well as it was is quite surprising. Slipping the washer into my pocket I wandered down to the garage sporting my bike gear with the intention of going straight out to get the bits and bobs I required from the plumbing place and the very depressing Maplin.

Having had a bit of a mental debate about the issue of how to glue the bits of wood making the back up back together, I realised that really, I’m going to have to do that in the house. It’s a bit of a bugger, because it means that some of the drilling is going to have to happen in the house. But then, taking that into account, I realised that that timing was a bit of an issue and threw the first coat of varnish on the wood before taking my motorbike outside and dropping it.

Yes.

See, we live in a nice house which backs onto a lane. The land outside our garage is gravelled, because our builders dumped the excess gravel on there. This is good, because prior to that it was just mud. I stood the bike on the gravel, locked the garage doors, started her up (she ran a bit roughly, probably because she’s not been used much recently) and hopped on. Up with the kickstand and pootle forward. Only the engine then attempted to stall. Pulling the clutch in, the bike came back to a stop, but now I was badly placed and the bike was starting to camber over. I stuck my leg out to stop the bike and the gravel took the bike rightward and my leg leftward. I tried to hold it up with my arms and force of will, but the fact was it wasn’t happening. The bike landed on it’s left side snapping the end off the clutch lever (argh). It also, I realised, weighs the same as a thousand suns.

A very nice biker who happened to be walking his dog kindly offered his help (I’d tried twice and realised I had no hope of getting the bike up, he arrived whilst I was in the midst of that second attempt at a lift). Between us we got it back onto it’s centre stand. I think from now on I’ll walk it out to the tarmac stretch before riding, because that was no fun. We had a bit of a chat before he went, he used to have a GT550, and commented on what a lovely bike it is, and also how insanely heavy they are compared to modern bikes. Which is kinda funny, because I thought it was just me thinking it weighed a ton, but no. Anyhow…

Having got the bike back up and running (it’s only the very end of the clutch lever that’s snapped, thankfully) I hopped on to go and be depressed by Maplins. Maplins, as we know, is painfully depressing, because I remember going in there and them actually stocking components. Still, they had what I required – a reasonable stereo socket, and a switch (for what was my mum’s broken bread maker), and I had the idea that a 4mm plug might fit in at least one of the connectors on the valve amplifier (I think I want a 3mm banana plug, but they’re very pricey) – so I got a couple of them. Despite costing more than e-bay I decided to pick up a pair of ‘helping hands’ too, although to be honest, they’re not the best ones I’ve ever tried. Nice heavy base, but finicky to set up. I then stopped at Graham and picked up the washer…

And arriving home threw the varnish on everything shelf related.

Reassembly of the toilet cistern proved to be a doddle, assuming it doesn’t start leaking in the near future. I’ve got 10 washers, anyhow (came in packs of 10). And then I sat down, watched Red Dwarf and made this:

It just all fits inside the metal case I got (I went for the metal one because I’ve had any number of stereo sockets with plastic screw together sleeves that have disintegrated). A quick check demonstrates that it works perfectly. The ‘Gram’ socket on our Bush VHF 61 does indeed work beautifully. Now I just need to make the iPhone base adaptor that looks like it’s made of bakelite and we’ll be good :)

I also took the opportunity of being in a fixy mood to repair the breadmaker my mum gave us. I don’t think anything in particular has changed with our other one, but the faulty display has led to enough failed loaves of bread, so I fixed my mum’s… Unfortunately, I made an unwarranted assumption. When I looked at it I assumed (without taking it apart) that it used nasty cheap membrane switches, because it looks like it does. So I thought, ‘sod that’ and bought a push-to-make switch. It turns out that actually, it had dinky little sub-micro switches actuated by pushrods and the plastic surface that looks like membrane switches is just a plastic surface. Still, since it’s pretty ancient I decided I wasn’t too concerned about looks, and also couldn’t be bothered to go and deal with Maplins again. A few minutes work, and a couple of little flyleads later we have a ‘Start button’ that looks more enthusiastic:

That done I went and did some more varnishing.

Yes, my entire life the past few days has been cutting or varnishing or sanding.

Then as I meandered up the garden I was suddenly hit by a wave of tiredness. An awesome wave of tiredness from which I’ve not yet recovered. I’ve been sat curled on the sofa dinking on the internet for the last couple of hours apart from… trying on my new leather jacket.

It’s pretty rare that I get clothing of a decent brand. This is because in general I’m limited to whatever’s in my size in charity shops, and I’ve broad shoulders and long arms which means that whilst the majority of me is one size, finding jumpers and jackets that fit is a fracking nightmare. However, I’ve been faintly trying to locate a leather jacket for a while, but given my ethics it had to be a second hand jacket, because one shouldn’t be killing animals for leather, and then taking that leather and using a sweatshop to make the jacket. That’s my opinion. But I’m also not wealthy, so getting new clothes that are ethically made requires either that I have very few clothes or that I get them from charity shops, or at least second hand.

Having vaguely poked at charity shops, then upped it to a fairly concerted effort to find one, including looking in vintage shops, I decided to poke at e-bay. And there it was, a Press and Bastyan jacket. Now, I’ve less idea who these people are than most, because my idea of following fashion is to watch Big Bang Theory and see if I can get teeshirts that match. However, I looked at the prices and I thought, hell, it might be decent quality. I stuck a bid on for a tenner (meaning the thing would cost 15 quid) and didn’t think too much more about it. The nice ‘you’ve won this item’ e-mail arrived, and I then assumed that it’d not fit.

It arrived today. It does fit, and it is, indeed really a very nice leather jacket. It’s not exactly what I originally went looking for, but I’m really quite pleased with it. So there we go. Now I just need to develop the ability to care deeply about clothing and I reckon I could look quite good. I suspect, however, that’s not going to be coming in the near future.

* So, yesterday Nikki kindly gave me a lift to B&Q to get the second sheet of spruce ply. Sadly, their stock was much smaller than it had been, and to be honest, a lot scabbier. It’s not intended to be furniture grade, and much of it was poorly filled with streaks of nastyness. The one I selected in the end also has scabby filled bits, but it was the best of the top few. I got it cut to size and we wandered out to Nikki’s Leaf (since Chester is not moving until we get a new strut). We tried a few angles, but were prevented by the narrowness of the rear door from getting it in**. I thought it was bendier than it is (it’s not really very bendy at all), and so having attempted every orientation of I took it back into the store and had it cut in half. It is, of course, now, 3 mm narrower than it was intended to be. Which is a bit of a bugger, but not as much of a bugger as the massive error I’ve made***.

** I can picture my dad’s rant now; he very politely destroyed every point that a Vauxhall salesperson had about why the then new Vectra was better than his few year-old Cavalier was. The only reason we were debating it is my dad had been made redundant, and whilst he still had a massive GM discount he thought it might be worth replacing the car. Having decided the Vectra was even worse than the Cavalier (which was not really as good as the Mk II Escort, but wasn’t nearly so rusty) he decided that he’d rather keep the Cav, which went on to do nearly quarter of a million miles before we sold it.

*** So, I thought there was more space around the bookcase than there actually was. So when I made the plinth, I made it a bit bigger than the case itself, to make it look nice. Like a proper bookcase, I thought. I just went and measured the gap (yes, you can all say “shouldn’t you have done that first”, but honestly, I thought it was bigger’n that) and will need to trim the ends off my plinth. Not a lot, but the nice end pieces I made? They’re going to be coming off tomorrow :(

**** Whilst I have a multitude of reservations about Obama, the choice between Obama and Romney was, to me at least, do you want someone who seems to be very competent, even if his record on civil liberties is no where near where you’d like it to be, or would you like an incompetent pathological liar. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t object to Romney near as much if he actually stood by any position long enough to question him on it. Or admitted that he’d changed his mind. But he appears unaware of the fact that we now have the awesome technology to play back tape of him, and see what he said before and compare it to his random new position. Ah well, all done now :)

***** Whenever someone says ‘simply undo’ or ‘with a light tap’ you know that it’s bollocks, don’t you. You know that you’re going to be using molegrips and monkey wrenches or club hammers and your sharpest chisel and all the force you can muster.

8/11/2012
Today’s progress

So, today I’ve varnished the shelves (on one side). I will leave them to dry overnight, then tomorrow varnish the other side, and then it should be assembly time. Which is exciting. I’ve got a few holes to drill first (44 on the uprights and shelves, in total, then a few on the back panel (which will be glued/screwed to the shelves). I’m a bit worried about this now, I know that my shelf edges are not as square as I’d like. They’re pretty good, but I’m not sure how the whole thing will fit together. All I can do is assemble it and pray.

Anyhow, that’s for tomorrow. Nikki kindly said she’d give me a lift to B&Q this evening to get another sheet of spruce, which we’ll have to gently bend to get into her car, in exchange for some piano time (the appallingly out of tune piano is available for her playing pleasure).

That cut and varnished and drilled should be the last of the preassembly jobs.

In other news, Chester’s new leg is sort of ordered (a used parts volvo specialist is taking it off one of their parts cars tomorrow), and assuming that leg is in good condition it’s going to wing its way to us (by courier) and lo, Chester will be mobile again. We will also be the ‘proud’ owners of two dead legs which we can get new cups welded onto, should we have any further disasters. I’m hoping, though, that in the next year we’ll be leaving and it won’t be an issue.

It took a while to find a place that had one though, apparently the drift kids are using up all the spares, and our poor benighted 340 is being left high and dry. Shame, it’s a really excellent vehicle. Granted it runs on dead dinosaur, but still, as petrol cars go I’ve very little to say against it.

I’ve also cleaned up a bit, swept the lounge floor, done two loads of laundry, replaced the capacitor in the amp that I’d failed to do last time, repaired Kathryn’s iPhone (she’d knocked it off her bedside table and the power button had jammed in. Unfortunately, as it’s been apart several times before it’s now getting a bit… sloppy). I’ve also installed the iOS 5 ‘update’ for the phone (totally unsupported).

The purpose of this was to try and get it so that Kathryn could install newer apps on it. However, it seems that the update leaves the phone reporting itself as version 3.1.3, which is a bit of a shame. Still, it’s working again now, so that’s a step up on where it was yesterday :)

And that’s my day… how’s your day been?

7/11/2012
I should totally be paid more

So, as a consequence of my job I got to spend today at an inquest. Obviously I’m not going to talk about the inquest, or the evidence, or whathave you. Whilst it was an open inquest and anyone could have attended, I don’t think it’s terribly appropriate to discuss these things here. What I can (and do) say is that having been grilled on the stand about triage and care and decisions I made 2 years ago was less fun than I imagined. Having the relatives asking questions of you and wanting answers that you sadly cannot give them, that’s no fun either.

As someone who was involved briefly with the patient in question, well, it was weird to consider that the time I met this individual in life was far more brief than the amount of time I spent discussing the individual post-mortem. As I say, not fun. And now I’m worrying about my documentation for many of my other patients, the adequacy of which, if it came to court, now concerns me. Because my 15 minute or so, total, interaction with the patient was dissected and examined like some kind of specimen under a microscope, and what saved me spending the whole session stating “my normal practice is…” despite my appalling memory was the fact that the notes were adequate to draw a witness statement, which was enough to jog enough of my memory to enable me to actually discuss the events adequately.

Anyhow, enough about that, because it’s stressful. In other news, Chester had been producing a faint burning smell for a couple of days, intermittently, and we hadn’t managed to find the source. I’d come to the conclusion that I might have to take the dash apart and check the condition of the wiring behind, because it smelt like hot / melting insulation.

When I was en-route to the court today I noticed a significant quantity of smoke coming from the car as I pelted up the stretch of 60 limit, and pulling up to the court could distinctly smell melting plastic, but not locate the source of the smell which appeared to be somewhere engine bay related, and definitely not in the passenger cabin. Having had another look around the car I headed home, intermittently, again, smelling hot/melting rubber. Finally I got home, got changed, and poked in the engine bay, then laid under the car hunting for the source of the odour. Just as I was sliding myself out I glanced up at the suspension strut. Last year, you may recall, Chester’s suspension failed fairly dramatically slicing a tyre all the way around it’s rim. This time it’s not made it through the tyre, although the tyre has definitely had it. I’m slightly afraid to pull the car off the kerb I pulled it up onto, so I could examine it without too much difficulty, and without dragging the ramps out, because I’m slightly afraid that the tyre will go ‘Bang’ when I do.

This does, of course, mean we’re now sans car (again), and also that I get to play ‘track down the obscure part for the 25 year old car’ again. Volvo, last I heard, could supply these, but at 200 quid a throw. Which seems excessive on a car that cost £270 quid. So tomorrow I’ll do some ringing around, and hopefully get it shipped here, and then he’ll be mobile again.

It’s funny, because I looked at it a few times around the time of the incident, and had thought about rechecking it, but assumed that it was less likely to fail being on the side away from puddles. I was, clearly, wrong. It’s more irritating because we’ve got through a ridiculous number of tyres on the Volvo, none of which have actually worn out. Punctures destroyed two tyres, the failing struts have now destroyed another two. I think we treated him to all new tyres when we got him, so this rate of attrition is really rather sad. We’ve only done 40k miles in him!

Anyhow.

In other news, I’ve been doing more woodworking. Or what I consider woodworking, and everyone else would presumably consider causing wood torment and pain.

This:

is what we started with, and what we’re ending with. That, on the left, is one of the few bits of unplaned, un prepped douglas fir. That, complete with price tag, is what we bought to build the book cases. The back is made of spruce ply, which is what B&Q stock. (more…)

6/11/2012
Aaaaand back to the house…

So, the time has come to start working on the house again (although I have other tasks I want to do, including reinstalling this laptop with a shiny, fresh version of OS X). But first up, my mother is coming to visit in a few weeks, and our Library* is still full of boxes. Boxes, no shelves, and a distinct absence of double bed. The first step, therefore, in making the bed magically appear is to make the shelves.

Sadly, I don’t think I’ve any shots of what the wood looked like before. We picked up 7 lengths of rough cut Douglas Fir. I’m not sure what it was used for, but it contained a number of screw holes and nails, and is clearly reclaimed. Kathryn spotted the gorgeous stuff hiding at Bristol Wood Recycling, and despite the fact that we had no house to put it in, we lept on the chance and bought it there and then. A while ago we rented a thicknesser and for me at least, for the first time since school I was let loose with real tools. Granted it was a portable thicknesser and not a proper shop one, but there was a deep, deep joy in seeing the grain appear and the rough cut timber turn into beautiful douglas fir planks (here).

Anyway, today I finally went down and started cutting them to size. I have no idea yet whether I’ve done it right, that comes over the next few sessions of working on it. Tomorrow I need to go and get the back section. We’d hoped to get Douglas Fir veneered ply, but the price of veneered timber is somewhat higher than the price of bog standard ply, and given that it’s unlikely that we’ll be taking this to Canada, it’s foolish to spend that much money on it. Anyhow, cut to size and rough edges lightly sanded, I set to varnishing.

I really, really must go on a furniture making course, because there’s something deeply enjoyable about making furniture. I really wish I’d spent more time learning how to do it properly with my dad who could, and did, produce very beautifully finished, exacting work. He always said he was impressed by my ability to bodge, in so far as I needed a bookcase for Uni, and in a few hours I knocked one up from scraps of timber I found in a skip. No real plans, but the back of an envelope used for calculations. It worked, and application of various bodgery tricks and you couldn’t tell it was a bit off square. It worked for the three years I was at uni, and I had no compunction at the end about it going to be recycled.

Similarly, I built an L shaped bookcase for nothing from scrap chipboard (even the screws were, I think, ones from my dad). The most expensive bit was paint, and that was whatever was on clearance at B&Q. That had a bit more planning, but mostly I jigsawed the whole thing with some care, but not loads, and used brute force to put it together, and paint to fill in the cracks. It didn’t look fantastic, but it did it’s job, and I was quite proud of it.

My dad on the other hand? He took months to refurbish one (century old sash) window at my parent’s house, but they looked brand new when he’d finished. He’d gently cut out rotten timber, let in new sections, fill the slight imperfections and sand them. When he reinstalled them he’d adjust the balance, and the whole thing would work like a new window. I wish I’d paid more attention, because doing this, I’m aware that I’m working beyond my limitations.

I’ve cut the timber, and I’m varnishing it, but I’m terrified it’s not really that square – because I don’t have a suitable square to check with. The builders recommended getting a roofer’s one, which are massive 90 degree things. I might do that, at least for the bed. We’ll see when I’m getting the back piece tomorrow.

That I’ll have cut at the store, because trying to cut it in the garage is likely to end in disaster. The plan for the next few weeks, once the shelves and bed are done is to tidy the garage and sort the tools in preparation for the conversion of the minor. Something that fills me with excitement and dread. It’s another of those moments when I really want my dad here, because his skills and attention to detail would make the project something beautiful. With me? I’m just going to have to try and channel his skills and knowledge.

Anyhow. So over the next few days I’m hoping to put together the bookcase. I’m fighting the urge to throw it together rapidly, because whilst I know that would get the room in service, I’m going to see this bookcase lots over the next few months, and I want it to look at least averagely decent. Not bespoke shiny shiny (although that’d be nice), but reasonably neat.

* AKA the spare bedroom, also AKA my office. Our house sounds huge because many rooms have multiple names… It’s to assist with the idea that we’re incredibly rich, in the hope that someone will just give us lots of money…**
** Hey, Mitt Romney receives*** more money in a year than I’ll probably earn in the next 20, so if he just gave us, say a few million (the kind of pocket change he might lose in the sofa cushions) then we could be set for life****…. Or, someone might notice our double barrelled surname, assume we’re from Old Money and offer us, say, an estate, or a Duchy, or something****. Hey! Queen Liz! Over here ;)
*** Earns, I feel, is an inappropriate term.
**** Hope springs eternal, eh.

31/10/2012