Renovation project - we have a wardrobe and another rotten joist! - Tuesday 9th October
Its back to work again and it’s time to start building the
wardrobe, if you remember when we first started on the attic there were two
bedrooms and both had a sink and units in them, we have now removed the wall
turning it into one big room (we have realised that this was the best decision
as the rooms would’ve been very small and not managed an ensuite with both) the
sink unit in the second attic room was in a small room, this is to be our walk
in wardrobe, and also house the big water heater.
First off John needs to remove the old pipes and taps and
replaster the holes in the walls
We bought all the wood we needed yesterday and John sets to
measuring, sawing and screwing, and surprise surprise we hit another problem. In
the corner of this room the floor has dropped by approx 2 inches, this is due
to a rotten joist holding the floor up. This joist will need to be treated and
part of it replaced.
We use one of the acro’s that we have to lift the joist back
into place and realign the floor; this will support the floor until we replace
the joist. It’s quite amazing to watch the floor lift (as I was telling john
when he had got the floor back to where it should be). If you are planning on
doing this yourselves, we highly recommend you purchase acro’s (you do not need
to bring them with you as they are very cheap in France) we borrowed ours from
next door, and for those of you who are like I used to be and have no idea what
an acro is, it is like a car jack for the inside of your house, these are very
strong and heavy pieces of steel, be very careful of your toes, they DO HURT!
I start to clean the windows, which means taking them off
their hinges and scrubbing many decades of dirt of them, but the room does seem
to be brighter.
As with most things in the house the job does take a lot
longer than planned and we spend a couple of days on the wardrobe, it doesn’t
help that the walls are in waves not straight lines and John becomes quite
frustrated, especially when his plane breaks so he is unable to make the
shelves fit perfectly with the contour of the walls. At this point I’m so
desperate for a wardrobe I unhelpfully suggest that it doesn’t matter and to
stick a bit of trim over the edges so nobody will see it, the response to which
is I will bloody see it and know it’s not right (there really is no appeasing
some people!).
I then have the delightful job of scrubbing the ensuite
floor, this is done by hand with a piece of wire wool, it takes ages but the
outcome is amazing, the floor looks fantastic.
After 2 days the wardrobe is finished, again we have to
leave it without decorating or varnishing, but we will be in England soon and
will get all of the varnish and paint that we need.
Jenny - next time you are in a DIY store look for a cleaning product called "pierre blanche" or "pierre argent" - amazing stuff for cleaning just about anything and a lot less work than wire wool
ReplyDeleteCheers
David
will do thank you :)
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