Three or four projects to report on here. I probably should write lots of separate blogs. But I can't be bothered.
First up - leadlights 2 & 3. Much harder than no. 1 because I introduced curves. Boy does that make it more difficult. I'm not sure why, I guess it's just easier to make little mistakes. Anyway these babies took me 1.5 courses, with almost all work being done during the course itself. If there had been no curves I reckon I could have done them both during one course.
First a reminder of the concept:
Second here are the two top left and top right leadlights... Quite pleased with them, but now I move onto the sidelights, each is 3x bigger than these - could take me a while, but I'm still aiming to finish by Xmas.
Next up - ceilings. This is what they all (apart from the oil stained kitchen ceiling) - looked like before - horrible chipboard panels, like an office ceiling.
First off we stripped them. This is difficult as the ceilings are 3.6m high and on our biggest stepladder we can only barely reach them. So we hired a portable scaffold over a long weekend to help us out. Underneath the panels is boarding which is handy as you don't have to rely on hitting the joists to screw the gib in.
With the scaffold we also hired a gib lifter. It was supposed to lift the gib 3.6m, (essential as the sheets are very heavy and it's almost impossible to both lift them and screw them to the ceiling). But the lifter only went up 3.4m. Which was a bit of a nightmare until we realised we could put the lifter on the scaffold, then away we went. The lounge ceiling now looks like below - a bit of a patchwork until we get it plastered. We still have to gib both bedrooms and the dining room, but during the long weekend we managed to strip the lounge and bedroom ceiling and gib the hall and lounge.
This weekend we moved back onto the "hole" as we affectionately like to call it.
First up I installed dwangs (noggings to those in the UK, or cross braces if you have no knowledge of building talk). They're used to provide more wood to screw the gib into. Next up I installed the doorframe that we had lying around from the bathroom project. I spent about 1/2 an hour trying to separate the door and frame. They just wouldn't come apart. I was trying to lever them apart with a big screwdriver and whacking them with a big rubber mallet. And then I realised there was a screw holding them together. Luckily there was no-one around to observe my stupidity...
Steve did his magic with cement to fill in the recesses in the floor. It's still looking pretty messy but should be a bit more level in future.
And this is how it's now looking, partially gibbed, with a floor and a door frame.... we're getting there!
With the scaffold we also hired a gib lifter. It was supposed to lift the gib 3.6m, (essential as the sheets are very heavy and it's almost impossible to both lift them and screw them to the ceiling). But the lifter only went up 3.4m. Which was a bit of a nightmare until we realised we could put the lifter on the scaffold, then away we went. The lounge ceiling now looks like below - a bit of a patchwork until we get it plastered. We still have to gib both bedrooms and the dining room, but during the long weekend we managed to strip the lounge and bedroom ceiling and gib the hall and lounge.
This weekend we moved back onto the "hole" as we affectionately like to call it.
First up I installed dwangs (noggings to those in the UK, or cross braces if you have no knowledge of building talk). They're used to provide more wood to screw the gib into. Next up I installed the doorframe that we had lying around from the bathroom project. I spent about 1/2 an hour trying to separate the door and frame. They just wouldn't come apart. I was trying to lever them apart with a big screwdriver and whacking them with a big rubber mallet. And then I realised there was a screw holding them together. Luckily there was no-one around to observe my stupidity...Building paper and insulation followed, and I also installed the wiring for the light in the loft, to save the electrician a job (he'll do the tricky bits though).
Steve did his magic with cement to fill in the recesses in the floor. It's still looking pretty messy but should be a bit more level in future.
And this is how it's now looking, partially gibbed, with a floor and a door frame.... we're getting there!
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