Day 7: Hot Chocolate Lava Eruption!!

Finally finished the floor, in time for New Year! I gave Paula the honour of inserting the final piece into the floor. In the end used more than 3kg of nails and my thumb is swollen and sore.

Solved the problem of how to fit with the last board by cutting a board in half. Sounds easy but was some work to match the size. I was pleased with myself since the difference between the gap from one end to the other was only 1cm meaning that I managed to keep the boards almost completely straight as I moved across the room. I had a fear that I would end up with boards at 45 degree angles to the room!

Wasabi almost got entombed in the floor but stuck his head out in time for me to remember he was down there. Apparently I used the wrong nails. I used 'cut clasp' nails instead of 'floor brads'. They both look pretty much the same to me but in the DIY encyclopedia I chanced upon a passage that recommended using these only where extremely strong fixing is needed as they are 'extremely difficult' to remove. Lucky Wasabi, would have been nails on his coffin!

In case you are wondering why the boards are all different colours, there are three colours:

1) dark brown -- these are the original boards, face up. for some reason that I haven't yet worked out the builders used to put a coat of tar on the pine surface. Oddly some of the boards are fully tarred while others are only tarred on the edges.

2) light brown -- these are the original 70 year old floorboards but flipped over to reveal the underside. I like to do this when the underside is in good shape and not too damaged by the lifting. Usually the edges are tatty so I cut them off and use two original boards to make one re-furbished row. Its important not to mix old and new in the same row because the new ones are slightly thinner and would leave a gap if but alongside an old one.

3) very light: new pine boards. I suppose I could have ripped all the old ones out an replaced them with new pine, but I like the idea of keeping the originals. If they survived 70 years, why not? Probably won't add value to the house, but makes me happy. Also saves some money!

So, you ask, all very nice and pretty coloured, but wont these colours make the floor look funny later when its varnished? Ha! wait until I hire the mega sander and see these boards conform! once the top 2mm are shaved off everything will change. True, the old boards will still be more dark than the new ones ( I know from experience upstairs in the bedroom). How we gonna fix that? AHHH! Wait and see...

Its incredible to see how primitive my house really is. Once I ripped out the floorboards and saw nothing but the concrete foundations below, I realised that the structure I called home is really brick cube with a roof and two sets of rafters with floorboards on top. I think I probably got ripped off. Don't think this shack is actually worth anything near what I paid for it.. but then what is in the UK except maybe the tea? The upside of this is that there is probably nothing that I could not fix myself in the house with the possible exception of the gas system or electrical system (which I have a primal fear of since I got electrocuted once when I connected the wrong wires)

Paula baked some fantastic 'chocolate volcanoes' and to celebrate the floor completion we ate them in the new room.....

Day 6: Shopping and more tinfoil...

Today was a pretty relaxed day. I was tired so slept in and then went shopping for more supplies (floorboards and nails -- my constant companions these days -- and oh the tinfoil bubble wrap stuff too, how could I forget that?)

But of course being pre-holiday weekend, took forever to get through the traffic and queues so didn't get back home till 4ish. Paula made a great Spanish paella, so tucked into that!

Played around with the tinfoil and foil tape for a few hours sealing all the little gaps. Managed to get rid of just about all trace of any drafts. Should make the room nice and cosy... Happy to report that I'm now done with the insulation job and now its back to the less fiddly work.

Had a visitor too!

Its worth noting that there has been no heating in this room all week except for the halogen lamp, and with the insulation I can comfortably wear a t-shirt!

Then mapped out the fireplace shape on the wall and measured out the dimensions of the hearth so tomorrow morning I can cut the floorboard to fit.

Here's a preview of the fireplace we ordered. Its an antique, removed from the halls of residence at a Cambridge University. Circa 1875. It should arrive early next week..



If anybody is looking for a great antique fireplace shop my favourite is The Antique Fireplace Company where we bought this specimen.

That's it for today.

Day 5: Radiator Crisis!

Today made good progress, ripped out the other half of the floor. Everything going smoothly until I got to the radiator. I had removed weeks ago for painting, but it never worked properly since. My very helpful heating repairman recommended blasting out the radiator with the garden hose. However when I removed the radiator and the pipe started leaking! Had to get buckets to keep the water in check. Couldn't get it to stop - the more I fiddled with it the bigger the flow became! Called the heating repair man but no answer this time! Left desperate message. Would I have to spend my Friday night in vigil over the dripping pipe? Would I have to spend the New Year's long weekend sitting beside the pipe?

After a few bucket loads I got out the trusty Collins DIY Encyclopedia after reading several pages, soothed by the zen like dripping beside me, I found the passage needed explaining how to adjust the connection using 2 wrenches. (Lesson: never undo radiator valve connections without using 2 wrenches to prevent accidental twisting loose of other parts of the joint..)

Soon got leak under control, well pleased with self for averting weekend catastrophe and also called off the repairman who would have made me feel like an idiot as he tutted knowingly and stooped to fix the problem with a swift flick of the (two) wrenches and left me with a £50 bill.

So after a small dance of joy in front of Paula to celebrate the happy ending, went out back to blast out the radiator. Plenty of filthy black muck came out all over the patio. Hmm, another clean-up job for the to-do list. . . (low priority, let the forces of nature do their work on it)

So, back to stapling in the tinfoil bubble wrap stuff. I developed a new technique to avoid having to rip out the last floorboard (would have meant a lot of destruction to the board to get it loose from the pipes and maybe more sinister problems with leaks-- however may cause problems later when I need to match the penultimate board hopefully no big gap!!)

The new technique is box style, slipping in cubes of insulation between the joists...

So by end of day room looking nice and shiny awaiting re boarding tomorrow.

Day 4: Un-ripping the floor

Today's work was less dramatic than yesterday with only limited ripping. It was a bit like the rubiks cube, easy to scramble but more subtlety needed to put it back again. So today was about putting the floor back together again


Today the lovely Paula volunteered to go shopping for me, letting spend the time working instead of getting mesmirised by the endless wares at the ScrewFix depot all morning. We both agreed it was best; if I went I'd probably buy another deluxe super powered floodlight unit because they are so fantastic!


So this left me to finish up the insulation by taping up the seams with metallic tape. I figured since I had the camo shirt I would go with the metallic bandanna too -- rambo style..












Next comes putting floorboards back. Since the originals were rather in bad shape, I had to cut quite a few new ones. I was able to recycle parts of the old ones.

Laid them down and then began the hammering! Gave my thumb a good whack in the process..















By end of day I put back the half-floor and gone throught 1kg of nails.

I didn't get near my goal of finishing the other half of the floor, but that's for tomorrow.

My Christmas Holiday: Day 3

It occurred to me that it might be worthwhile documenting the work I'm doing in the house. I regretted not doing this last time. Also when my friends come back from their exotic holidays and ask me what I did, I can give them this URL...

The lovely Paula kindly took some photos (no, not with the D80 that I was supposed to get from Xmas but didn't, with her old camera...)

So today was ripping out floorboards day. I decided that since I had cleared out the room and was lifting some floorboards anyway in prep for sanding, it would be worthwhile to 'rip them all out' (like the wizard Sauruman tells his orcs to do) and put in insulation beneath. This idea dawned on me last night as I was reading the Collins DIY encyclopaedia and it mentioned that its illegal to build a new house these days without underfloor insulation and it makes a huge difference to one's quality of life...





So we shall find out if this is worth it for the warm cosy living room, or just for the fun of ripping the guts out of my house!

But first we had some shopping to do this morning:

-- floorboards (since I predicted that I would probably have a few casualties

-- insulation: extensive research revealed that the aluminium foil with bubbly plastic stuff is the best because it returns radiated energy. Since heat rises, I'm not losing much heat from convection, but simply by the face that all the heat in the room radiates into a dark, dank pit beneath the floorboards. So apparently the tinfoil material is the best choice for this.

-- Then the best thing: I've been having problems with lighting, so when I saw the industrial strength construction zone lighting unit for £15.99 -- 2x500w halogen lights with robust extensible stand -- just like the ones you see on the highway when driving by construction zones-- snapped it up. This thing is like having the sun in your living room!

-- misc other stuff including face mask to prevent repeat of yesterday's wheesing attack triggered by the severe dust accumulated beneath my floor since its construction in the late 30's

Made it back by noon, and immediately set to it...


After a few hours I had gone through the first 1/3 of the floor. The closer I got the the window the worse the boards got and many crumbled or snapped. Its probably just as good as I'm doing this now because they would have needed replacing anyway. The house once had a rising damp problem and this must have degraded the timbers.

I was hoping to avoid removing the kick-board under the bay window as that's nice work done by a proper carpenter. Somehow managed to curve a single piece of wood by cutting notched into it and flexing. Unfortunately his handcrafted original had been infested by some kind of woodworm years ago and crumbled like a rice krispy square. I will have a hard time putting that one back as it was!! But not today's challenge . .

This is what the floor looks like underneath. Its a concrete base about 2 feet down.

I found an old pack of cigarettes from the 1930's down there. Signed by Wild Willie himself! I wonder how much this will fetch on eBay... Maybe I can pay for the super strength dual halogen construction zone lights with the proceeds?


Next was time to cut up the insulation roll and begin to put in place. Apparently this material only works is there is an airspace between the tinfoil and the wood. So the prescribed way to do it is to drop the insulation 5cm between each rafter. At first I was worried I would rip the material but worked fine. I was also wondering how it would take to having the floorboard nailed down on top of it again, but it seems quite robust so hopefully will be fine.

Tomorrow's task: finish the insulation on this half, and put back the floorboards. Aim to finish other half of floor in the afternoon...

Here's a bonus picture: the cleared-out hearth, results of a stress-relieving afternoon last week.
More to come on this front later..