PART-TIME PARADISE

All DIY has been temporarily shelved (ha ha) until the last of the turkey and tinsel is swept away which leaves plenty of time for the other half to get to grips with his new PS4 whilst I draw up the mother of lists of things to do round the house in 2018.

A new year is just around the corner but the only resolution I’ll be making from now on is to work less.  Yes, contrary to the Government’s view that we should all slave away till we die, I will finally achieve what most trade unions only dream of – the 4.5 day week.  Hurrah!

After what can only be described as a life sentence of employment drudgery (with no time off for good behaviour!) I’ve come to realise that at 54 years of age I’m quite frankly knackered. Oscar Wilde was right when he said work was the curse of the drinking classes. Over 35 years in an office when I could have been down the pub instead.  It’s a crying shame.

Part-time paradise beckons.  Not sure if it’s down to luck or an uncanny alignment of planets in my astrological chart, but finally my work sentence is about to be reduced (and not before time!) as I embark on my own pet personal project of downsizing my career. 

Even as I type this post, there are only 5 days 7 hours and 19 minutes to the 3 January 2018, a day that will go down in history when at 12 noon I’ll put down my tools and say ‘that’ll do pig’ before swanning off round the charity shops.  I'll have my very own half day closing every Wednesday afternoon from now onwards. 

Oh the joys of part time working – I can’t wait!   Here’s to a Happy New Year!!

Ah - this is the life!

AND WE DIGRESS ...

Why go from A to B directly when you can get there via C, D and E?  Our hallway refurb is taking the scenic route to completion with a small digression for coving as personally I detest the unfinished look modern builders give to ceiling edges.

Before - that bare naked no coving look

  

Better to get this done now whilst I still have some cash left after my Black Friday credit card bashing and before wallpapering or buying new carpets as I can imagine fitting coving is going to be messy. 

Since what we know about coving is slightly less than Meghan Markle’s ability to make sticky toffee pudding, then we’ve had to call in the professionals.  Thank goodness for mybuilder.com, it’s the rubber ring that prevents drowning in the choppy seas of household maintenance. 

Plasterer has been and gone, plain coving has been added to the upstairs hallway ceiling so no guesses as to what I’ll be doing in the new year.  Let's hope Dulux are having a January sale!

After - plain white coving added

My view - looks better with a border

SUPER SCRIMPING

We've survived Black Friday (or according to the other half, Black Bollocks Week) and as you know, everyone loves a bargain.  Especially me, the queen of super scrimping.  Who doesn’t love to indulge in a bit of yellow ticket spotting when trawling the aisles of the local supermarket?   You can’t beat the thrill of pouncing on a packet of further reduced cheese priced at 25 pence.  I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears in Tesco when beaten to a tray of discounted chicken fillets. 

Not just any discount but an M&S discount

With a bit of imagination, super-scrimpers can dine like kings on a budget Ebenezer Scrooge would be proud of.  Yellow ticket dinners are the perfect antidote to nouvelle cuisine where ironically you get less food for more money. We recently feasted on a delicious home-made carrot and coriander soup that started life as a 20p bag of carrots and would you believe it, I actually made butter from a reduced pot of whipping cream and an empty jam jar.  It’s insane but cheap and all fresh too. How else do you think I paid off my mortgage so early?

And the point I’m trying to make here is that super scrimping can also be applied to DIY or pretty much anything that involves spending money.  Sometimes you can just get lucky as I did a few days ago in Homebase when to my surprise I just happened to stumble across a yellow ticket timber bargain when searching for decorative mouldings that could be used as a dado rail.

Homebase bargains

These lovely Richard Burbidge lengths of pine Victorian dado rails and architrave have cost a mere £28 for all 8 lengths.  It’s a steal!  As I couldn’t decide which might look better on top of our panelling, I bought both lots.  Decisions, decisions …..

Victorian Dado Rail

Victorian Architrave

FREEZE FRAMES

It’s freezing!  I’m sat here blogging with my finger-less mitts on in a bid to thaw out my pinkies whilst I update you on progress with our panel frames.  If I could, I’d wear the duvet as despite having the heating on all night, this room’s frostier than then current relations between Brussels and the UK.  

To keep warm, we’ve resorted to DIY as it’s cheaper than heating.  Last weekend saw a flurry of activity on the panel framing front and unbelievably we completed everything bar the stairs in record time. 

Adding the last rails to the stair panels

Are we nearly there yet?

If you're following in our footsteps and making your own panels, here's how we tackled the recessed frames:  

Having prepared and painted your panel frames, thoroughly check sizing before you apply any adhesive as even the smallest amount of paint can make a big difference to fitting specially if the frames are quite snug to begin with.

Lumberjack wood adhesive to glue frames in place

As we'd cut all the frames at the same time, we used a numbering system on the back of each piece of frame to help match them with the corresponding panel.  Dry fit frames into the recess then fettle down to fit.

Sizing up the frames in the recess

Apply adhesive.  To start with, I drew a thin bead of glue along the back of each piece of frame but soon found this caused a problem with 'squidging' ie excess glue seeping through the edges so in the end I applied the bead to the panel itself.  To prevent the squidge factor, less is definitely more and if you're using a fairly robust glue with a snug fitting frame then it's surprising how little you actually need to hold everything in place.

Draw a small adhesive bead in the join

Lumberjack adhesive goes off very quickly hence why it's important to check sizing first as once your frame is stuck in position then there's little scope to rectify any mistakes.

Recessed framed panels under the window

The finished panel now has a more stylish look to it with the recessed frames added to it.   

Recessed frame in  place

At last, all of the base panels have been completed, frames added to the straight forward sections so now it's just a case of adding frames to the stair section then finishing the whole lot off with a nice dado rail.

Progress after 6 months