STONED

A pox on the person who dumped all the stones in West Sussex into our front garden! 

Bucket after bucket of rocks, stones and pebbles have been sieved out of the dirt which we’ve used to form a drainage layer almost a foot deep in the bottom of the raised flower bed.  Only Brighton beach has got more stones than we have.  The more you pick, the more you find.   Aahhh!

 

Is there an end to the stones?

Having filled our ‘sarcophagus’ full of stones and displaced earth, the other half has excavated an area below the level of the existing driveway to hold our gravel filled Aco ground grids.  When buying these grids make sure you check that it will take the weight of vehicles as not all grids are created equal.

Topping up the stone layer with the displaced earth

 

Dug out and levelled ready for weed membrane

I’ve acquired a nice roll of thick weed control membrane (Ebay) to lay down before we top this with sand on which to lay our grids on.  The weed control fabric should prevent unwanted plants rising through the gravel but will still allow water to drain into the soil.

 

Get a good thick membrane that allows moisture to soak through

Secure membrane in place with landscaping staples/nails

Drainage is one of the main issues to be aware of if building or re-vamping a driveway.  Our local authority planning dept couldn’t stress it enough in their letter to me – no surface water can be allowed to drain onto the public footpath or highway.  Or else! 

Gravel filled grids will enable us to achieve compliance with this requirement and I’m sure will be more economical than trying to block pave the area to match the existing drive.  The grids will also help keep the gravel under control.  There’s nothing more annoying than gravelly drives that spill their contents out onto a footpath.  How messy!

 

Nothing worse than messy gravel

ACO Ground Grid robust enough for cars

Meanwhile, a lovely flower bed has emerged from the ruins of our old cracked wall adding a splash of interest and some bee fodder to the front garden.

The finished raised flower bed

HE'S BACK

OMG!  He’s back strutting his stuff in his leather trousers, foppish fringe and his ‘it’s MDF darling’ goatee glamour!  Who?  LLB of course (Laurence Llewelyn Bowen). The man who put LUX into Dulux is hosting a new series of that iconic interiors revamp TV show ‘Changing Rooms’.

 

Its war on greige and pale porridge painted rooms

Naturally these imaginative arty farty decorative schemes are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but they make mine look about as creative as a mouse dropping.  Peacock backed ceiling swing chair in a pink and teal party room, who’d have thought that up?  Not keen on the flamingo pink but I did love all the gorgeous metallic shelving and hints of Deco-ness about the room.

 

Peacock blue & flamingo pink party room

I’ll be glued to the set on Wednesday nights soaking up ideas like a bathroom sponge that I can try out in the Chichester version of this hit show.

Can we watch Gary the tortoise?

MOPSTICK CHOPSTICK

Okay, so whose great idea was it to fit a mopstick handrail along the panelled wall?  Mine, ah righty ho.  The other half is rummaging for his passport as I type in a bid to get as far away as possible before he gets volunteered for any more of these crazy projects.  He, he, he - who said house refurbishment would be easy?

I know what you’re thinking, why bother with a handrail when you can use the dado rail to support yourself on the stairs?  We’ve done this for a couple of reasons; firstly, because our property survey recommended adding a handrail to improve stair safety and secondly, because it just seemed like the right thing to do.  

My advice to anyone thinking of fitting a mopstick handrail is to get the professionals in if you can afford it as this job is a darn sight more technical than it first appears.  No kidding there were a couple of times I thought the other half was going to push me down the stairs and that was before I eventually burst into tears of frustration at the complexity of it all.  Seriously, unless you are bonkers, get an experienced person to do this!!!

 

Getting brackets into position is tricky

Then there’s building regulations to consider.  Yes, unbelievably there are some that apply to stairs specifically to heights for handrails or even the number of handrails you might need so ensure you’ve done your homework before getting started. 

Another load of endless YouTube surfing for tutorials on how to fit handrails to stairs but having finished this task, I can honestly say this is not something I’d ever really want to do again.  Getting your brain round the mechanics of positioning each bracket has given me a large headache so instead of explaining how to do this, I’m just going to show you the fabulous fittings I’ve acquired to give my mopstick a touch of ‘Hollywood’ glamour. 

These beautiful octagonal brackets can be found online at Jackson Woodturners or Ebay. 

 

Richard Burbridge octagonal polished chrome bracket

You can also get matching octagonal end caps that screw onto the end of your mopstick.

 

Screws onto the end of your mopstick

As our mopstick is 3.6 m long, it’s not easy to move it about from place to place making it difficult to cut down to size, drill holes into it or do anything other than slide it up or down the stairs.  Something to bear in mind if embarking on this type of project. 

 

Ends can be easily cut with a hand saw

4 brackets to support a 3.4 m handrail

With little room for manoeuvre, it was a bugger of a job to stain and varnish before fitting I can tell you.  The other half only just managed to move it into the spare bedroom which doubled as a workshop for this next part of the job.

 

Using the spare room as a workshop

Preparing to stain & varnish the mopstick

However, now that the challenges of installation have been overcome the end result is amazing!  

Light oak stain & yacht varnished

HER INDOORS

At last, a lurgi-free carpenter!  

Finally, after almost a month of tripping over doors in the downstairs corridor, I’ve found a disinfected tradesperson who has fitted them.  

Mendes 1930's style oak door

I no longer have to pee in the dark holding a towel over my lady parts to avoid being seen by anyone passing the bathroom.  Not that it matters much since its only me and the other half skulking about the house and he reckons my muff monument has been seen more times than the colosseum.  But hey some standards have to be upheld.

Bathroom privacy restored

I’m really pleased with the overall look of these 1930 style oak doors and even though they have yet to be treated they look amazing. 

 

Even unfinished they look great

Here’s what they look like with our Art Deco style bakelite handles fitted in place.

Bakelite handles purchased from Ebay

GOLD MEDAL JOBSWORTH

And today’s gold medal for completely and utterly useless jobsworthiness goes to West Sussex County Council.

 

Effing Useless!

So why are they top of the podium in this new Olympic sport of bureaucratic uselessness?  Because of their lack of interest in making any kind of effort to resolve an issue affecting some of their residents.

Being a civic minded citizen, I dropped the WSCC a line to find out if there was any chance the tree planted in the verge could be pruned down a bit as it is not only taking a lot of light from our upstairs bedroom but I’m also fed up of hearing next door complain about it.

 

How big does it need to be?

A council employee rang to inform me that: 

-   -  WSCC don’t prune trees to give people more light
-  The tree isn't big enough to be deemed a nuisance (really?)
-  They don’t have the budget to prune trees
-  They are only concentrating on remedying safety issues
-  It’s a healthy tree
-  It doesn’t look like branches are going to fall off it anytime soon
-  I can prune bits overhanging my boundary fence if I want to but not madly

In essence, they are not going to do anything because it might involve someone getting off their arse to do something about it and it’s not as if we’re paying enough in council tax anyway.

I mean it’s not like I wanted it chopped down completely because after all it is a lovely tree.  All it needs is a short back and sides to tidy it up but as it’s not our tree then we can’t actually get anyone in to do this ourselves. 

Thus dear readers if you are faced with the same scenario my advice is to not bother contacting your local authority because your issue will be treated like a leaf stuck to the bottom of a shoe, wiped against the bureaucratic doormat of inactivity. 

I’m hoping that eventually the tree will get struck by lightning or a falling meteor, develop a tree-based form of Covid or get knocked down by a psycho supermarket delivery driver when dropping off shopping.  In the meantime, I guess we’ll just have to learn to live with it. 

DA DO DAH DADO

Like the leaning tower of Pisa, after a week our cladding panels are still standing.  That miraculous Sticks Like Shit glue worked a treat.  In the Chi Carpentry School register all pieces have been marked present and correct.  What a relief!

 

It's still on the wall!

To top the cladding panels, we’ve fashioned our own dado rail from two different strips of pine moulding (Wickes) to glue into position along the top edge as most of the rebated dado rails for sale on the internet did not drop sufficiently at the front to cover all our mismatched cuts.

 

Use different pine mouldings to top your cladding

If you are on a super scrimper DIY budget like we are, using a combination of different ornate pine mouldings can be a cheaper way of achieving a dado look to finish off panelling.  These smaller sized mouldings are easy to cut and glue into position.  To give you an idea of what you could save - a deep rebated dado rail from the Victorian Emporium would have cost £30 for a 2.4 m length alone whereas £35 in Wickes paid for 6 x 2.4 m lengths of pine moulding.

 

Great but a bit over our budget

That said, I would highly recommend the Victorian Emporium as their products are of a very high quality and they are one of the few places I know that can supply edging/beading in pretty much any length you want. 

Dado fixed, I’ve sealed the cladding with two coats of undercoat and have chosen to paint them in a Dulux colour called Celtic Forest 3 which is a pistachio toned green darker than the existing wall colour to add a bit of contrast.

 

Undercoated and ready to paint

So far, so good.  The cladding has added a nice homely feel to an otherwise stark staircase and it’s great to see that a lot of home renovators are now using wood cladding in their room designs.  Although it can be a bit old fashioned, I’ve always liked the overall look of it along a wall, adding character to rooms such as bathrooms plus it can be used to hide a lot of unsightly bodges or uneven walls.

First coat of paint applied to staircase cladding

ESCAPE TO THE GATEAU

Ours is not really a gateau, it’s a lemon drizzle but it is on a posh vintage stand so that makes it as good as those served up in the Chateau.

 

Yum!  Nice bit of cake for later

The Strawbridge’s are not the only couple grappling with the DIY demon in a bid to transform their abode into a posh panorama of creative and stylish elegance.  Look no further than Chichester for an authentic escape to the gateau experience.  I’m definitely an ‘Angel’ minus the tangerine bonce and the other half can be a bit of a ‘Dick’ at times.

As punishment for daring to suggest that you can actually cut wood without using power tools, he’s made me cut all the softwood cladding for the staircase walls using a fine-toothed hand saw which I specifically bought just to prove my point.

 

Just another 40 more planks to cut

Whilst this was not particularly hard, I now have a bad case of ‘fiddler’s elbow’ from the sawing motion.  Next time, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and let him carry on using his electrical gizmos.

Now when I said I was going to put tongue and groove cladding up one side of the staircase, it seemed like a good idea.  Softwood cladding will break up the vast expanse of plain painted wall and add a bit of texture.  Wood cladding is a favourite of mine and I guess I’ve just been looking for an excuse to incorporate it somewhere in the house but what often seems like a straight-forward task can sometimes end up being a gigantic headache.

 

What this needs is a bit of wood cladding

Normally tongue and groove cladding is nailed to thin timber battens which are fixed to a wall.  It is quite a fiddly and laborious process to ‘secret’ nail them into position.  As the skirting board in the bungalow is not very tall and with a very narrow lip to it, I thought it would be easier to stick the cladding directly to the wall to prevent it protruding too much from the skirting. 

No, no, no, no NO!  What is she thinking!  I can picture all you carpenters’ out there shaking your heads in disbelief and thinking this idea is going to be as successful as trying to water ski on jelly. 

Where there’s a will, there’s a way I say even if it does state not to use adhesives on the label of the timber cladding pack.  Why not?  If Extinction Rebellion can superglue themselves to a train then I’m sure as hell going to stick my cladding on the wall!

 

There's probably a good reason why

Three days and a ton of expletives later, the cladding has been cut and stuck to the wall but what a palaver! 

Time for a spot of indoor carpentry

Shelby says 'tell me when it's all over'

Can't look as she'll probably lop off a few fingers

 

Two sets of angles to cut for the stair pieces

Straight section at end of corridor

Templating round the power socket

Will it ever stick to this wall?

I’ve spent a fortune on glue and no matter how hard I tried to get the usual solvent free adhesives to create a bond between wood and wall, nothing worked.  After a few hours, the cladding just fell off leaving behind loads of unsightly marks on my newly painted walls.  I can’t really figure out why but I’m sure there’s a jolly good reason for it. 

Where there’s a will, there’s a way I said and sure enough if you look hard enough, you’ll find it.  Only 2 adhesives out of half a dozen different ones tried actually worked and these were: 

Evo Grip – looks like bird poo and is just as difficult to get off.

 

Available in B&Q

Sticks Like Shit Turbo – it does!

 

Available from Screwfix

Unless, like me, you are desperate enough to try these crazy ways to achieve your DIY objective, then my advice is to stick to the tried and tested methods.  Hmmm, I wonder how Dick Strawbridge would have gotten round this?  Next time, I’ll email him to pick his brain ...

It finally stuck to the wall

Ready for priming and painting

WORK IN PROGRESS

Walls have ears.  Okay, I know they don’t really because if they had they’d look pretty stupid right?  I mean who in their right mind would want a garden wall that looked like a jug head?  Please don’t answer that as there may be someone out there who actually has a Dumbo wall in their garden. 

Stormy weather has rocked Chichester these past few days but amazingly, our new wall remains standing and is getting closer to being finished.  It’s so exciting!

 

Dark clouds are gathering overhead

Only the coping stones to be cemented in

Good progress has been made on the back garden too.  I’ve almost finished painting the fence panels – all 22 of them.  Only 1 and a bit remain untreated as they’re currently covered in a blossoming passionflower making it difficult to reach the wood.  (Add to the autumn To Do list).

 

Lovely passion flower

Finished fence panels at the back

The scruffy hydrangea at the back of the garden responded well to its earlier lockdown prune and is now covered in beautiful pink flowers.

 

Blooming well after a good prune

Buried beneath a gigantic clump of prickly thistles along the back wall, I’ve unearthed a potted azalea and a couple of fuchsia plants which I hope to transplant to other parts of the garden as the space will need clearing in readiness for the new extension.

Look what I found under the thistles

Thistle weeds all chopped down

I’m also hoping to move the cordyline and a couple of super-sized white agapanthus plants but will need to wait until autumn when the plants go to sleep before attempting to do this.  Would you like to be dug up and moved elsewhere when you are all cosy?  No, neither do plants.  Online research suggests that often moving established shrubs is not successful but you’ll never know until you try it.  Fingers crossed.

 

Hoping to move all these plants in the autumn

Less progress is being made indoors.  Carpenter cancelled due to Covid so the new oak doors remain cluttering up the downstairs corridor and painting the woodwork has been deferred until the weather is a bit cooler.  Nothing like clumpy paint to mess up your woodwork and you all know how fussy I am about these things.

 

Still waiting to be hung

Let’s wish him a speedy recovery then I can crack on with finishing the corridors once and for all.