BACK ME UP

After weeks of painting, staining and getting side-tracked by posting politically inspired nonsense, it’s back for an update of the home office project which, quite frankly, has been dragging on and on and on….

She's such a slow coach

So, where are we with things? Right. We built some shelving units most of which have now been painted and are starting to look fantastic.

Adding shelves

Almost finished

Now the big question is – do you place the units up against a painted wall or put a backing board on them?

As always, the answer to this question is ‘it depends’. Whether you add a backing board or not depends on a number of factors including budget, ascetics and overall construction. If you are trying to keep costs down and you don’t mind seeing the wall behind the shelf unit then don’t bother with backing.

But if you are concerned with the overall stability of your unit and wish to prevent what is called ‘racking’ then adding a backing board may be the way forward as this will help to brace things together, provide greater rigidity and improve the longevity of the unit.

My first thought for a backing board was a thin sheet of MDF but in the end I decided against this because MDF doesn’t really stain well. I wanted a backing board with the grain and look of wood that didn’t flex quite as much as MDF so I’ve gone with something which is called ‘hardwood through plywood’.

Hardwood through plywood

This product is similar in thickness to MDF but being plywood it’s stiffer, looks woodier and stains up a treat. Working at a timber merchant has its advantages as I was able to get all my plywood sheets cut exactly to the size of each shelf unit making life a lot easier.

Nice woodgrain

Two coats of natural oak stain followed by two coats of clear satin varnish then hey presto, a backing board that matches the stained shelves. Nail into place using small panel pins.

After two coats of stain and varnish

Three units completed, two more to finish off – time to crack on!

Three done

And two more to go

LEAPING ELECTION YEAR

2024 is a leap year but it’s also an election year so get ready for an endless barrage of political posturing, mud-slinging and parliamentary arm wrestling coming at you from all sides.  Jeez!

 

Hurrah!  An extra day

Politicians are like jilted boyfriends - it’s only when you’ve given them their marching orders that they make all those empty promises to change which they have no intention of keeping.  Let’s face it whoever gets into power can’t make the UK even worse than it’s become as once you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go except maybe up but even those little blue miracle pills couldn’t get this limp dick of a nation up again.  

Last night I watched ‘The Iron Lady’ biopic movie so I could hurl some invective at the telly as a means of de-stressing from a busy Monday.  Forty years on, I realise I’ve never forgiven Thatcher for raising the women’s retirement age to 65 years.  If only the old hag had left well alone, me and countless other ‘old dears’ could have hung up our working boots to spend our ‘retirement’ knitting or growing petunias.  But no, Thatcher had to go meddling didn’t she?  Well, I hope the most hated ex-Prime Minister of the UK is getting a proper roasting where she’s gone to.  Ha!

 

Gone but not forgiven

Rumoured to be taking place this autumn, the general election will be the only chance for armchair revolutionaries like me to take a stand and vote for change.  So let’s see where the tick’s going to fall on the ballot paper:

Vote Tory?  Chancellor Hunt wants to offer us tax cuts – what like the last one?  Knocking 2% off national insurance has not benefited us hard-working part timers who are paid below the NI threshold.  Yeah, that ‘tax cut’ was about as welcome as a pre-sucked gobstopper.  Scrapping inheritance tax?  According to Money Saving Expert only a small percent of estates actually pay inheritance tax so this ‘tax cut’ would be next to useless unless you’re the Duke of Richmond.  Hunt wants to discourage the ‘culture of early retirement’ according to this weekend’s Times newspaper but hey, wasn’t it your Tory crony George Osborne that actually kicked that off when he generously gave us all the freedom to access our private pensions at the age of 55?  Conveniently forgotten that…

 

Chris Riddell on the Tory response to the energy price cap

Vote Labour?  Well, I would if I knew exactly what they stood for.  At least Sir Keir has had the foresight to drop that lunatic pledge to invest £28 billion in green stuff which in the long term is going to be about as beneficial as a custard pie in the face because the rest of the world will continue to use fossil fuels whilst laughing their socks off at the UK.  Just look at the Tata Steel fiasco – I bet they’re rubbing their hands all the way to the bank having fleeced us of a ton of government cash to set up a green arc furnace that will produce the wrong type of steel in the most expensive way ever.  Remember though that was a TORY gaffe not Labour. 

Sir Keir – you know what you’ve got to do.  Plug the non-dom loophole once and for all, use energy windfall taxes to bring down our bills and put all those migrants to work whilst they’re waiting for their Rwanda flight.

 

Future tax payer vote

Vote Liberal?  The world would have to freeze over first but since climate scientists at Utrecht University have predicted that the English Channel could freeze up completely if glaciers continue to melt then there’s always a remote possibility they could get into power.  Imagine that?  Controlling migration might be a bugger – stop the boats!  What with a snow plough?  Anyway, everyone knows there’s only one thing to do with bleeding heart Liberals and that’s shoot them!!!  Liberal attitudes in general are one of many reasons why this country has largely gone to the dogs (XL ones).  Should never have abolished the cane!

 

Shoot the Liberals!

Vote MRLP?  That's Monster Raving Loony Party to you.  I had to laugh at the policies proposed by their candidate Ravin Rodent Subortna standing in the next Rochdale By-Election:

MRLP - straight from the horses mouth

Introducing a 99p coin to save on change, fairground carousels to be put on all roundabouts to tell cars where to go to prevent road rage and making sure hedgehog homes are included in all new building housing developments to eradicate homelessness for hedgehogs.  

Genius!

These policies may sound daft but there's probably more likelihood of them having a beneficial impact than all that other toxic guff farted out from the political arses currently in power.  MRLP - they've got my vote!

SHARING IS CARING

One thing I find really annoying about creative programmes on TV such as ‘Money For Nothing’ or ‘Changing Rooms’ is that no-one tells you exactly what stuff to use so you’re often left scratching your head in front of the paint shelf wondering what type of product you should buy for your project. 

I appreciate there are probably rules regarding product placement on these programmes that prevent them from promoting any particular brand but at least stick it on a blog or website somewhere so that all of us would-be upcyclers or DIYers can at least have some idea of what can be used. 

Since I have no qualms about sharing then here’s what I’ve used on my units: 

For priming all of the timber it’s over to my good old mate, Dulux.  Two 750 ml cans of white primer/undercoat for wood have been enough to give one good coat to most of the pineboard.  I say ‘most’ because thanks to the late realisation about paint expansion I’ve not fully primed or painted all of the surfaces, only the ones on show.

 

Primer/undercoat for wood

I realise that cutting this corner is pretty poor.  Hands up – my bad.  NJ would never have done that.  Under other circumstances then yes, I would have primed and painted all sides of each unit but is it really necessary I ask myself?  Only time will tell.

 

Only the visible bits primed

Sand/fill any defects before priming then afterwards sand off the raised grain with fine sandpaper so that you have a lovely smooth surface ready to paint.  I did find that using this primer still brought up a raised grain even though I’d thoroughly hand sanded the wood beforehand.

 

Never leave freshly primed bits where cats can step on them

To paint the timber, I’ve used a lovely black paint from B&Q called Good Home Durable Multi-Surface paint in a satin finish which can be used on lots of different materials including furniture/cabinets.

 

Available from B&Q

I wouldn’t consider it a cheap paint at £37 for a 2-litre tin but I feel it does the job of coating timber very well.  It’s thick, self-priming and leaves your wood beautifully silky after 2 coats applied with a small foam gloss roller.

 

Goes on smoothly with a gloss roller

The satin finish has a sheen to it that makes your painted surface almost look like a piece of melamine and you get good coverage too as so far, I’ve only had to buy one large tin to pretty much paint everything.

 

Painted shelves & panels

Some of the wall units will have a two-colour combo of black and oak.  Ultimately, I’m aiming to produce something that looks like this bookcase which means that to get this look, a few of the pineboard shelves will need staining or varnishing.

 

This is what I'd like my units to look like

After much deliberation, I’ve chosen a liquid wood stain called Natural Oak by Furniture Clinic.  This product can be easily painted on or applied with a soft cotton cloth onto clean, dry timber.

 

Purchased from Ebay

As with anything of colour, there are a million and one shades of ‘oak’.  It’s been quite difficult to find a stain that exactly colour matches to the pre-purchased English Oak coloured cabinets used at the bottom of our unit.  I’ve found that this particular shade of natural oak comes out more like antique pine, quite yellowish in tone so I’ve added a drop of medium oak to the final coat to slightly darken it.  Maybe the trick is to look at colour tones not colour names when deciding what stain to buy.

 

Does it match the cabinets?

Three thin coats later, a shelf that is similar in oakishness to the cabinets.  Leave to dry overnight. 

 

After one coat of natural oak stain

After 3 coats of stain

Finish off the stained shelf with a light application of beeswax. I’ve used this Colron natural wax – rub in with a soft cotton/lint cloth then when dry give it a jolly good buffing.  It leaves your stained timber as soft as a baby’s bum.  No poonami’s!

 

Leaves wood lovely and soft

Here's the first finished unit

Sharing is caring even in the world of DIY so if you find a great product then don’t keep it to your shelf – boy that pun is soooooo bad even Bertie could have come up with something better.

I could have done better if I could be bothered

TRICKLE ME ELMO

Interesting email exchange I had last Friday with the patio door installers regarding the subject of external trickle vents. 

Since forking out a small fortune for a new pair of patio doors, I had expected a significant reduction in the level of draughts coming in from the new ones but ambient temperatures in the lounge are still as nippy as a dog kennel.  The culprits?  You guessed – trickle vents.

 

What a waste of energy!

I emailed the patio door installers to ask if there was anything that could be done to minimise the amount of cold air coming in through the vents only to be given a resounding ‘NO’ in response.  In a polite way, they pretty much told me to lump it and blamed the Government. 

It appears that back in 2022 due to some very high-profile cases of black mould, the Nanny State decreed that trickle vents would be made mandatory under building regulations as us plebs could not be trusted to ventilate our own homes.

With hilarious irony, the same Nanny State is now handing out grants hand over fist to get older homes retro-fitted with insulation and other measures to make them more energy efficient.  Yet it allows new windows with draughty trickle vents to be fitted.  If ever there was an example of bad policy making then surely this must be top of the list.  Wouldn’t it just be easier to remind the general public to open windows instead of subjecting them to this costly form of passive ventilation? 

I’m not alone in thinking that trickle vents which let the cold air in are a good idea.  A casual surf on this topic yielded a great deal of information that even suggested the window fitting industry is not generally happy with this new regulation.  

Surprisingly, a lot of folks are now finding ways to cover their trickle vents in order to reduce draughts and ultimately save on heating bills.  

Perhaps window manufacturers could be persuaded to change the design of the external trickle vents so that they come with an adjustable grille cover that slides open in the summer but can be closed in the winter months – the perfect win/win solution.    

But until that happens, pass me that roll of gaffer tape.

No draughts over here