LOO TOPPER

Black Friday special – inflatable dinghy half price!

Perfect for a bob in the Solent

I’m thinking of buying a rubber dinghy to float across the Solent to Dover where I plan to ‘surrender’ myself to Border Force as a Spanish speaking migrant in order to cut my living costs.

Whilst billeted in my luxury hotel (Savoy if you please), I’ll commit a few crimes such as abusing the receptionist for having a face like a wet weekend plus a racist attitude or touching up the waiter as he serves the lobster and crab bisque.

Once I’ve decided on a suitable country for deportation then I’ll kick up an almighty fuss at the airport to get handsomely paid to be a ‘good’ girl before flying off for a well-earned holiday at the taxpayer’s expense.

Whilst this might sound like the most ludicrous suggestion this side of Christmas, it’s a plan that obviously works for some…

Meanwhile back in the bog, it’s a different story. Why oh why does everything DIY always have to be so difficult?

A rubber dinghy not being a solution to our monster loo topper problem, I thought the obvious way forward would be to purchase a small bit of worktop. Easier said than done when most laminate worktops are supplied in lengths longer than the 86 cms we need and no-one’s selling any suitable offcuts. Not even Ebay and I’m certainly not paying £100 to any enterprising Etsy sellers for a bespoke top.

Once again, it’s pine-board to the rescue. I’ve purchased a suitable plank measuring 1.15 m long x 40 cm wide that can be cut down to size then either painted or stained accordingly. At just under £15, significantly cheaper than a full-blown laminate worktop and is likely to look just as good.

Make your own topper from planking

Now all we’ve got to do is prepare a cutting template that takes into account any tapering then job’s a good ‘un.

Cut to size then paint or stain

LOO STORAGE - PART II

Oh My Days - you just couldn’t make it up!

How exactly does one ‘accidentally’ release a criminal awaiting deportation? I mean, I can understand how a scarlet sock might accidentally end up in the white wash especially if distracted by naughty kitties whilst emptying the laundry basket but this? Bring back Spitting Image as this scenario would make a cracking episode.

Naughty kitty?  Not me, I was asleep all the time

Whilst the incompetent numpties at Whitehall vote on whose arse deserves the biggest kicking, it’s back to snagging for us.

We’ve been a little luckier with the left-hand side of the toilet unit which as luck would have it has a gap that is approx. 200 mm wide, a universal size for small cabinets. Thank goodness for that.

Hurrah!  A standard sized gap to fill

But before counting chickens (one, two, three, five….) there’s the small task of finding a cabinet in a white gloss finish that will satisfy the following criteria – must be 200 mm wide and not break the bank.

What would we do without Ebay? After more trawling than the French fishing fleet, I eventually dredged up a listing for a white cabinet for around £50 which just happened to be 200 mm wide but taller than desired. Quick! Page the local doctor before they go on strike again. Open cabinet surgery needed for patient to fit neatly into the gap. Private treatment not an option.

Several cups of tea later – the ‘black hole’ has been plugged. Rachel take note.

Chopped down cabinet fits a treat

Ok so it’s a bit of a Frankenstein monster when looking from above but never fear, a solution is probably near. 

We've created a monster

Can’t have an uneven mish-mash of cobbled together units spoiling the overall effect of making our creature look like it’s part of a custom-built all-in-one storage solution. A small bit of worktop should do the trick.

 

BOGGED DOWN

Hurrah! DIY is back on the cards.

I live for those days when I can throw on my multi-pocket combats, grab a tape measure then spend the rest of the day dreaming up new innovations for my little hobbit hole.

Occasionally I even receive feedback on my blog posts much to my utter surprise as I essentially use this blog almost as a form of writing therapy as well as a means of letting my nearest and dearest know that I’m still alive and kicking. Only just!

Thanks to everyone who messaged to say they found our DIY projects inspiring and enjoyed reading about our adventures in DIY-Land. Feedback is always appreciated.  It’s great to think others are reading this little blog then grabbing their own tools to go off and beautify their homes. Honestly, it’s amazing what you can do with a bit of an idea and some online inspiration.

With year end rapidly approaching, the spotlight is back on the downstairs loo. Snagging is the name of the game. It’s the one part of any project that seems to take forever. Once the initial enthusiasm’s gone off the boil, it’s almost impossible to dredge up motivation to bring a project to successful closure. Ten months on and yep, work on our luxurious loo motors on slower than one of those oversized caravans on its way to the coast.

Isn't it done yet?

First to be tackled – the unsightly pipes under the hand basin. 

Just look at those awful pipes!

Previously these had been hidden away with some long clunky boxing but I’ve decided to make these into a decorative feature by painting them gold using Dulux Metallic Gold paint.

Perfect for glitzing up old pipes

A rich antique gold colour, this paint goes on smoothly on both metal or plastic making it easy to transform unsightly pipes into something special. Two coats are enough to get a good even finish. Bit stinky so ensure you open a window before applying.

Used to paint both copper and plastic piping

Look great after two good coats of gold paint

Then there’s the question of storage or rather lack of. In such a small room it’s not easy to incorporate much needed cupboards or shelving for all those bottles of bleach or cleaning fluids one likes to keep to hand to spritz up toilets. Time to get creative in a bid to make best use of the gaps either side of the back to wall toilet unit.

On the right-hand side of the loo unit there is a very narrow space just about big enough for a toilet brush holder. Unfortunately, the gap isn’t big enough to house any ready-made cupboards so the other half has fashioned a slimline storage unit to fit the available space which is less than 150 mm wide.

Filling the small gap

A not quite so snug fit made harder by tapering dimensions on all sides but it will do the trick.

A curse on uneven walls and floors

Chin scratch – now what to do with the other side?

GOING SOLAR? MAYBE

Going solar down in Chicapulco to turn those high bills round.

For the past 6 months, I’ve been dedicated to the quest of looking into solar energy because I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way you’re ever going to bring those high energy costs down is by generating your own power. If only I could erect a wind turbine in the back garden to make the most of those persistent Chichester gusts!

Blessed with a south east facing back roof that gets non-stop sunshine all summer long (when not raining) then I guess we’d be foolish not to take advantage of the potential to generate lots of lovely ‘free’ energy plus earn a few extra quid selling any surpluses back to the grid. What’s not to like?

Perfect for solar panels

Aside from the cost of the installation, I was all set to sign on the dotted solar line when one of the installers I’d approached for a quote dropped the magic phrase into the conversation which stopped me dead in my tracks.

‘Bloody hells bells’ spluttered the other half into his partially drunk glass of cider. ‘There’ll be no shutting her up after this!’

You might well ask what could have been said in the conversation that stopped the rampaging rhino. It was the phrase – “propping up the grid”.

Rewind to a point months earlier during mid solar research. Surfing the solar wave, I discovered a few things I really didn’t like all that much:

Firstly, in order to fully benefit from any export tariffs, solar customers who wish to sell their surplus power back to the grid need to have a smart meter installed. You all know my thoughts on smart meters. I’d rather stick a prickly pear up my arse than have one of those faulty spy devices installed.

Secondly, there’s something called VPP and that’s what scared the crap out of my solar plans. Your energy system including power stored in your solar batteries could be accessed remotely by something called a Virtual Power Plant. Did you know this?

During periods of high energy demand on the grid, the VPP could essentially pull the energy rug from right under your feet leaving you sucked dry of power when you might need it most. It does this by remotely accessing your system using software that controls not just your solar set up but that of loads of other people, aggregating the power to form a large central cyber power plant. Hence the ‘propping up the grid’.

Rather than establish proper cable connections from all those wind or solar farms being propped up by Government finance, energy suppliers could be nicking your stored electricity straight from your batteries because these will already be linked into the Grid. Naturally, it will use the smart spying device sitting smugly in your garage or meter cupboard to root out anyone that’s sitting on solar spoils and then it will shamelessly strip you of them.

Thirdly, there could come a time in the future when energy suppliers stop paying you for surplus electricity especially when that new nuclear power station is built or when there is so much free leccy sloshing about that the Grid just won’t be interested in taking any more on. As a nation, we’re already paying wind farms to switch off when there’s excess supply but low demand so why would the Grid or anyone else for that matter want to pay you? They’ll source power from organisations contracted with the Government to supply power. Or they’ll just taper off all feed-in tariffs once they have enough solar suckers automatically feeding the power-hungry grid monster. Once you’re dangling on the line, there’s no getting off the hook – they’ll just reel you in.

I don’t know about you but if I wanted to generate electricity for the nation then I’d have set myself up in business as an energy supplier. I’m definitely not looking to be a ‘grid propper-upper’ or the like. All I want is to knock a few quid off my own bills by being energy self-sufficient.

What puts me off even more is the UK’s irrational fear of missing out on the global AI fad. Once all those data centres pepper our green and pleasant land, the Grid is likely to be hunting out any pockets of power to ensure the fire of these data dragons doesn’t go out. It’s not going to care if you’ve opted into a VPP arrangement or not, it’ll probably just steal your electricity regardless because AI data centres will be far more important than you or I.

And so, dear readers, this is the dilemma – to solar or not to solar? Should I bite the £10K bullet but risk losing my lovely leccy to the shameless VPP grabbing hands or should I just continue being a power slave to the God of Electrification?