Category: DIY Project

DIY Remodeling Project Diary – Week 13 We’ve chosen the hottest week of the year to remove the wall between the kitchen and the sitting room. We created an enclosure around it so that the dust wouldn’t go everywhere. It looked like a scene out of ET. Of course dust  did go everywhere – the…

DIY Project Diary – week 12 I had a meeting with the local planning office and they confirmed that the space on the first floor cannot be opened up because a protected escape route must exist in case of fire. These rules apply to three (or more) storey buildings. Installing a fire escape into the…

DIY Project – week 11 We finally moved into our bedroom! Six months after we moved into our house. The mattress & the blind arrived on time; we created the radiator cover from Hessian and attached some floating shelves on the wall facing the bed. I filled the storage boxes with stuff but I also…

DIY Project Diary  –  Week 10 Painting with the paint gun isn’t easy at all. I’d assumed it would be a time saver – but it isn’t. I bought an electric HVLP spray system – supposedly perfect for professional painting and lacquering because it creates an even, smooth finish – no brush strokes, no roller…

DIY Project Diary – Week 9 In the world of home improvement things always take longer than anticipated. No wonder builders never finish projects on time – why, knowing this, can’t they be realistic and allow for extra time when they give their estimates?.. Anyway, we were working hard during the last week on the…

DIY Project Diary – Week 8 We really should have bought a bench saw.  Having cut 3 MDF sheets we’ve realised that doing it with a circular saw just doesn’t work properly because the MDF is only 6mm thick and 2.4m long! I got bored with cutting all these strips and wasting more material –…

DIY Project Diary – Week 7 Not much progress this week. We demolished the useless built in cabinet between the bedroom and hall – it opened up the whole floor. This cabinet was built like a mini-room – it had proper stud-partition walls – with insulation and everything. No wonder there was no space left…

DIY Project – Diary Week 6 The bathroom is finished – at last! The newly mirrored door arrived; the mirror wasn’t broken this time en route. It took almost a day to install it into its sliding gear – but we’ve made it! Whilst waiting for the door, I cleared out the bedroom, which has…

DIY Project Diary – week 5 Last week was tough. The tiler spent 5 days doing the tiling (he’d estimated 3 days work) so I decided to do the grouting myself. I thought there was nothing to it, I’d done grouting before! Grouting between big tiles is easy. But the mosaic tiles are a nightmare…

DIY Project Diary ? Week 4 Well, the tiler didn?t turn up ? he hadn?t finished his previous job. We asked him to come over after work at least to look at the bathroom. I didn?t want any more surprises and I wanted to know how long it would take him to tile the whole…