and when i get that feeling, i need… gender identity reinforcement

After yesterday’s escapades with the maternity bras I felt it only right to reassert my masculinity today by building more shelves with the use of at least two power tools. Namely a drill and a jigsaw. I would have used a sander as well but I didn’t have one.

I have been hulking large pieces of wood around between the front room and garden, running the risk of being electrocuted in the misty rain, sanding the wood down with my bare hands (and some sand paper, admittedly) and frequently making grunting sounds, emitting the occasional expletive when I failed to measure twice and cut once. Pleased to say my shelves are a great success and terribly terribly butch.

So as I sit here with my twelve pack of beer at my feet, chewing my pipe (so much more me than those fey cheroots), wearing a skirt and allowing my feet to toy with the furry sequinned pick slippers I picked up for a song from Primark, I wonder if Top Gear is on the telly and when I can at last go and play rugger with the boys again.

Night all.

three pictures speak a thousand words

so, all our belongings were moved in a few days before Christmas and we’ve been trying to find the fittings to put up  shelves for some time now. And then we move a box to see:

thanks, guys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and so…

not exactly stylish, but getting there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and…

a short shelf life

overheard in Ikea

“…your dad tried to move the kitchen cabinet without taking all the things out of it. That was when it feel on top of him and I found him like that…”

I caught this as mother and daughter wafted past with trolley. Didn’t hear the rest of it. I’m not making this up.

This weekend the remaining fixtures and fittings (i.e. rubbish) has been gathered up and shifted out to the nearest recycling centre. Huzzah! The garden has just about got it’s original shape back and the recycling centre / tip didn’t turn me away when I showed up in a hire van half full of rubble bags, wood, polystyrene, cardboard and general crud. (General Crud led the campaign with Sergeant oh I can’t be bothered with this parenthetic gag.)

A few items of furniture have been sent to a charity organisation in the back of the van, trees which were in Jack’s garden are now in our garden, the WORMS have returned!!!! and I went on a whistle stop tour of Ikea.

Two shelves, one 2m length of kitchen cabinet cover, a pocket full of metal prongs which keep the Ikea modular shelves up – which we have somewhere in the house but which are naturally still packed some place.

We also managed to get some stuff from Safestore including my guitar and amp (huzzah!) and managed to do this run without quite being locked in despite running close to closing time.

This week’s plan is to finish the kitchen / utility rooms. Oh, and maybe fix the eco toilet upstairs which is currently not being very eco since it usually leaks after flushing and so has a constant flow of water going down the pan.

I remember when my dad told me that cars had finally become so electronically controlled so technical that he could no longer service and maintain his own car. It wasn’t worth it and it wasn’t like the Ford Cortina where he could spend a happy Sunday changing spark plugs and filter etc.

I feel the same about toilets.

Not too long ago everything was run off a ball cock valve (of sniggering responses) now I look in the cistern of our toilets and don’t understand it. Consequently there’s nothing I can fiddle with or tighten up or anything. Have to phone the plumbers again.

things i can / can’t do

CAN: Cut a hole in a worktop that fits a hob burner.

CAN’T: Clean the dusty floor with a mop in such a way that the floors actually end up clean.

flawed (not)

So here it is, pop pickers. The efforts of me and Adam and a couple of heavy duty sanding machines from the hire shop: beautiful floors, dust everywhere and white finger diagnosis. not. My phone camera cannot do justice to the wonder and space. You’ll just have to come round for tea.

 

cement mixing room (no more)

reception 2, I believe...

 

I particularly like the way I've framed this image

desperate to in on the act, the flooring people 'do' the kitchen.

ah yes…

Here’s what’s left of the fireplace:

 

garden walls potential methinks

trials of a gormet construction worker

Worst thing in the world: Balsasmic vinegar in cuts to fingers. Yowl.

getting there

For the first time in I know not how long there is running water in our house that doesn’t come from a make shift tap located under the stairs. The downstairs toilet is plumbed in and flushes and appears to send everything down the drain. As an added bonus someone’s supplied a pretty new toilet roll as well. There are no toilet seats however, due to a rather eccentric online ordering routine from the retailers… (and no I’m not going to do a gag about there being no seats and despite investigations the police have nothing to go on).

floored

So I should have learned. I mean especially with this, right? When we moved into Moselle Avenue – previous house in London – I spent two days lifting cork tiles from hall and bathroom and kitchen. “Lifting” is a bit of a misnomer, I was hacking at them with a floor scraper, with the result that my hands developed such huge blisters in the centre of them that I literally couldn’t move my hands by the evening and had to discover the joys of elastoplast gel plasters to do anything the next day. 

So here I am faced with another kitchen floor, ceramic tiles laid on top of cork tiles…

Following the cue of the man from the flooring shop I have been scraping the tiles with the small end of my crowbar. When flooring shop man did it it looked so easy,. but he did only do 5cms before stopping. My efforts are a bit larger scale. This is what happens when you scrape it:

cork tiles helpfully leaping off the floor and saving me the bother of having to do any work at all. Not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just in case there’s any doubt as to what we’re dealing with here’s a piece with my hand to scale:

 

my hand and a piece of kitchen floor, earlier today

 

 

 

Alas, poor hand it looks so old! I shall never be Mr Pear’s Best Hand 2009!      The plasterer took pity on me and leant me a scraper that performed somewhat better. And with the addition of steam from the wallpaper steamer things were fun fun fun till the plasterer took his scraper away and went home. (If I can make that scan it could work in a song lyric, or something.)

On my way home tonight I bought a floor scraper from Wickes for £10.99. 

“You’d think I’d have though to buy one of these this morning,” I said to the cashier.

“I don’t want to know about what you did this morning,” she replied. 

Fair enough.

talking to the workman about…

The main problems I have with working on the house are my hands. They’ve entirely dried out, cracking and splitting, ingrained with dust and generally painful. Am wondering whether I can ask a plumber or plasterer how they cope with this and of what they’re skincare regime consists – but do not because (i) they may stop their work and run away (ii) they may hit me with their equally shot hands (iii) I’ve not actually noted whether their hands are in good or bad shape so do I want their advice anyway?