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The greenhouse is finished - behold the raised bed (with dying plants) and the shoddy table made from bits of wood. And nails.
Written by exmonkey on February 18th, 2006 with no comments.
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I’m not one to brag, but here is what the floor looks like now:
As you can see, the crap has already begun to pile up in the hall….
Unfortunately the varnish hadn’t dried before a cat ran across it. Belle is now preserved like a fly in amber under a layer of varnish by the kitchen door - it feeles quite nice underfoot; furry varnish.
Written by exmonkey on March 24th, 2005 with no comments.
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Renovation of second bedroom/nursery stage two is now underway.
The fireplace fiasco is now behind me, my scars are healing so, spurred on by my success with the fireplace, I have decided to expose and sand the floorboards.
Nothing is simple, however, and to be honest I am now worried that the new baby will arrive and have to sleep between a stepladder and a Black & Decker workbench.
The boards, once revealed, proved to be knackered - many not nailed down, some rotten and a few not even the right size. That’s fine, I thought. I’ll just go to B&Q and buy some new ones. This is when I discovered that nowhere sells new floorboards of the type that old houses have - ie planks of wood.
It was then that I remembered the architectural salvage yard I pass everyday on my way to work.
Ah, the Salvage Family…
It turns out that the salvage yard is a family. The first thing you notice when you meet Pa Salvage is the smell. No that’s not fair - the first thing you notice is his unfeasibly large head, then you notice the smell.
Ma Salvage was in the office; weirdly she had the same strange head shape - huge noggin and a bulbous forehead.
Manning (sic) the phones was little Daughter Salvage - what a catch! She too had the now familiar head shape. Imagine a dwarf who has grown to normal height but kept the same out of proportion limbs and head.
It is a big salvage yard, but the gene pool of a parking space. I bet birthdays are confusing in the salvage family.
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| A hillbilly | A Bearded Lady |
Anyway - they didn’t have the floorboards I needed. Pa Salvage sent me to his brother’s yard in Peckham (same SE London Hillbilly feel, same smell, different location) and after some tense negotiations I got horribly overcharged for five nail encrusted floorboards, probably nicked from my upstairs neighbour.
Overall I feel a bit disappointed that I never met the Bearded Lady or the Snake Man but at least I found that incest is alive and well (ignoring genetic abnormalities) and thriving in South East London.
Written by exmonkey on March 13th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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I can now give you the benefit of my hard learnt advice.
Here are the two ways you can restore an antique cast iron fireplace.
Method 1:
1 - Appraise the fireplace. Take a good hard look. Image how much better it will look without those 3 layers of black gloss paint on. (remember this stage – we will be going back to it later on)
2 – Purchase a small bottle of Nitromors and a wire brush. Read the label – it says “Will eat through up to 15 layers of paint”. Wow 15 layers! Shame they don’t do an even smaller bottle.
3 – Carefully apply the Nitromors as directed. Pay scant heed to the warning about ventilation and taking a break every few minutes to minimize your contact to the fumes.
4 – Go and lie down in an effort to get rid of the fume related headache.
5 – Inspect the bubbling paint, apply more nitromors.
6 – Whilst excitedly anticipating the shiny metal beneath, use a wire brush to remove the Nitromors/paint goo.
7 – Apply Nitromors to the freshly revealed white gloss paint.
8 - Repeat steps 3 to 7 several times buying an ever larger bottle of Nitromors each time.
Second Weekend.
9 – Go and buy wire brush attachments for your electric drill.
10 – Start wearing down layer 12* with the different shaped wire brush attachments.
*this is the special paint applied in 1967, developed by NASA to be resistant to all paint strippers, especially Nitromors
11 – Borrow a drill from your neighbour to replace the burnt out one you were using earlier.
12 – Return the neighbour’s now burnt out drill.
Third Weekend
13 – Buy an angle grinder with a wire brush attachment.
14 – Stare in amazement at how quickly the remaining paint comes off.
15 – Buoyed by the success of the angle grinder, apply Nitromors to the bits it was unable to grind.
16 – Without waiting for the Nitromors to dry, use the angle grinder to attack the bits you missed.
17 – Without taking off your underwear, quickly get under the cold shower to wash the now burning Nitromors off you neck, sprayed there by the angle grinder.
Forth Weekend
18 – Re-Appraise the fireplace – it looked better before you started didn’t it.
19 – Paint the fireplace black with a heavy-duty gloss paint.
Method 2:
1 - Remove fireplace
2 - Take fireplace to a fireplace restorer
3 - Collect fireplace
4 - Re-fit fireplace, stand back, admire.
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NEXT WEEK: Living with chemical burns
Written by exmonkey on February 26th, 2005 with 6 comments.
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