Scratch
Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.
Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.
On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.
Return Of The Bathroom
I started writing up my last bathroom decoration about a year ago, but decided it was crap. Having spent all day under the bath fitting a 2.0 bar pump after having sworn off plumbing for as long as I could foreseeably manage, I thought I might try to recap last years escapades.
Having approached it almost with hindsight and less emotion, I am forced to say, its still crap.
Read on if you want. Or not.
About eighteen months ago I started work on what I hoped would be a relatively straightforward redecoration of the bathroom in our flat. Four days in, the old suite was replaced, the tiles gone, albeit with two layers of plasterboard that were either intrinsically bonded or dissolving, and we were down to chipboard on the floor. About a week after that I had modified all the piping to have wall mounted taps and controls and at the same time taking the opportunity of running the shower pipes behind the lack of wall.
To coin a movie phrase, time passed. The plasterboard went up. A built in cupboard was, erm, built in*. The tiles started to go up. Relatively early on I regreted the decision to go with 400mm² tiles on the basis they would go up quicker as almost every 4th tile needed cutting and diamond blades ain't cheap, nor are they the quietest thing, and whilst I know my neighbours wouldn't offer me the same courtesy but I tried to avoid using a bench saw after about 8pm. Also, with regard the taps, contols and shower head, to get a good finish would require first drilling through and then using a jigsaw with carbide blades which would take about two hours a tile to get right**. That and the fact my tiling skills, to me anyway, felt as though I was actually tiling with humous. Oh, and there was also the case of the disappearing Ikea pencils. If I had a penny for every pencil I had lost***, I would have lots of pennies, but not any useful tools to mark tiles.
Anyway, the short is it took about four months for me to practically complete the room. Hand on my heart, I am pretty sure I did actually finish before we moved out.
* Actually the cupboard was unbuilt several times do to a leaking connector that bloody well would stop leaking for several days at a time and then I would walk in on a morning and the chiboard would bow under my feet.
** Not counting the broken ones.
*** It would presumaly never amount to how many Ikea would have...
28 Jun 2008 20:53 | (0) comments | Things