Renderers return

Rendering now complete and the back of the house looks so much better.

Flat pack marathon, stage 7

"Boy" wardrobe

"Girl" wardrobe

Monday is the day to finish off the wardrobes. Helen has one drawer built before she heads off for an exercise class, Peter builds two more while she is gone. After a lunch with Peter's daughter, we fit these three, then build and fit the remaining two, then fit two more shelves and the clothes rail in the "boy" wardrobe.



Finally we fit the handles to the doors, adjust the levels, and both are complete, one in each corner.

Time for a big tidy up, vacuum, removal of excess tools and yet more cardboard, and the house is beginning to look pretty good.

Flat pack marathon, stage 6

On Saturday night, Peter states confidently that we can complete both wardrobes on Sunday. Helen thinks this is unlikely unless we get up at 7:30am. Which of course, we don't.
We decide to make up the second wardrobe carcase in horizontal mode, as we now know how heavy the finished product is, and think we will be able to tip it up without killing ourselves. It is easier building it that way, and as it's our second time, we get it together pretty quickly. As we are finishing, we realise that we may have a problem. The Ikea instructions make it clear that you have to build it in vertical mode if there is not much clearance between the top of the wardrobe and the ceiling. With our Victorian high ceilings this isn't an issue, but the distance between the walls is! In order to tip it up we have to move the bed over so that we have the full width of the room, as the space we were using between the broom cupboard and the opposite wall just wasn't long enough. Even with the bed moved, it takes a bit of manoeuvring to get it vertical.
To avoid the problem we had with the first wardrobe, we've moved the fastenings down about 3cm and drilled a new hole for the fastening bolt to come through. Peter drills the first hole and yes! we are into a very solid brick. But Murphy hasn't finished with us yet - the second hole goes into mortar. We must have struck a vertical mortar line for this one. Curses. More fiddling around, until at last both wardrobes are securely fastened, and we can start populating the interior. While Peter was fastening, Helen made up the divider for one of the wardrobes.
(When we were designing them we decided to have two different layouts, so there would be somewhere to hang anything from a short top to a ball-gown, and spaces of different sizes for other stuff. So one has a divider and drawers that go two thirds of the way - the other has full-width drawers.)
After fixing the divider in place, we can judge the appropriate height for the upper shelf and coat rail, so these are fitted next. Then we decide that we should put the doors on as the next step, rather than continuing with interior fittings. Each wardrobe has two doors, one wide and one narrow. The only narrow door that Ikea sell is a mirror door, and we've chosen to have a fairly plain white panel door for the wider one. We're relieved when this combination looks not only OK, but actually very effective, as the mirrored door makes that part of the wardrobe quite recessive, and makes the overall thing look smaller as a result.
As a bit of light relief from construction, we bring the weekly wash in from our house, using it to confirm that both washer and dryer work well, and aren't excessively noisy, even with the cupboard open for the dryer. The fan and vent system also seem to prevent the living room from filling up with water vapour.
With the doors on, we return to the interior, and fit a single metal mesh drawer at the bottom of each wardrobe. (These drawers can be fitted where there are hinges. Above them we will have wooden drawers with perspex fronts.)
By the time we have the mesh drawers fitted, we've had enough for the day - the remaining drawers will have to wait until tomorrow.

Flat pack marathon, stage 5

Saturday begins with the second drawer for the bed, and we can then shift that into place and make a start on the wardrobes. These are big items - the flat packs that hold each one are too heavy to lift and we have to slide them around. We also have to work out whether there is enough room in the front bedroom to put them together without moving the queen size bed that occupies much of the space. We have to make them up in situ as once they are constructed they'll be too big to bring in from the hall through the door.
Ikea are masters of the small space, so they provide two sets of instructions - one for erecting the wardrobes vertically, the other for making them up on the floor then tipping them up. We make the carcase of the first one vertically, and it proves reasonably straightforward, except that we have to keep standing on a ladder to reach to the top bits.
We have a break in the middle of the day when Marty (who built the gate between the two houses for us) came to quote for a deck at the rear, and for some work on the garden wall. It all takes time as we wrestle with having the largest possible deck while retaining the option to park a car in the courtyard.
When the wardrobe construction is complete, the next step is to fasten the wardrobe to the wall - anything that tall has the potential to topple over on top of the unwary user. The back has pre-cut holes through which to put fastenings into the wall behind. Murphy gets into the act here - when Peter drills the first hold into the double brick wall behind the wardrobe, he realises he's on a mortar line, not brick. And as it's really old mortar, it is much too soft to hold the fastening. There is a fairly long pause in proceedings while he tries various kinds of plugs, makes a trip to the hardware store, tries more options, before he is finally satisfied that he has a secure fixing. Meanwhile, Helen tidies up the masses of cardboard packing we are generating, stows linen in the drawers in the new bed, while holding things and passing things to the man on the ladder as required.
Before we discovered the problem with the mortar line, we made the mistake of lowering the levelling legs in the front of the wardrobe. In the process of moving the wardrobe away from the wall and back again, we have now dislodged these, and it takes a bit of thinking and a lot of time to get them secured back in place. But by the time we quit so that Helen can get dinner and head to a concert, everything is in order, level and securely fastened to the wall.

Flat pack marathon, stage 4

Up early again for the renderers, but rain stopped play. It wasn't so much that they couldn't render in the rain, but there is apparently a bit of a spouting leak on the back wall, now obvious as a big wet patch on the render they did on Wednesday. If they put fresh render on and then it rains some more and the spouting continues to leak, the render will run. We contact the builders who are going to come and have a look and hopefully fix. So after a bit of initial waiting around for the rain to stop, Matt and Shane leave, promising to return Monday.
Meanwhile we complete the job of mounting the dryer upside down. This has been mostly Peter's project, with Helen helping whenever the dryer had to be moved. For the last step we need something about the right height to prop the dryer on while the vent is attached at the top, before it actually goes on to the wall brackets that Peter has fixed in place. A very old and incomplete set of Encyclopedia Brittanica is stacked to just the right height - knew they'd come in handy for something one day.
With the dryer firmly in place we start on the next flatpack exercise - a day bed with a pull-out trundle and two storage drawers under that. Two large half beds and two drawers to construct. We take a break mid-morning to go to the market, and Helen takes a break in the afternoon to attend a 90th birthday party. In her absence Peter relocates his pull-out shelf over the washing machine back a bit so that it no longer obscures the control panel. Laundry cupboard is now 99% complete - just a bit of cosmetic work on the duct at the top and a hose clamp on the drain hose at the bottom and it will be all done.
When Helen returns it's back to work on the Brimnes bed and by teatime it is all done except one drawer. Tomorrow we finish that, then it's wardrobe time.

Several days later, with final drawer done and tastefully furnished with bedding and cushions.

Is it a record?

Thursday we decide to go to Ikea in the morning to purchase the next round of furniture. We break all records - in and out of Ikea in less than an hour, having bought a bed, 2 wardrobes, and about 10 smaller items. These latter items we carry home ourselves, the rest is picked for us and delivered at about 4pm the same day. The whole trip to Ikea took a little more than an hour and a half door to door. Is it a record? We think it might be.
The newly delivered flatpacks just sit on the floor, because we are still working on the installation of the dryer and a shelf above the washing machine.

Rendering, day 1

Life intervenes on Tuesday, so it's all quiet on the eastern front.
Wednesday we are back into the get-up-early routine as the renderers come. Their work makes an enormous difference to how the back of the house looks. They are due back on Friday to finish off.
Meanwhile we contact the electrician, who promises to visit and check the circuit that tripped, although we haven't had a recurrence.