mattnewton.co.uk

I’ll spare you from the pictures, but suffice to say that I completed my office whilst I was on holiday. It looks good, if I say so myself and that hole where the plug used to be is no more. In fact, if you didn’t know it had ever been there, you wouldn’t know where to look.

The new lights are up (and are responsible for heating the room to almost 30°c, which is unfortunate, but to be expected from 4x 50W halogen spots, I guess - mental note, must get a dimmer switch), the wooden floor’s downm thanks to my dad (I’m about as useful at cutting stuff as I am at following directions), all my cables are hidden (apart from the one I broke whilst laying it under the floor, but we’ll not talk about that one!) and I’ve added a piece to my desk to hide all my cables - which has had the nice effect of stopping it from wobbling from side to side, which is good.

Now then - watch this space for the changes in the kitchen. All I have to do is finish it off this weekend and the job’s done. Then start on the nursery…

Update - 29/12/2004:
I know I said I’d spare you the pictures, but here’s one anyway:

It’s just a shame that the audio cable (seen here in black) that I laid uner the flooring (down the side of the edging) must have got whacked at some point and it produces a loud hum. It’s now been cut off and I’ve got a new one, which I’m going to run up into the loft and behind all the furniture, so it’ll never be noticed. In theory.

Oh, and if you look carefully behind the right hand valve of the radiator in this picture (click the picture to enlarge it), you’ll not be able to see the hole in the wall I referenced earlier. I thought it would never cover up, but a bit of sanding sorted that out in the end.

Following on from my previous entry, I decided that Polyfilla just wasn’t going to do it - and I couldn’t be bothered cutting pieces of wood to fit into the hole to pack it up. So, off I went yesterday evening to B&Q to get some ready-mixed plaster and a plasterer’s trowel. What a good investment.

After a bit of sanding down the Polyfilla from where the plug socket used to be, I put a blob of plaster on the trowel and packed it in to the hole. It did the job and it hasn’t fallen out! I picked up a good tip off the internet to help the plaster dry smoother - and that was to run the trowel under hot water and then run it over the plaster to smoothen it out - it worked.

Pleased with this, I came downstairs and started to plaster the channel in the utility room wall where the electrician had put a cable for an outside light. As you can see, a neat job, I think you’ll agree.

So, there’s another thing I can add to my list, but I think I’ll leave the ceiling to the professionals.

Now all I have to do is wait for it to dry, seal it and sand it (or at least I think that’s the order I have to do it in).

I may have mentioned this before, but when we moved in here, there was a plug in my room (my office) that was, how shall we say… put in very poorly. (It was a metal-faced double plug without a backing plate (and therefore, I assume without an earth. Drilled down and eventually popping outside underneath the porch and then drilled into the hallway was the crappy piece of 13A flex that it was on). Not safe in my books. As a temporary measure, I took the metal socket off and put in a metal backing box and a proper plastic double socket. I’m no electrician, but it worked.

Anyway, once we had the electrician put all things right and do some other electrical-type jobs that needed doing, we removed the dodgy wire leading from downstairs to my office (via outside and a bit of jiggery pokery as it would appear) and made the socket inactive. Now I have the job of filling it up before I decorate next week. Easy job…or so I thought.

Well, as you can see, I’ve tried to fill the hole with Polyfilla. At first I put a nice thin layer in so that it would stick to the breezeblock at the back. Once this dried, I put on a second later, this time disregarding the instructions not to lob in too much at a time.

Over 24 hours later, and what should set in 2 hours has still not set. So I’ve pulled out all of the stuff that hasn’t set and I’m leaving it to dry for another night.

After speaking with Bob, what I need to do is cut up some old pieces of wood and knock them into the hole to avoid putting too much filler in there. Once that’s done, I can fill over the surface of the wood and sand down where necessary.

Now there’s another job for me while I’m off next week - sanding. I’ve bought a Black & Decker sander for all the bits that need doing. I don’t know what the previous owners did to my wall to make it need loads of touch-ups, but it’s certainly going to keep me busy for a while before I can paint the room.

More on the big hole in the wall later. Once it’s filled I’ll take another picture and then see if we can see it once it’s sanded and emulsioned over. I do hope not.

When we moved in, there was a BT Master socket in the living room, an extension in the hallway and from there, along with a badly wired electrical cable, it went into the wall, outside under the porch, hidden behind a baton of wood and then drilled into my “office” at just above floor level. Trouble is, I think the old geezer had used pretty cheap extension cable and he hadn’e left enough slack.

Normally this wouldn’t fuss me too much, but as I’m now on ADSL and not NTL’s broadband service, I want to make sure that my cables are in top condition. So, I spent all of last Sunday rewiring all of the extensions and pulling out the mess that had been trailling up the outside wall.

It’s fun lifting the floorboards. I could tell that they had never been lifted since they were laid initially, as the one near the radiator must’ve been put in as the pipes were laid, as the pipe came up through a little hole in the floor board. A sharp knife and a series of different shaped screwdrivers soon sorted that and it was lifted in no time.

Once I’d lifted the floor, it was clear to see that once upon a time, there had been an issue with thr radiator, or at least a leaky pipe. Mental note: Go easy around the pipework.

As I’m not a fan of having cables on show, I was wondering what else I could hide under the floor (I mean cables). I decided against putting any other cables under the floor (for now) and I’d just stick with the phone cable.

So, after a series of knocking on the ceiling and listening under the floorboards, I determined that where I wanted it to go, there were no inhibitors (pipes, cables, etc) - although at one point, I did think I may have hit the soil pipe - a run of taps, a quick measure out and a small waiting game confirmed that I was nowhere near it. So, I went downstairs and drilled a small hole in the very corner of the hallway ceiling and pushed the phone cable up.

You’ll see how I tidily drilled a neat hole with one of those odd-shaped sharp drill bit thingies that makes nice holes and then passed the cable through and up to the skirting board, where I’ve taken it underneath the skirting board until it comes out near my desk.

Anyway, it’s a nice tidy job and I have plenty of slack should I decide I want to have my socket elsewhere.

Today’s job (19/09/04) was to put an aerial in the loft for my Freeview box and sort out the satellite cables. I spent most of the evening in the loft - the cables are all done and the aerial is up and is spot on. I, however, am covered in nasty loft insulation which itches and prickles like I don’t know what. Trouble is that you can’t see the damn stuff and you go and put your arm down and of it goes.

I always say that I should wear something with long sleeves and get a mask for when I go in the loft. Trouble is, I never remeber.

Most of the electrician’s work is now done, which means that after Vic’s parents have visited us again the week after next, I can start decorating. Now, which room should I do first…?