Things I have learnt whilst renovating my flat: part 1

I am now *this* close to being finished, just waiting for a dry enough stretch for the builder to come finish the front of the house and tidy up some minor items on the snagging list. Since the last post the bathroom is done, the living room has been repainted (um, again, I changed my mind about the colour) and a fireplace installed along with two gorgeous rescue cats (PS the Celia Hammond Animal Trust could do with more good homes for their cats, go check them out).

Over the last year and a half there have been lots of big learning experiences (see posts on floor sanding and tile painting) and many more little ones. I’m collecting some of the little ones in these posts.

• Black floor tiles show up the dirt probably as much as white ones would. Got matte black tiles from B&Q for the kitchen, they look great when clean, but are mostly covered in little paw prints now and are quite hard to get looking really good again. Even when I do it’s fairly fleeting as more dirt is tracked in. I have settled for regular sweeping and less than perfection.
• Neutral colours on a oddly shaped room make it look untidy. I couldn’t make a decision when I first had the living room done so opted for whites and creams. It’s a tall room with a big bay window, fireplace and alcoves and a funny little cut out bit for the door and hallway. It’s a bit awkwardly shaped, really, and the whites just emphasised this and drew the eye to the clutter of the bookshelves and so on. I decided it needed to be brought back together and found a series of warm greens from Dulux, lighter above the dado rail and darker below. MUCH better. My mother commented that before it felt like the room was flying apart and now it’s coming together, which sums it up for me. I will post some pics later, I promise.
• Test wood stains/beeswax on a small area, really. I hate my bedroom door. I have new pine doors throughout the house which need treatment. Beeswax with a tint was recommended, and I went for “antique pine” to match floorboards. I thought it was going on a bit dark and oddly coloured, but persevered as I thought maybe it would look better when all covered. Er, no. Looks rubbish. It doesn’t help that I put it on too thick and didn’t scrub it in with wire wool enough, but even after a thorough going over it is still the wrong colour. May have a go at sanding it back some day, but I’m stuck with it for the meantime. Probably gonna go with plain beeswax or paint, and maybe get someone else to do it because it’s a right pain, I can tell you.

Designing my own bathroom tiles

Two of the finished hand-painted bathroom tiles

When I started trying to work out what I wanted for tiles in the bathroom, I realised (again) that trying to source something distinctive and pretty could work out very expensive. My favourites were these, from Fired Earth. Check out that price tag! £1000, yikes. I thought about more Morrocan style tiling, or ornate Victorian tiles, but couldn’t find anything I could afford.

“So how hard can it be to make my own?” I wondered. The answer, as it turns out, is “not as hard as you’d think”. As long as you can find a kiln, the materials are pretty inexpensive. You just need to find a design that is within your artistic ability, whatever that might be. Here’s how I did it.

I was fortunate enough to know an experienced ceramicist, Gill Palmer, so naturally sought her advice first. She pointed me in the right direction for tiles and other materials, and talked me through the process. Since I’d decided I just wanted flat tiles that I’d paint, I discovered there was no need to actually make my tiles from scratch, you can buy ready made “bisque” tiles at standard sizes.

I bought mine from Cromartie, a pack of 44 tiles for about £20 plus postage. They were very good during the order process, but less friendly and helpful when I had a query later on I’m sorry to say. Ah well. I ordered the paints, Amaco Velvet Underglaze, from Bath Potter’s Supplies. No complaints there, they were very helpful. These paints are about £4 a pot. After 9 tiles I’m not even half through one pot of the paint I’m using for the design, and am nearly through a pot of white I’m using to cover the background. So still looking pretty cheap!

Amaco velvet underglaze paint in Teal Blue

Note: you have to choose the colour of paints based on what colour it will *fire* to, rather than what it looks like out of the pot. Underglaze colours become more intense and darker once glazed and fired. You can see the comparison on the Bath Potter’s site.

For the designs, I used the wonderful sea creature images of Ernst Haeckel, adapting images from his books on Natural Forms and Radiolarians into line drawings. His images are complex and often multicoloured, but I just traced over them, simplifying them in the process, and then copied those tracings.

I had decided to paint about 30 tiles, and then dot them around in between plain white gloss tiles (the sort you get in big packs from DIY stores fairly cheap). I painted the background with about 3 layers of white underglaze to match those gloss tiles and then painted on my copied designs with a much thinner paintbrush. I liked to keep the brush pretty heavy with paint rather than try and do any fine details as it flowed easier. Worked fine as long as I kept things fairly simple (my attempts at complicated octopi were a failure, for example). The amount of paint used affects how dark the final colour which is something to keep in mind.

Here are some of the unfired painted designs on Twitpic, notice how the blue changes in the later fired tiles:

Once the first batch was done, I had to get them glazed and fired. There are a few places around that offer firing services, it’s worth checking with any local ceramicists. I originally found Jo Davies, who was very helpful and offered very reasonable prices for firing but lived just that bit too far away. Good for north London, not so much for me in the south. I then had a brainwave and called my local ceramics cafe, All Fired Up in East Dulwich, who were more than happy to help. They offer a firing service starting at only £4.50! They glazed them for me as well.

As an aside, I’d been before to All Fired Up to have coffee and paint their little dinosaurs and so on. I think it really helped to have a go before embarking on this tiling project; to get a sense of how the paint worked and how it looked after firing. I recommend trying this, even if you do go on to drop your hand painted polka dot mug and break it.

So, here is my first batch, fresh out of the kiln. Pretty pleased. You don’t seem to get a white that quite matches the even high-gloss white of shop-bought tiles, but I don’t think it will matter. Now I only have another 20 or so more to do…

First batch of fired tiles

Addicted to textiles (or how I can afford my vintage style designer fabric habit)

I love flowers and birds, what can I say?

Over the course of my renovation project I have been steadily developing a bit of a problem; a designer fabric addiction that threatened to seriously mess with my limited budget.

When I first started thinking about how I would decorate my flat, I decided (naively) that it would be good to keep decor neutral and use lots of interesting fabrics to brighten things up. I love unusual prints and patterns, especially florals, so this seemed logical. What I didn’t know was that good fabrics are actually quite expensive, especially when you are talking about the kind of quantities you need to, say, upholster a Chesterfield sofa, or make your own curtains for a large bay window (both foolhardy ideas I had at one point, but was forced to abandon due to expense/incompetance at sewing).

It took me a lot of research (googling) to come to this realisation, though, and in the meantime I learnt a few things. The first is that I have REALLY expensive taste in fabric, and became particularly obsessed by the florals and chinoiserie of royal warrant holders GP & J Baker. Just look at their Hydrangea Bird and Peony & Blossum fabrics! Not to mention Oriental Bird. Sigh. The second is that I can’t afford to buy any of these from the usual stockists. They all retail at about £80/metre (e.g. Kingdom Interiors or John Lewis), which soon adds up when you need about 10 metres minimum for your curtains. Ouch.

I also learnt that really nice fabrics do just cost a lot of money, and was very unimpressed by cheaper options out there. Places like B&Q manage to stock lots of nice wallpaper, for example, but largely horrible fabrics, especially if you are after a vintage look (like I was). And, let’s be honest, they have to be an awful lot cheaper that £80/metre to become genuinely affordable for large buys. I had high hopes for John Lewis, and had a rummage through their large fabric collection at the Oxford street store,  but wasn’t originally that taken with anything there either.

I did find a few tips for slightly cheaper places to buy designer fabric. Queenshill has some of the GP and J Baker stuff for more like £60/metre, as did Top Designer. There may be others, please share if you find them! Still, this was a bit pricey for what had now turned into my epic quest for amazing living room curtains in particular.

My next port of call was more successful though: Ebay. It turns out there are lots of people on the auction site selling remnants, “fat quarters” and offcuts of designer fabrics. So, I pored over the big designer stockist websites to learn about the kind of things I liked, but then searched for those names on ebay. For example, I’ve found Oriental Bird, Heron and Lotus Flower and others through people like AbFabs05, and Daarling! though the latter appears to have given up, which is a shame. There are also sellers, such as RedHoney66, who sell ready made cushions and the like in these beautiful fabrics, at pretty reasonable prices.

It’s not just about the one designer, though, along the way, I’ve found some lovely Designer’s Guild stuff, Romo, Lee Jofa and Sanderson have some interesting vintage-y prints, as do Jane Churchill and of course Liberty, all of which turn up on Ebay.

So, I’ve now built up quite a collection of offcuts, mainly GP & J Baker, which I bought for a fraction of their worth per metre on Ebay. Obviously none of these big enough to make my massive living room curtains, though I did pick up a large amount of vintage GP & J Baker Firebird for only about £30 which will make several smaller curtains or blinds. The other offcuts will be cushions, draught excluders, and maybe chair seats, so I can get that designer feel on smaller items. Well, that’s the idea, I think what has really happened is that I’ve become a slightly obsessive collector of these fabrics, which I just love to look at even if I never use them for anything.

One final option, if you are feeling very creative you could always design your own fabric and get it printed by someone like Spoonflower. I had a go at this for a sample and was really impressed with the quality of the print.

In case you are wondering, my curtain dilemma was solved, after a whole year of searching, by the appearance of Bayswater Gold on the John Lewis Made to Measure Curtain list, which I’d either missed or is new, and my wonderful new curtains arrived two days ago. My hunt for Peony and Blossum in the green colourway, or Hydrangea Bird on the yellow, though, still continues…

Twitterings (29 March 2010)

Some of the tips/thoughts that have appeared on my Twitter feed.

• Should really have learnt by now to bin cheap screws in packs of hooks etc, blunt & useless. Just wasted many min trying to use on door, duh
• Five of the best interiors blogs, article in today’s Guardian http://bit.ly/dmC2Go
• Awesome. Water coming thru kitchen ceiling from flat above, who are out.
• This on top of news that previous owner’s cowboy window installation (no lintels) means big disruptive building job next week.
• Better news, flat above in after all, just ignoring door. They are on the case…
• RT @Londonist: Tools for the Terrified sounds terrific http://bit.ly/dc9OPJ [it is, I went on it last year http://bit.ly/9YWY7J]
• About to go hand over a load of money to Bathstore. Exciting and yet also slightly painful.
• Oops, now with correct link: Free veg seeds from the BBC! http://bit.ly/bvpaOx

Back in business?

Laptop issues (coffee vs keyboard) and a lack of progress on the flat have meant no posts for a couple of months. However,  I should have a new laptop keyboard arriving this week, which will hopefully mean a blessed relief from using the immensely tedious on-screen keyboard (click…click….click .. “the”.. etc). Also, in the last few weeks my builder has been really busy, installing doors, repairing cowboy window jobs (no lintel! massive crack!), putting up lighting, loft ladders and making real headway with all the remaining works. We may even be starting on the bathroom next week, which is hard to believe. I had a minor setback last week when my upstairs neighbour’s bathwater made a break for it through my kitchen ceiling, but it’s not as disastrous as it could be.

I’m almost back in business then, and have all kinds of posts in my head ready to go just as soon as I can actually type these from home. I’m designing my own bathroom tiles, I hope, so will be blogging about that. I have a confession to make about my designer fabric habit, but also some tips.

In the meantime, if anyone has any good tips for salvage places in London (or online, I guess) that would do light fittings, from lamps to ceiling lights, that would be really helpful!

Varnishing the sanded wooden floors

I thought the floors looked pretty good after sanding, but with the varnish on they looked even better. It’s vital to protect the floors, but also seemed to help bring out the colour.

Varnished floor

I used Jenkins acrylic varnish in a Satin finish (satin is somewhere between gloss and matt, a pretty standard choice these days) which I ordered along with the sanding kit from Floor Sander Hire. I was warned off using a polyurethane varnish since it might discolour, and was also slower to dry. More info on why it might not be suitable, especially for pine floors, in this Wikipedia entry.

The first thing to do was clean the floors, mainly to get up the remaining dust from sanding. I hoovered and then wiped them down with a wet rag.

I then used a paint tray filled with the varnish, dipped a roller on a long arm into the varnish and then rolled it onto the floors. I worked up and down the boards, two boards at a time, backing myself towards the door so as not to end up marooned in the middle somewhere.

The mistake I made initially was worrying too much about how thickly I was putting it on. I kept trying to smooth out the bits which looked a bit white and gloopy, thinking it would dry that way, and ended up making it too thin. Doing it this way also took aaages, and I’ll probably need to add another layer at some point in the bedroom where it’s still too thin. My builder saw me doing this and put me right; it will dry clear, he said, so you can put it on a bit thicker than you might think and not worry about the odd white bits. He was quite right.

This varnish took about an hour to dry, though I left it overnight the first time. Three coats for heavy use areas, two for areas with less traffic, seems to be the consensus. Before putting down the final layer you need to go over the whole floor with fine (e.g. 120) sandpaper as the previous layers will have brought up the wood grain and it will feel quite rough. I don’t quite understand why this happens, but you really do need this final sand, it will feel much smoother after. You’ll feel it smooth out, it doesn’t take too long. I used a little electric hand sander for this, much easier.

That’s it! Doesn’t seem to be entirely scratch proof or anything like that, but is certainly preventing stains. As usual, please share your own tips in the comments.

(Previous post on sanding here).

Alcove shelving

Finished shelves

Another long post, but I’d never done this before, so learnt loads and I hope these tips will be useful. I’d also like to reassure the shelving newbie that this really isn’t that hard, and can be done without fancy power tools apart from a decent drill (which everybody really ought to have, so useful). There may well be a better handtool for this than a hacksaw, but it worked great for me, and my bigger saw turned out to be useless so we made do.

So, if you’ve been following me on twitter then you may noticed my manic weekend of shelving, curtain rails and general DIY. Since my parents were up for a few days, I used the extra pairs of hands to help me put up some much needed shelving in the alcoves on either side of the living room fireplace. In usual Fixing It Up fashion, this was a slightly trial and error process.

Buying timber

First job was to measure the space and calculate the size of shelves needed. I did this on my own, which was a bit tricky, trying to both keep the measuring tape in line and balance a spirit level. I recommend getting some help with this. Unless your alcoves are miraculously straight, I suggest measuring the front and back of the space, and the top and the bottom. Fortunately mine were only a few millimetres out so I just went somewhere in the middle, thinking I could plane off any extra wood.

I went into Whitten Timber to have a look what wood would best match the floorboards and decor in the room. Their pineboard was both the cheapest and best option, given the size it needed to be. They cut the wood to the measurements I gave them and delivered the board, along with the lengths of wood for battening (the wood pieces that hold the shelves up). Great service. I also have all the offcuts, which I’m sure will come in handy.

Putting up the shelving

Here is our first finished shelf:

Completed shelf; note 4 screws back, 2 each side and tapered edges on side battens.

We used battens on both sides AND at the back. For some situations this might not be necessary, but we knew that for the left alcove one side was going into plasterboard, so might not hold up too well. Plus, I was going to be putting heavy books and boxes on the shelves, and wanted to prevent them bowing in the middle over time.

Our process for each shelf was as follows:

1. PLANE THE BOARD

We discovered that one alcove had a slight bulge, which meant that the boards didn’t quite fit all the way in. We needed to lose some of the length off part of one end. I tried a rasping plane, a regular planer, sandpaper, files, but these were all useless against the grain of the pineboard ends. We were most successful just hacksawing it off and then smoothing with sandpaper.

2. CUT THE BATTENS

Cutting the battens

First we measured the back wall length and then cut a batten to that length (again, just using the hacksaw, very easy). We then laid that length against the shelving board, held the remaining batten wood against that and marked off the point where it came to the end of the shelf. Much easier than doing lots of measuring with the tape and introducing errors that way. At the cut point, I did a rough 45 degree cut backwards to get the tapered edge which looks better.

These back and side battens then became our reference for marking up battens for the rest of the shelves, and I was able to fairly quickly prepare the rest of the required pieces (more hacksaw!). My 45 degree cutting was mostly by eye, but it looks absolutely fine.

3. DRILL HOLES IN BATTENS

Drilling the batten holes

We figured that two holes on each side, and four on the back would be plenty. We’d taken advice at the DIY shop that 2inch screws would be fine. And that we could use a 5mm wood drillbit for this. We marked up the reference battens at even points, making sure the back one had two screws fairly close to the end, and then drilled through. Now, I don’t have a proper work bench, so we were a bit makeshift, using the offcuts to create a platform for drilling into. But it was safe, didn’t move about, and prevented damage to the floor.

We then used the hole positions in the reference battens to mark up the rest, and drilled all of those.

The next step is to use a countersink so that the screw head doesn’t stick out from the wood. There is a neat video about how to do this here. It’s pretty straightforward. Again, our slightly amateur trial and error efforts meant our countersinking was fairly uneven, but it looks absolutely fine so don’t worry too much about getting this perfect (life is short, you know).

4. PUT UP THE SHELVES

Marking up drill holes for back batten. Newspaper is our feeble attempt to prevent brick dust getting on painted mouldings.

Here’s what we did. First we put the back batten against the wall where I wanted the bottom shelf to be, and put a spirit level on top to keep it straight. When it was in the right place, we poked through the ready drilled holes with a bradawl and made as big a hole as possible to mark the right position and also provide a guide hole for the drill.

Then, removing the batten, we used a 6mm masonry drill bit and drilled the holes in the wall, using the hammer function on the drill. Take care here not to drill too far into the wall, it only needs to go just far enough to fit the rawlplug in. Then push raw plugs at the correct size (they are clearly marked) for the screws you are using into each hole.

Put the batten back in place, and screw through the holes into the rawlplugs until nice and tight. First batten done!

Back batten fixed, holes and plugs ready for side batten

We then put each side batten up against the back batten, using the spirit level again, and marked out the holes for these in the same way, repeating the whole process until we had all battens in place. Then we just popped the shelf on top. Success!

One exception – when we were drilling into plasterboard on one side. Then you may need to use special plasterboard plugs which butterfly out after being pushed through and secure themselves behind the board. This seems to hold pretty well.

Then it’s basically repeat process until you run out of room, or ladder. Nothing quite so satisfying as being able to finally unpack your books, believe me.

Update: my dad says I should point out how useless my original cheapish drill bits were. We had to go out and buy some decent ones, which made all the difference.

Twitterings (2 November 2009)

Some of the tips/thoughts that have appeared on my Twitter feed.

• Trying DIYtools.co.uk, rather than usual Screwfix: they were cheaper and had more stock. Plus 5% off with code diytools5 http://bit.ly/k8QHr
• Ooh, just found these cute little kitchen compost buckets from Garden Trading http://bit.ly/19axZp. But which colour? hmmm
• Catching up with old Observer mag with series of How to (put up shelves, maintain appliances etc) articles http://bit.ly/hhNAW
• Ah, I see, are extracts from Mend it! by Sian Berry http://bit.ly/kar8f Doesn’t look like it’s actually out yet.
• Just ordered loads of pineboard direct from timber merchants for shelving. I really REALLY hope I calculated cuts etc correctly, eek.
• Timber arrived. Fits fine, maybe a weeny bit of planing needed on one side. Phew. From Whitten timber http://bit.ly/ym3rZ Good service.
• http://twitpic.com/l00zq – First shelf up! So pleased. Despite comedy of errors we are learning quickly
• Curtain rails up; not too difficult given the height. Fridge/freezer door reversed; absolute pain, thanks Indesit 😦
• RT @JanetStrath: Some dodgy DIY for the weekend: http://thereifixedit.com/
• http://twitpic.com/m9sla – Lovely wooden wormery, £10 from Southwark council (if you are a resident).
• http://twitpic.com/m9spy – And now with happy worms! Not allowed food for a week though apparently. Seems harsh.

Sanding the floors

Close up on the living room floor

There are many ‘how to sand’ articles and videos around on the web which are great on the ‘best case scenario’ version of this process. However, this wasn’t enough for my tricky old floorboards, warped and full of nails and screws, so I’m hoping that others in the same situation will find my experience useful.

My first tip: don’t leave yourself only three days to do the sanding and varnishing before you have to move in if you have three rooms to complete. It is REALLY hard work, and even quick drying varnishes take up time. I only just made it, and that’s with my builder helping out.

Before sanding

When I pulled up the carpet in the flat, some very dirty floorboards were revealed, with ugly cuts created when work had been done around the radiator and so on.

This is the living room floor before sanding. Note the cuts and edges all lined up

This is the bedroom before sanding, more cuts near the far wall.

My builder suggested that he pull up the boards and rearrange them, moving the edges out of line with each other and therefore lessening their impact. This has made a BIG difference, most of those cuts are barely noticeable now. The only slight problem was that he had to use some of the boards from the hallway as replacements, and then replace those with new board. I haven’t finished the hall floors yet, so I’m not sure how that’s going to look when finished.

Preparing the boards

Everything you read about sanding online (e.g. http://www.floorsanderhire.com/process.php) will tell you that preparing the floorboards is hugely important. This isn’t the whole story, as I’ll explain, but is indeed a massively important step. The main thing is to countersink any nails, screws or other mystery metal pieces (I had a lot of these) through the board below the surface level. Otherwise you will destroy the sander belts when they run over spiky objects. This will quickly prove very expensive, and very tedious.

I used a club hammer and a nail punch, but my inexperience and fear of slamming the hammer into my hand was a bit of an issue here. There were many remaining nails that I just couldn’t get to shift, but which my builder had no problem with. It just needed a lot more welly than I could give it, disappointingly. Might be worth getting someone totally fearless and very strong to help out here!

If you have loads of nails and screws and very dirty boards, as I did, you may still miss some metal bits during this process. My builder had a handy tip to solve this, using the sander, which I’ll share in a moment.

Hiring a sander

I used Floor Sander Hire, in London. Their prices seemed reasonable, and from what I can tell they had some really good kit. I asked for their advice about which package I should get over the phone, and I went for the one with the upright continuous belt sander (or drum sander), edge sander, and a corner sander, and with a full range of belts. This turned out to be perfect for my needs – no stairs, but lots of corners! They also sold me the satin varnish, which was very handy.

They turned up at the right time to deliver the kit and varnish, gave me a full demo, and picked the kit up when they said they would, so I have absolutely no complaints with their service. The kit itself wasn’t too difficult to use, and the bags were good for collecting dust. In particular, the upright belt sander had a sort of clutch which lifted the belt at the end of each run, a really useful feature.

The sanding process

The classic instructions for this are something like those on the Floor Sander Hire website:

“Use a coarse p24 sanding belt to level and clean the floor boards then use a p40 and p80 medium sanding belt afterwards to smooth floor. (If you are not filling gaps, proceed with p120 sanding).”

Other sites and books I’d read suggested going diagonally across the room first, using the p24 sanding belt, to level the boards, and then up and down with the medium and then fine paper.

I started this way, but I soon hit nails that I hadn’t spotted before, and wrecked my first belt. Seeing this, my builder showed me a trick. Taking the upright belt sander, he loosely and quickly swept it over the whole floor, trying not to press down hard. Sort of like doing a super quick hoovering job. The belt caught the tops of the nails and varnished them, exposing the bright metal. After doing this, I could suddenly see all the nails that had been invisible before, and went around once more banging them all in. You don’t have to go too crazy with this, by the way, the metal just has to be a little under the surface.

Now I could start properly. The bedroom wasn’t too bad, didn’t need much levelling, and I did this in the suggested way. In some places the dust was ingrained in dips and dents, and I used the corner sander here as it has a narrow belt that can work into cracks. The bedroom, which appears to be a newer reddish pine, came up like this:

Close up on the bedroom floor, sanded and varnished

The living room was a different story, though. The original boards were still in place, but over time they had raised up at the edges. This left them dipped in the middle and requiring much more diagonal levelling with the coarse paper, before you could even get the sander to hit the middle when using it lengthways.

Belt sander and edge sander. Nearly there with the floors but still more work to do.

Unfortunately, it was hard to prevent the sander from scoring the wood in some places, especially where the floor itself rose by a few inches. The good news is that it really doesn’t look too bad after varnishing, the scoring is evened out in colour and hardly notices. Again, the corner sander was useful for digging out damaged and dented bits. The finished boards look like this, imperfect but full of character. I love the way this looks.

The living room, sanded and varnished.

The hallway was too narrow for the belt/drum sander, so we used the edger for the whole thing and I had to accept that it was going to be less than perfect. The edger worked well enough, though it hasn’t really levelled it. I don’t think it matters that much, really.

I did no gap filling, by the way, I didn’t think it was necessary, and I had neither the time or the inclination. Next I had to varnish the floors, but I’ll leave that for another post, I think this one is long enough!

Other tips:

Using the sanders with bags worked really well for keeping the dust down, making some of the advice you see about painting before sanding to avoid painting over dust stuck to the wall rather redundant.

You really have to keep the sander moving, the edge sander in particular is really fierce and will score or burn the wood if you leave it in one place for even a short while. It’s nearly impossible to get rid of this scoring once it happens. As mentioned, though, the varnish helps a lot so don’t panic if you do leave a mark.

Mind the pipework! The edge sander can go right through a radiator pipe, so steer clear and use the corner sander carefully around these bits.

I think that’s it, please share any tips of your own in the comments.

UPDATE: Post on varnishing the floors is now here.

https://fixingitup.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/varnishing-the-sanded-wooden-floors/

Twitterings (21 September 2009)

Some of the tips/thoughts that have appeared on my Twitter feed. Will regularly collate them in this way for anyone who isn’t quite as obsessed with Twitter as I am.

• More worktop tips from my builder: apply danish oil with cloth but work into surface with fine steel work for best finish. Looks good!
• Testing out the new washer/dryer, finally installed, a Hotpoint BHWD129 which came highly recommended. Will report back…
• OK, belated report on the Hotpoint BHWD129, works well, super quiet, maybe a bit slow?
• Another cautionary tale – check the serial number *before* installing appliances, you will need this when registering for guarantee!
• Why *before*? Because it seems the serial number is usually on the back. Wish I’d thought of this before installing washing machine.
• Just had lovely tallboy, answer to my bedroom storage issues, delivered by The Restoration in Stoke Newington http://bit.ly/5RTC2 Impressed.
• Drill review – handy, cd do with cordless one: RT @davesdiytips: Which battery drill do you choose for DIY in the homehttp://bit.ly/Iq3WP
• Wardrobe went from this: http://bit.ly/FtPkJ To this: http://twitpic.com/ifx27 (Details of colour etc in twitpic caption)

And finally:

• Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent http://tinyurl.com/o52w3r RT @LucyGoodchild 🙂 !