Be Excellent To Each Other

Don't make an excuse, you big softie. It's actually really nice when you can see and understand a person beyond a persona.

Shut up, we have internet personae for good reasons, you idiot.

The boiler will only respond for demand for heating for about 90 minutes after it has been power cycled. Given it makes stuff hot and the thermostat on the wall is new, I suspect I need to change the PCB and thermistor. Which is about £100. If that doesn't work then I will probably get a man in.

sounds like a safety cut off, check that first. They can get faulty over time.

Mini-diy update: I finally got fed up enough with the amount of light getting into my bedroom at night, so I slung some blinds up.

From this:



To this:



Now we just need to see how well it works at nighttime.

(Yes, the old curtains are tucked behind the blind. It looks odd but gives maximum light protection. I may take a staple gun to the fucker around the bottom)

I'd imagine that would work quite well at night seeing as it'll be dark outside... Just a thought.

Wait... What? You put the blind over the top of the curtains?

I spent a big chunk of the weekend preparing the box room for its transformation into a proper Man Cave. I have: demolished an old built-in cupboard (built in with 8 inch screws. I mean WTF?), lifted the carpet and underlay, fixed the squeaky floorboards, stripped the wallpaper and sanded, filled and washed the walls.

Still to do: Lining paper, laminate floor, paint lining paper, install blind, put up posters of ladies with no clothes on*

* that last one is subject to approval.

Yes, the old curtains are tucked behind the blind. It looks odd but gives maximum light protection. I may take a staple gun to the fucker around the bottom.

I have recently paid a fortune to have blackout blinds fitting in both mine and the kid's windows. BEST THINGS EVER.

Really? It only involved four holes (and some cutting, but that's because I was too tight to have them made the right size, to be fair).

Ikea do cheap and effective blackout blinds, that can also be used as very cheap projector screens

Blinds on top of curtains is... interesting, i'll give you that.

The pro blackout blinds have channels down the side don't they? No side bleed. The ones I installed in the kids rooms have no such frippery and stop most of the light.

Have visions now of these blackout blinds whirling around in your window alcoves.

They could easily go behind them, but more light gets in. They don't need to be pretty!

Is the name of your sex tape.

These were made to the right size to fit inside the window, fitted (which in itself would have been a twat because I have ridiculously hard-to-drill concrete walls)

I did buy some IKEA blinds but they'd have had to sit on the outside, or cut down to fit and that's just too much faff.

Shut up I'm tired

Is the deeply disturbing name of your sex tape.

I made some curtains with blackout linings for our bedroom a couple of years ago and they really do make an amazing difference.

I have just bought some new fabric to make a new pair, as I've seen some fabric that will look lovely once finished, but the old set will also be perfect in the nursery.

I ordered the blackout lining yesterday (10m... Anyone who has been to our flat would agree that it is mostly made of window...) so I'm looking forward to getting those made and moving the 'old' ones into the other room. We've been decorating in the nursery all weekend. I have completely re-painted to freshen it up, Russell has done all the gloss work (talking of which, has the formula of gloss paint changed a lot in the last 10 years? It seemed to have no noticeable smell of fumes... I remember having to cut onions and place them around the room to get rid of the smell (it didn't actually get rid of it, just covered it over with the smell of onion.

I've ordered a huge whale mural vinyl sticker set from Mothercare, and we have a load of whale/nautical themed things to go in once it is finished, including a couple of quilts i am making with whales and narwhals forming the quilt block.

Got the large chest of drawers built, which should be the only fiddly piece of furniture to deal with. It's all so pretty, lighthouses and whales everywhere

So, next up is a few more rows of whales on the quilt and to get those curtains done, but it will totally be worth it.

I too have thought that about gloss paint.

Still hate painting with it though...

Yes it has. Something to do with volatile chemicals and the environment. You can of course buy acrylic based gloss nowadays which doesn't really smell at all. The worst paint is floor paint though, you need to wear a vapour mask if you're using that.

How is the arm these days btw?

I got three of the neighborhood children (friends of my brother) to paint the floor when I was in London. They did a great job and didn't want anything for it, and they thought it was fun.

Now I see why...

Short answer is "getting there". I can work again, but not full time. I currently have about 50% flexibility in my wrist and strength in my hand, but my wrist is weaker. Strength will come back entirely, flexibility is likely 90-95% but that's going to take a few more months of physio. Thanks for asking.

We took the roof off our house the other week. Not the whole roof, just the tiles, felt and battens. Boring building control reasons as to why, but now it has a layer of insulation over the rafters, breathable membrane, counter battens, tile battens, six roof lights and tiles to half of the roof. I spent the last two days off work tiling and putting flashings on around the roof lights. Biggest DIY project I ever want to do...

Aw man... I painted a room and just put up a whale mural... and now that feels significantly less awesome than someone who has re-roofed their house.

Well done on super-big diY.

Why does the back bedroom often smell strongly of soot and smoke? We have not had a fire in forever and next door are all gas. The chimney flue that runs through the room is not used But joins in the loft with the flue that does (think an upside down Y).

Ghosts.

Is there a ventilation brick somewhere in the room?

Not that I am aware of. It is wallpapered, though.

If there's a chimney breast there should really be a vent brick.

In the room or the bit where the chimney is?

In the room. It's to vent damp that builds up in the sealed off chimney breast. They're usually on the side.

Question: if I'm a moron (I am) how easy would it be to change my shower (electric to another electric)?

Get a man in. The plumbing will be the trickier bit to do without destroying your house, and I'm pretty sure bathrooms are one of the areas where you aren't legally allowed to touch electrics.

Gotcha. You probably just saved my life.

I think Joans is an electrician. He might be able to give you some advice?

If the shower is "like for like" then it's non-notifiable work.
If you do get a true like for like, then you shouldn't have to do much plumbing, other than turn water off, disconnect old, connect new, turn it back on.

In the interests of you not flooding your house and/or killing yourself, get someone in to do it. Actually, you're not that far from me, are you...

My brother is giving me the new one but i ain't seeing him for a little while yet. I might have a look at both insides to see if they match up. I'll post picks! Then I'll mysteriously stop posting...

We swapped a 20yo power shower for a brand new one recently, it wasn't especially difficult. The old pipes were concealed and came in at the back of unit and couldn't be adjusted or connected on to without hacking it all out so we put surface mounted chrome ones down the wall to feed in through the top, instead.

It you do DIY, make sure you have someone checking the connections when you turn the water back on, if you have to run room to room yourself, you'll have 100 litres of water everywhere before you get it turned back off again.

Before and after roof pics. Or after and before...

Doesn't look like much but it's now chimneyless and 4" higher than before. Each tile was wire brushed before going back on, which was incredibly therapeutic, actually.

Showers are pretty easy. Turn the power off, though!

I will check in loft. Ta. If not, I will make one.

These fucking things look easier to put up than they are.



Especially with the shit that Wicks' have the gall to call Rawl bolts (and a stepladder that's too short, but that's not Wicks' fault).

I have a tarmac drive that's edged with (one deep) brick sets between this and the boarders

At some point one of us pushed about 10 bricks forward with the car and they have been moving into the borders more and more since

I've always put it off and told myself I will get the guy over the road to look at it (who does drives etc for a living)

Yesterday I was weeding at the front and just decided to sort it out, took me about 10 minutes.

Looks ok as well, you wouldn't know a rank amateur has been anywhere near it!

This is sort of DIY. I've got a few prints I want to put up on my living room walls. They're just wee paper prints in cardboard frames so there's no weight in them at all so proper picture hooks would seem like overkill. But any kind of 'sticky' hanging material (Blutak or whatever) would probably bugger up the paper/paint on the wall a bit which isn't ideal; especially as I might want to move them around a bit to get them best placed. What does the hivemind recommend for this kind of thing?

A shelf

Actually I should've probably just Googled it as this seems to fit the bill.