Be Excellent To Each Other

The tiles we've got at the moment are like these http://www.photoshoptextures.com/floor-textures/white-tile-texture.jpg and I want to put slate effect vinyl down over the top. Providing the vinyl is of decent thickness/has underlay that should be ok shouldn't it? The floor's fairly level and the ridges between the tiles we have in place at the moment.

Err, this is Beex.

We have done our kitchen up (it has taken a while) but looks loads better, and I can now do loads of stuff I hadn't done before, plumbing, tiling, grouting, shouting

Well, vinyl is always 2 or 3mm thick, and is glued down with no underlay, so you will be able to feel any ridges that are there now. But if it's reasonably smooth then it shouldn't matter too much.

I was going to go for slate effect stuff too

Ours is pretty much the same. On top of quarry tiles, there's a few edges visible, but it's warm underfoot. Warmer than the tiles anyway

I like the idea of DIY but haven't been quite brave enough to try much myself. As we lived in a flat I was reluctant to ,ess with anything that might affect people below us. I think in a house I would be much more bold.

In the flat I ripped out a brick fireplace and put in a new modern one, ripped out a fixed door (but got someone else to make good and hang the doors, changed lights and put up shelves, ran a few cables. All minor stuff.

My dad was really good at DIY. He built an upstairs extension (coming out from a sloped roof), knocked through walls, fitted central heating (pipes, boiler, radiators), rewiring, decorating, roofing, fixing cars, welding pretty much the whole lot really. He was an air conditioning engineer, so was used to doing things like that. I used to 'help out' but it was usually of the 'pass me that spanner/hold the hoover while I drill' type, so I can generally see and talk about what needs to be done but might not actually be able to do it myself.



Are you chucking it out? Just cut it up first with a new stanley blade. Watch your fingers (and your legs too if you're kneeling down).

Did you fit the flooring yourself or did Carpetright (or whoever) install it for you?

If a zombie had wooden flooring, would he put it down himself or get someone else to do it?

Carpet is really really thin and nasty - this is my mother's house, I rent it off her and she turned round and said "I'll replace it when your father replaces mine" and genuinely expected this carpet to stay clean - given that you couldn't even hoover it that was never going to happen. To keep the peace I said "the carpet's still there mum" when I put the lino down and she was happy. Now the flood happened I have the excuse I need to rip the fucking thing up and send her the bill for the new lino. I'm fitting it myself because this will give me major brownie points as my mother is into the whole women being self sufficient thing.

Renting of her seemed like a great idea at the time, now the house is falling to bits and she won't friggin' fix anything.

It was fitted by MEN who were subcontractors for Carpetright.

We had the kitchen floor and a bedroom carpet done at the same time and it only took about 45 minutes. Proper jahhhhb.

Actually thinking about it, I may derive a great deal of pleasure from attacking the floor with a Stanly knife while it's still down.

For the love of Pete, be careful! Wear gloves! And kneepads!

Yay, Dimmers' old sig!

Was that from anything?

I can't wait to sleep in your new kitchen. Lino over the tiles would be much warmer on my back.

From Blue Jam, a Chris Morris thing on radio 4 like a zillion years ago

Oh piss. I have Blue Jam, Jam and Jaaaaam. You'd think I would have recognised it.

You obviously did, subconciously
I think I had to ask too but I remembered the bit once it was explained.
The crazy welshmen?

Just removed old flooring an dI have officially never smelled anything so bad in my life. I was nearly crying as I tore it up it was that bad. The naked floor is covered in neat disinfectant right now. On the plus side I did not slice my hands up. New lino is here, unfortunatly the glue for it isn't yet.

Bad in what way - glue, or rot? If it's rot, and timber flooring, you may want to check it out before just putting the lino back down.

Rot and holyfuckidon'twanttoknow but the floor underneath is hard stone, not going to be putting new lino down untill I've disinfected and let it dry a few more times. Smell mostly went with the old flooring and it's warm enough to have windows and back door open.

Oh fine, if it's a concrete floor it's unlikely to be a problem.

Well, the decomposing bodies underneath are clearly rotting.

The unidentified nasty is probably the old glue or something nice and organic they used to stick the carpet down with.

The smell when we peeled our wallpaper in the living room was vile. Like rotten fish.

May be of interest:

http://www.npower.com/web/diyloftinsulation/index.htm

Insulation £3 per roll, delivered, with a free power monitor thing to sweeten the deal.

Does make a big difference if you don't have much right now. Worth doing even if you're renting, I reckon.

Don't reckon my neighboiurs would be too happy if I filled their flat with insulation (I want a house )

I'm most proud of changing the starter motor on the Ka, and replacing the filler-upper on the toilet.

I just inspected the worktops we've had delivered only to discover a massive scratch on one of them. Just as I was getting ready to phone the woodworkers for a whinge I realised that, as luck would have it, it is right where I'll be cutting out for the sink.

I hope Mrs Z doesn't replace me, it's what I do best.

Lucky, should phone them anyway and get some knocked off.

Not much more to do then eh if the tops are going on?

*gets dinner jacket dry cleaned*

And we're done:






Fucking knackered now.

Excellent job.

Looks lovely!

See you tonight. What are you cooking?

Gin and tonic.

Great stuff.

Looks really good! Makes me wish I had done a proper job on my kitchen now.

Well if it helps by the third week I was wishing I'd decided to just make a gash job of it instead. It's satisfying now, though especially after the shithole of kitchen we put up with for the last eight years. Also it turns out that dishwashers are made of win.

That looks brilliant, Mark.

Thanks, man. It's been a lot of hard work but yeah, well pleased with how it's turned out.

I had a dishwasher free with my kitchen but I sold it because I didn't have the space...

But yeah, the kitchen was the first thing we did in this house so it had to be done quick. Since I've done more jobs in the house, I've taken my time and made sure they're right.

The perils of second hand ownership. We got a very nice Dyson from a friend of my MIL and I was wondering why it didn't seem to defluffing the carpet that well. I flipped it over to check the gubbins and found the brush axle was completely encased in a twisted tube of hair. Nice.

It took me 20 minutes to cut it all away. Never had to give an appliance a haircut before.

I'd like to say that last week I did a fine job of fixing up some knackered skirting boards, thereby proving my theory that there is nothing that No More Nails and liberal amounts of decorators caulk can't make better.

I built a skirting board* out of polyfilla.

*filled a gap of about 3 inches

Remember this?


Well, it was fixed to this...


And then this...


...and is now awaiting a new grill. I like this DIY stuff.

And cheap cereal.

Good work!

L-LOL.

I see hands are tricky even for experiences crayon jockeys

I'm so glad.

My mind actually thought of spiders or tentacles emerging from that hole before it went to goatse.

I'm cured!

Ha! With a quick glance on my phone I thought it was a spider.

It's 'experienced', and, it wasn't a paid job.