Be Excellent To Each Other

We've been re-decorating our bedroom after the roof leaked. Thought I'd brighten up the furniture, can't be believe the difference it's made. Here's a before and after of the bedside tables.

Yeah, that antique pine looks great. Good find getting the matching handles.

My wife often returns from carpenter remarking what a difference a change of knob can make. Can't wait to see this cabinet, it has been 4 years in the making.

It shouldn't have done as it was a painfully obvious joke.. but yeah, that made me chuckle. Good work sir.

Did he manage to get her drawers from sticking?

Right. I have a programmable thermostat on the wall. It connects to the boiler.

I have a Nest. There is the square bit and the round bit. Which bit replaces the programmable thermostat?

The square bit wires into the boiler and the mains. The round bit replaces the thermostat.

The giveaway is it having a screen.

You're mixing electricity and gas, have you considered reading the instructions if not getting a gassafe person in (you're taking the cover off, you may need one)?

What version of Nest? Sine need to work with your existing gear.

Watch YouTube videos, that's what I did.

I've been remodelling my sitting room. The bottom picture is the "before" pic. Click the images and they appear the right way up.

I tore out all the existing cabinets (recycled all the birch ply into the new stuff) as the tall cabs in the middle of the room were >60cm deep and had a single depth of books, DVDs and CDs in them, so were a huge waste of space. I also took the curtain away and put frosted glass units over the windows, that hinge open and have blinds inside.

It's almost finished, just a ton of snagging to do this week.

£90 is sorting this issue

Looks good! You've got some serious talent

Very smart!

£90 sounds spenny. If you buy nest with install it’s £60 mark up. Strangely it’s £160 markup with amazon, but the equipment is £30 cheaper.

Oh, that’s beautiful. I love those frosted panels, the light is bright and diffused and gorgeous. Have you stained those cabinet doors slightly different pastel shades? They are pretty.

Yes. I used very dilute oil paint. It appears that you can’t get coloured stain other than hideous faux wood shades.

Yeah, but we've had it for ages. We should get boiler serviced, whilst I think of it.

I’ve seen a few pastels at Ikea over the years, but there’d likely not be the palette you were after. They look so beautiful. The whole room looks stunning.

I like everything about the light fitting. Tres 70s chic.

Those cabinets look amazing though, seriously well done. And the window gives so much more light, it looks great. I also love the subtle pastel shades of the doors.

Absolutely amazing job!

In fairness - isn't that because the curtains are shut in the "before" picture?

Technically, opening the curtains counts as "DIY".

That curtain was never opened. Ever.

Frickin air bubbles! Wallpapering is fucking *hard*!

Had some quotes. Looking at £2k to pull down a wall, RSJ it and brick up a doorway, the £4.5k to pull out old kitchen and it in new one. That sound about right?

If it's a £4.5k kitchen then it's a fair price, if it's a £2k one, not so much. The rest sounds pretty reasonable, though.

Sound ok. If you’re having a new sink fitted, spend decent money on the sink and the taps. It’s worth it in the long run especially with taps and the trap.

The re-purposing of the unused space at the back of our dining room has begun!

Starting with the most obvious bits, obv.





Then this happened

What is happening there?

Not sure what you're referring to, so:
Whole post: I'm turning the back of our dining room (which has traditionally been use to store rubbish) into a games room
Shelf of board games: This is a shelf of board games, which used to just be in a pile. I can't buy many more.
TV: That's the new TV, which is on an identical set of shelves, just on their side
Progress bar: That's the new PS Pro copying a tiddly amount of data from the current Playstation, over a gigabit connection. Look at it (not) go!

318gb is hardly tiddly. Not huge, but hardly floppy disk sized

Ah right, it was the progress bar that I didn't understand.

16 hours, though?!

Is it still going?

It took around eight hours, in the end.

What are you going to do with all your extra time?

Do it again!

There's going to be some disappointed people on Christmas Day, when they turn on their ps pro and so do 100000 other people and they all try to download 318GB from Sony's servers at the same time.

That's not from Sony, that's from my other PS4, which it was plugged into with a chunk of cable.

What? Why the fuck was it so slow?

That's what I was saying!

The element has gone on my oven. Last time this happened, I paid a man £60 odd to fix it. This time, I've ordered the element for £31 and I'm going to do it myself.

Join me tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of this epic tale.

MAKE SURE THE POWER'S OFF!

Buy some spade connectors.

Shouldn't the element already have those attached? I don't think the man that fixed it last time needed any but nevertheless, I shall investigate when the element turns up tomorrow.

No, the oven will have them attached, but they're often thin and rubbish and break.

Ah right. Gotcha! There's a hardware shop just round the corner from me so I will have a look tomorrow.

If I wanted to re-seal the bath, how long do I need to leave the water in?

Got the man coming tomorrow at 2:30 to take pics of the house. If I removed and re-sealed tonight would I be able to empty the bath before his arrival tomorrow?

24 hours, used to be.

You can get faster curing sealant. I tend to use CT1 rather than silicone nowadays. It's more expensive, but much easier to work with than silicone and cures much faster. Get yourself some wonder wipes as well; they're excellent at getting sealant off your hands.

Good to know! Our bath seems to have been caulked or grouted rather than siliconed, and it's relentlessly flaking out.

CT1 is amazing stuff. It’s actually an adhesive first, but works much better than silicone as a sealant and will even cure underwater. It’s a damned impressive adhesive as well — I’ve successfully stuck a ceramic hand basin to a tiled wall. It’s that kind of impressive.