The Spare Room Part II

A big day today as the carpet has been fitted in the spare room. Since the last post we have been decorating. Both walls and ceilings have had three coats of paint, with a bit of filling and sanding before that. Just finished the final coat, last night about 9.00pm and opened a bottle of wine at 9.01pm.

The next job is to make a door and box in the hot water tank. Will probably do this with some reclaimed timber (soonish).

Also move in the first bit of furniture. Paula's aunt gave us an old chest of draws. It was nice but a bit too yellow, so got the belt sander out. Paula did try paint stripper a while ago on one of the draws but it was too slow and expensive. Anyway after an hour or two of sanding, soak it all in woodworm killer. When this had dried, rubbed in some furniture oil.

Will replace the knobs with some others as I can't be arsed to sand them (it would take an age). With that all done I can start thinking of the camper again and get this blog back on track.

The Spare Room

Unfortunately I have had to put the camper on hold for a while, as finishing the spare room is taking all of my camper building time. About five years ago I rebuilt the front of our old cob cottage because it was falling down. The spare bed room was never finished (along with some other bits) and am trying to have a push to complete the house over the next two years. A lot of renovation has been done but with work and stuff I lost momentum and it came to a bit of a halt.



The room use to look like this, nice eh! The A frame truss had broken and the roof was also collapsing pushing out the front wall (which typically had next to no foundation). The wall was rebuilt on a decent foundation with cob blocks and the building was re roofed. Most of the house was finished bar the dining room and spare bedroom(and some odd bit here and there).

So back to the spare room, first I had to finish some walling that was left and then, re plaster the whole room.
All the plastering is traditional lime plaster and takes a while to cure. The walls had two back coats and a finish coat. There was about seven days between coats.

Before the final coat on the front wall could be done I needed to fit the window board and wooden shelf. I wanted to make these out of local oak so went of to see my mate Dan who works with it to make timber frame building so has a good stock.

First I trimmed off the sap wood and cut it to size

Then planed and sanded for half a day to get a decent finish

Was a bit tricky to get in the room.

And here it is fitted.



Also made a window cill.





Did the final bit of plastering today and now it just needs decoration.



Oh and a door making.

Dam Work

After a week of quite good weather, I have been thwarted with making progress on the camper due to work commitments. Plus my spare room which has been waiting 5 years for a coat of plaster or two. But despite this I manage a couple of hours this morning. Spent most of the time removing old rusty screws from bits of aluminum profile, that I need to re use for attaching the cladding to the frame. All this is not very exciting or photogenic but has to be done.

I did though get the base in position. It is a very durable and water resistant plyboard used for shuttering concrete formwork. It will be just the job for the base.

Did a bit more timber stud work too, but need some more of the self taping screws before I can do much more. I am also having a bit of a problem sourcing the dimpled aluminum to clad the sides, so may have to change to something else.

To make up for doing the dull stuff thought I would get the door frame in position. Will probably make another door but the frame is good. Well thats about it, will have to do a bit on the spare room tomorrow but may get a bit of time in the afternoon to get some more bits.