Week One hundred and one

Week beginning 6th May 2024.

It’s the early May Bank Holiday and we are feeling a bit fragile after a bit too much celebrating Steve’s retirement. It ended up being a very late night for us.

Our friends Paul and Kate have come for a visit, so we are taking the day off to enjoy spending time with them, and they have brought the sun with them.

Kate is an open water swimmer so we are taking a walk up to a local pool to show her.

Kate loves the pool so she is committed to coming back later in the summer to take a dip with us.

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It’s Tuesday so we are back at work. Our plan is to fix some more of the larch to the top of the mezzanine walls and to cut the angle on the piece that meets the top of the return staircase.

Molly is burning some more of the larch to get the Shou Sugi Ban effect.

We now have to tackle one of the most complicated larch boards, the one that runs along the east mezzanine wall and meets the board that runs up the staircase wall. We need to establish the angle where they meet. This is complicated by the fact that the top of the wall is not quite square.

We are doing some test cuts using spare bits of larch. It has taken a few goes but we think we now know what to do so we just have to go for it and hope we don’t make a mistake.

Our cut is basically good but we need to sand it down a bit to match the join more accurately.

A lot of the finishing work we are doing confronts us with our earlier mistakes and we need to find solutions to make everything look good and not be an ongoing thorn in our sides. Luckily we are getting quite good at this type of problem solving, even if it is a pain.

We are cutting the spindles for the gaps in the mezzanine walls. Each spindle must be centred at no more than 90mm for safety reasons so we have a lot of spindles to cut to size.

It’s such a beautiful sunny afternoon so Molly is doing a bit of gardening now and Pete is cleaning the caravan. It’s amazing how moss accumulates on caravans in Scotland, so cleaning the caravan is quite a big job. Doing the gardening is a big job too, we have loads of docks and stones to clear so we think it is a little and often type of task.

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We are starting the day by measuring up how much timber we will need to finish the skirtings and to fit the spindles.

Des, the pumber, has popped round to do the wee bit of snagging we asked for and to reclaim his blow torch, that we have been using for the Shou Sugi Ban effect.

Now we are off to Oban to meet Jef and swap nail guns, he borrowed our framing gun and we borrowed his finishing gun. It makes so much sense to share tools. In Portobello, where we used to live, they have a tool library. A fantastic resource that lots of communities would benefit from.

We are also picking up the timber for the spindles, we will wait until later to get the skirting timber because it will just warp and cup if we leave it in the house until we can get Jef’s nailgun again. We can also pick up the 14mm drill bit for the spindle holes.

As usual we do our weekly shopping and Pete gets a haircut.

Pete’s mum has just called to say that Pete’s Swiss uncle Hugo has died. It is very sad, Hugo was so kind to Pete when he was a child and took him in his lorry around Switzerland, a brilliant thing for a wee boy to experience. Pete has such fond memories of Hugo and he’ll miss him.

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Today it’s work of a different kind, we need to go to Edinburgh to pick up the underlay for our bamboo flooring. We had to get it delivered to our son Eddie in Edinburgh because to get it delivered here would have cost nearly £150, about the same as the underlay.

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Our plan today is to fit the spindles and fix them to the top of the mezzanine walls. Before we commit to our plan we are doing a wee test with the spindle off-cuts and drilling holes into wood scraps.

Arghhh! Our plan isn’t going to work because we will need to drill the holes very accurately and perpendicular to the timber. This is impossible by hand and we don’t have a bench drill. We’ll have to come up with a plan B.

Rather than dwell on our disappointment we are going to tackle the flooring on the east mezzanine. Before we start we are doing some research so we know what we are doing. We need to do a really neat job and try our best to get a professional finish.

We have bought some sound proofing underlay, it reduces sound by up to 24dB. So, before starting on the bamboo floor boards we have to lay this. It isn’t difficult and doesn’t take long because it comes on a 15m x 1m roll, we just need to cut round things carefully and leave no gaps.

With the underlay fitted we now need to get a nice straight line for the first row of flooring. To do this we lay a string line with an expansion gap as recommended. With the string line in place the first row goes in nicely. We are working slowly and carefully, not rushing ahead to get the job finished as quickly as possible. This is a lesson worth learning when doing DIY, less haste more speed and of course fewer mistakes.

Our biggest challenge is to cut the hole for the ventilation system. There is a vent in the floor where fresh air comes up into the room. We are working closely to make sure we have a good plan and all the measurements are correct.

Bingo! we have managed to do a nice job on it.

It has gone very well today and we have covered most of the east mezzanine but we have decided to stop because we are tired and the next few rows are going to be complicated and will need all our powers of concentration.

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It’s Saturday morning but we are going to carry on with the flooring, the two year anniversary of starting the build is fast approaching and it would be so cool if we could get the house finished by then.

We finished the flooring on the east mezzanine and it is looking good so we are starting to fit the underlay on the west mezzanine. It is so much quicker and easier when you already know what you’re doing so it hasn’t taken any time at all.

It’s a gorgeous day and the forecast for tomorrow is for thunder and rain so we are making the most of it today and doing some gardening.

We are both feeling completely drained now so we have decided to take a nap after dinner then go out later and try and catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis.

Carrying all those bamboo floorboards up the stairs and all our trips up and down, the kneeling and bending has really taken its toll and we are both in need of sleep.

Last night was excellent for seeing the aurora because there was a once in 22 year solar storm, the impact of which is to create this amazing cosmic spectacle. Tonight it is overcast and we are having our first midge experience of the year so we have decided to retreat back to the house. Hopefully we’ll be around in 22 years to catch the next big aurora event!

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We have had a bit of a long lie, well if you can call 8.30 a long lie. We are keen to get on with the flooring and try and finish it by the end of the weekend. One thing we have learned about bamboo flooring, it is easy to catch a splinter and they are nasty sharp and sometimes quite long so care in handling is needed. A pair of gloves would help but they can make measuring and marking difficult so we haven’t bothered.

The west mezzanine will be more of a challenge, we have two floor vents and the pipes for the ventilation system to contend with. The good thing is we are feeling quite confident at the moment and confidence can go a long way.

Having laid the string line we check how many rows of boards there are between the wall and the top of the stairs. It’s just as well we have checked this because it turns out we will need to rip the first row so that we don’t end up with a very narrow board at the top of the stairs. It is worth the extra effort, even if it does create a bit of waste.

The first row comes up against the condensation overspill pipe for the ventilation system and then one of the big air duct pipes. So we need to do some carefull measuring and cutting.

We also have to cut out for the first of the two floor vents. We are using the same method as yesterday and it is going really well, a nice neat and accurate hole is cut.

It has taken us quite a while to get the first few rows done but we are now past where the boards meet the top of the stairs and it’s mostly plain sailing from here. Each row has one full length board and one short board. We are two rows from the end and have to cut the second vent hole, this is no longer a challenge as our method works a treat.

That’s the main area done so we can move on to the wee area under the velux. The area is quite narrow so one board per row is enough and that is quite easy.

We have been cutting the boards in the mega-shed because we can’t make dust in the house due to the ventilation system. A big thundery downpour has made it too wet to go from the house to the mega-shed so we are stopping for dinner and if the rain stops we’ll carry on after eating.

It’s almost nine and we have been able to finish laying the last few boards because the rain stopped. We are tired but very happy with what we have achieved these last three days.

We feel it might just be possible to get eveything finished by the time of our two year anniversary but as they say, ‘don’t count your chickens!’