Owning your own home

Here's a fun game - see what half a million GBP will get you in Boulder, Colorado.

An example: http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Boulder-CO/pmf,pf_pt/13196520_zpid/30543_rid/40.055738,-105.277155,40.025544,-105.332945_rect/14_zm/

You'd have to pay me 1/2 mil to live there!

I'd rather have this homage to american (lack of) taste > http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Boulder-CO/pmf,pf_pt/67148241_zpid/30543_rid/40.048774,-105.284107,40.03251,-105.325993_rect/14_zm/

That place has potential. You should of seen the horror that was on for 4.5 mil by Viccy park..

ah victoria park, sold a place there in the early noughties, when we all thought 'prices can't get any sillier than this, right?'

fml

^^
ಠ_ಠ

was it a cup of flat white?

Re. cupbpoard building: props to @Airhead for really comprehensive response. We had a whole load of cupboards built in to our house and the joiners used exactly this technique. The whole thing was done with screws and nailguns (for the non-loadbearing parts) and it's all still very solid. I would add WRT the painting that the painters (who were absolutely brilliant) painted the whole lot with primer before filling over all the screws and nails with 2-part wood filler (if you're not using a nailgun, buy a punch to get any nailheads below the surface of the wood). They even used filler on all the exposed edges of the MDF board (shelf edges) to give a nice crisp finish. They then sanded the whole thing down before undercoating and topcoating (sanding and wiping down with white spirit between each coat).

Whaaat? North side of the park is daft, when I was kicked out of my rental it went on the market for 410k. One bed. 4 years a go. Ok it had front and rear micro gardens but still...

Could be worse, my family turned down a flat in the Barbican, for their original price when they were first built...

HAHAA Sorry.
I'm glad you still care.
I'll get there one day.

And sourdough.

you've let me down, you've let the team down, bust most of all...

Just exchanged contracts.

This will be mine from next Friday: https://picasaweb.google.com/103625638201731886018/21BrooklynRoad

shouldn't, but reminds me of:

yes fam! BR4lyf

Weird fact: we are equidistant from Bromley bikes!

Drinks at Baring Road Hotel soon? @ChainBreaker said he is going to arrange soon ..

To be fair, I havent really let my self down, if anything I have nailed my own expectations which are set suitably low.
Win win situation in my eyes.

good work

@Soul
@6pt
@Sparky

I guess when sparkles is back.

I might be going on a forced no booze thing again shortly though.

Thanks for that, just sharing my professional experience! In fairness I have a few advantages that I use to help my projects along. Although they're not really affordable for diy.

Festool domino - use it to join boards, it's a type of biscuit joiner where the biscuits are more like tenons. The furniture stands up on it's own before you glue it.

Spray shop quality sander. You can polish the edges of mdf boards to 400 grit through 4 grits. The edge then takes paint as well as the face. Spray painters have huge machines that can swallow a whole board just to do this one job to it. They usually put a small radius on the edges too. You should consider a radius on the edges of your mdf boards as they hold the paint better, there are aesthetic reasons you wouldn't do that from time to time.

Rafix/minifix connectors - like Ikea connectors, it's a pin screwed in one board/ ratchet thing in the other. You tighten the boards together and it saves gluing up on site which requires clamping or you can make furniture that can be dismantled and moved/sprayed. I've moved one of my freestanding pieces 3 times for the owner, it's huge and fills a transit broken down but it's been able to travel with them. Also no screws to split the mdf or require filling. Can also be used for shelves you want fixed in place.

18 gauge air powered nail gun, invisible nailing for trim. The nail heads are tiny and basically disappear.

Plastic screw caps. It's not invisible but if you need 2 or 4 screws on the inside of a cabinet to fasten it to the walls then at least the next guy can find them and remove them easily! With filler on top of these nails a change in loading/tension on the outer walls can make the filler pop. Also useful for bath boards and panels that should be removable in bathrooms and battening under shelves. They can be painted and virtually disappear.

32mm system plastic jig. Its a little plate that shows you where to drill the holes for mounting plates and holes of the hinges. It's affordable if you can find them outside of trade suppliers.

A bag of plastic wedges, you will probably need more than one wedge size every day you work on these types of projects. Saves improvising them from wood stock.

These sort of tools can save having to use filler, fill screw holes or use clamps and screws and make the preparation easier. Also useful when you are working with veneered mdf and can't use filler.

Is there a way to add some sort of sound dampener material to the back side of the cupboard (the rear panel that sits close to the wall)? Like glueing in rubber stoppers so the board is attached at half a dozen spots but with with the stoppers? Would it help reduce transmission of sound?

Or would the fact that you have a cupboard full of clothes do the job sufficiently?

It's my favourite part of the craft, changing the acoustic response of a room with furniture. Dark arts, I don't talk about it much. Theres a type of foil backed foam that's used under flooring/carpet that can be glued onto panels, similar to insulating vans really, you could use some of that stuff. Just factor it into your design, you don't need to fix the cabinet to the back wall unless there's some reason you can't use the side walls. Unless the doors are 25mm mdf and 8ft high (which is a bad idea, I can tell you from experience), the cupboard will stay put.

The trick with acoustic insulation is understanding the wavelength of the sound you are trying to block and adjusting the size of the acoustic gap to capture it. If it's the bass from buses then a larger gap is required. Screams of exctasy from your neighbours bedroom, different type of cavity filling going on.

Ha.

On the inside though.....