Home DIY

You'll need to cut back to sound wood, I've done this with hard-wood shutters - chisel out all the rot, then use cardboard and masking tape to seal off the void, then pour in resin mixed with fine sawdust. Once it sets it's extremely tough and you can re-drill the hole for the tap.

Airheads idea of using a larger hole-saw to take out the section is a good one, if you can centre it correctly. I'd be tempted to run a router round the top of the fresh hole to provide a stepped hole for the resin to fill in order to give it even less desire to come out.

I need a new battery for my Ryobi One+ tools. Some of the ones online look a bit iffy. Does anyone have a recommendation for where to get one that is definitely genuine at a good price?

Got a local Homebase?
I've heard the new Aussie owners, Bunnings, have put a fuller range of Ryobi 1+ tools & batteries in to improve the DIY offering, in contrast to the previous owners reliance upon soft furnishings.
Ryobi 1+ batteries are sometimes 'Managers Specials' that are not promoted nor available online, to increase footfall.

You can use something like the "oops arbour" from Starrett to guide a hole saw with a smaller hole saw.

The problem with a router is access as the hole for the tap is usually too close to the wall.

Interesting. Their prices do seem to edge out B&Q's by about 10%, although they don't stock the 4.0Ah battery which seems like the sweet spot for price vs. capacity. Currently the benchmark is this.

There's room to use a router.

Although the installer has already used a router on the underside to install the tap, instead of just buying a 50p length of m8 threaded rod...

Which means that the routed underside is rotten too.

The resin route is looking increasingly like the way to go.

Although - I could just buy a new piece of wood, from worktop-express.co.uk, for £100, which is close the the amount that I am going to need to spend on tooling up.

And I'll be able to put a proper 2k polyurethane on it before putting it in place, and maybe not have to deal with rotting wooden countertops until I get to rip it out totally and put in a proper countertop.

Wooden kitchen countertops.

I mean FFS. Really?

My feelings exactly. Too many 'design' decisions being taken by the short sighted. It may look more glamorous than formica but it costs if you don't take care of it.

Ha, I fitted an oak worktop and a little round stainless sink in my old kitchen, just so it would look good in the sale pictures. Utterly stupid and impractical in reality, but it wasn't going to be my flat for very long.

The story behind the current Ryobi power/garden tool range:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shuchingjeanchen/2016/01/07/father-son-in-power-tools/#733416ef6519

Being a Chinese manufacturer, I guess does leave them prone to after hours leakage:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071KVGSXL?psc=1

(likely to be stuffed with untested re-used ex-laptop cells?)

The previous owner-but-one of my place smashed up his koi carp pond and hid it under a load of decking. Anyone want a load of bricks and rubble in E10? Form an orderly queue...

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Yeah, my main aim is to get something that won't burst into flames in the charger.

Yo,

Originally posted this in the Interior design thread but probably better here. I have a load of materials left over from doing my hallway and can't return them as they were special orders.

5 x 3.4m lengths of really nice quality 70mm wide Burbidge redwood dado. http://richardburbidge.com/parts/detail/­FC223

5 rolls of this Anaglypta embossed paper
https://www.decoratingwarehouse.co.uk/an­aglypta-rd-124-derby?gclid=Cj0KEQjw9r7JB­RCj37PlltTskaMBEiQAKTzTfCDLwLVgHBgJfG7ZL­FqpUV--_oTBpebhR9XuOnqGj3AaAlMU8P8HAQ

And an unopened 5l tub of Valspar dark grey matt emulsion. It's the nicer quality one. Wipeable etc. Really nice rich colour too. I forget the exact colour but i think it's "Slate Court" from this chart. Will post a pic of it all up in a sec. http://www.valsparpaint.com/en/explore-c­olors/painter/color-selector.html

Can't return any of it so I'm not looking to cover my costs, just minimize losses and hope someone on here can find a use for it. I'm in Faversham Kent but could bring into London without too much bother.

Pics:

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Also, I want to lift the horrible cream carpet that covers the stairs and landing from the upper ground to the top (fourth) floor. Ultimately I want varnished boards and a nice hard-wearing runner but budget dictates that we do it in stages. Anyone got any hot tips? I've heard it's a noisy, messy specialist job and not worth DIYing?

If you're going the new route, don't have the surround made of wood.
I don't feel the rest of the counters can't be wood (ours are, no problems), but in a wet zone, really?

Love how it all looks like cgi renders!

When we first moved into our house the garden looked like this.
12 hour days every Saturday and Sunday with a mate for 8 weeks and now it looks like this.

my fat back hurts

.

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Wow that looks phenomenal

Is the left hand side fencing yours too? Great effort. Enjoy.

Yeah.
We did the fence too.
It's just regular fence posts and roofing batons. Better shot attached.
We mirrored the horizontal with lengths of floating shelves in the kitchen so when you are stood in the kitchen looking out into the garden you get the falsified/amplified sense of length.

It honestly makes it feel bigger.

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We really need to sort our garden. It's shared with upstairs but they give zero fucks. Might just make our side nice and they can continue to use theirs as a bin.

We've got about 2m sq left of that blockwork too if anyone wants it fo free.
Collection SE4.

Vaguely interested in the blockwork, but it's for a project that won't happen til later this year, so if anyone else wants it...

The garden looks incredible BTW. When the borders are filled it will be out of this world. enjoy.

For me, the main objective was defining the boundaries well (so decent fence, that wall and the steps etc) but the real impact came with levelling everything - carve up the whole place with a pick axe or rotavator, breadcrumb the soil, then set string line to see your levels and push it all about until it's about even.
It's incredible to see how much tidier everything looks when the ground isn't all lumpy and pitted and sloping.

Level the ground, ton of top soil then scatter a mix of lawn and wild flower seed?

I dunno, to be honest this whole thing started because we had to take up the decking to destroy a rats nest!