Home DIY

I have no idea if there is a specific name for it. I asked the surveyor to check the house as I was considering buying it. It was very detailed, the only thing I remember from it was ‘door handles in good condition, showing wear consistent with age’ - for each room. That was the level of detail. I was only concerned that the house wasn’t likely to fall down.
If I was doing it now, I have a builder who I would get to check the house. He did the work in the pics and built an extension for us in the past year.

Looks really good. Was the floor already on vgc, and/or did you have to put anything under the Cork to get a nice finish?

Galvanised conduit tubes are a nice way to tidy cables if you've got a functional space.

Had a crack at screwing the dropped/sagging plasterboard back.

It's dropped a lot more than I realised.

I managed to make a hole while screwing one screw in. Annoying, but it allowed me to have a feel around - the plasterboard is still not dry.

This is now firming in the get someone else in category. So three questions really;

1) if all the ceiling plasterboard is fucked and the ceiling needs to be redone what sort of cost are we talking about - need to weigh up an insurance claim Vs. cash?
2) what sort of trade do I need? It's not strictly plastering is it?
3) any recommendations in the Hertsmere area?

Cheers.

I just added £800 to the cost of a 4mx3m bedroom by taking the ceiling down ( absolutely filthy job), putting up another and then skimming it.

The original cost was just for skimming over.

Goldcrest

They did an excellent report for us which told us everything that needed fixing.

Have you had a leak?

Plasterboard is easy to replace yourself (with a second pair of hands) as long as you haven’t got anything decorative like coving or loads of ceiling lights.

Skimming a ceiling shouldn’t be more than a day’s job.

Looks great! Might be a bit cold in the winter though (depending on where this is of course).

I have a quick question for the paint wizards. I had paint peeling off the bedroom wall (brickwall with some plaster (?) I guess). I have (hopefully) fixed the leak on the flat roof above. How do I go about repainting the affected area to make sure the paint stays on the wall? I would love to only repaint from a bit behind the wardrobe to the end of the wall to minimise the obvious colour differences.

Thanks so much!

Airhead will have the answer.

Now soldering a joint, how fucking hard is it? Soldering 4 joints and two leak and two don't. Will get photos.

Tried adding flux and reheating but can't get that to work either.

tru dat...

I might be reading this wrong because I'm not able to closely examine the wall but it looks as if it was plastered and painted too soon without allowing the plaster to dry properly (that should be 6 months). This is not uncommon these days!

That should allow you to get a scraper with a sharp blade and take all that paint off very easily. Depending on your skill set you will have to fill some little gouges after that process but you should have a plastered wall which you can roll with emulsion, probably water down the first coat as per manufacturers instructions or use Gardz. I would remove the cupboard door and tape plastic over the cupboard while you do this job.

If the paint doesn't scrape off easily you will need to remove the loose stuff and fill with something like TX110 (Toupret) or easifill. I prefer TX110. When you fill it let it dry a little then feather the edges into the wall with a sponge to avoid having to sand too much. It helps a lot if you then use Gardz to stop the filler flashing under the emulsion. It does take some skill to stop this damage showing. I like to line walls like this for clients that want a really fine finish.

I would probably try to repair it this way as you have hopefully fixed the reason it was a problem. If however you have problem with the new paint you'll probably need to paint this wall with an oil based damp resisting paint. I wouldn't go down that route unless you have to because it can complicate things and it's unpleasant to work with especially if you are sensitive to volatile organic compounds.

Yep - the old owners had an electric wall hung radiator. Ive added another layer of insulation under the floor before laying ply subfloor so hoping that keeps heat in a bit. I’ll probably buy a portable heater for those coldest of days

Have you ever painted a plastered room that has been drying for 6 months? And what has been happening in that room for the preceding six months since plastering? Are these new builds awaiting occupancy?

I don't generally paint freshly plastered walls but I'm not usually working on or in building sites. So to answer the question it's normal for me to paint walls where the plaster has been drying for anywhere between 1 and 100 years. In my own places I leave the plaster to dry for 6 months before painting so yes I've painted some fresh fully dried plaster.

I've scraped a lot of paint from walls that were painted too quickly though. It usually comes off very easily. You get used to the look of the plaster underneath and the paint usually has plaster dust on the wall side.

Over the last 20 years the building game has been cutting corners so badly, if you don't know what you are looking for it only bothers you when you want to correct it. It's not an opinion though, it's the science of plaster, it'a a crystal that is forming the surface for many months after it's touch dry and paint doesn't bond properly to it until that surface formed. Of course 6 months is only a rough rule of thumb.

I know it seems odd that someone in the trade would refuse to do a job when you see it's being done all the time but in my case it does happen or I find another way to do it that works within the parameters the client has. Sometimes that could be lining a wall that has been recently plastered. I still don't like to do it and it's very hard to convince me that you can't live with a plaster wall while it drys as it's not that big an ask.

I don't work on new builds they are usually painted by teams but some of the most recent new builds use different techniques, a lot of European builders have never skimmed plasterboard, they tape and fill the joints with the equivalent of easifill and paint that.

Builders will paint anything without question and usually with one type of paint, a lot of them don't even see painting as a speciality. My work doesn't bring me into conflict with them for which I'm thankful. They wouldn't want me snagging their work but most of them are not too worried, painting is just a pain in the ass job that has to be done once the important stuff is finished. :)

Thank so much for the detailed answer. I think the paint comes off fairly easily, as you say, and in the rest of the house, there are instances of tiny areas of paint flaking, which probably means the people who painted it really didn't wait long enough before painting.

How big an area would you recommend me to scrap off? I just worried about the transition between new and old paint?

! Also, this is probably too small a job to have much interest from a painter right? Mainly asking because wife is 8 months pregnant and getting it right on first straight away would obviously be nice.

Again, thanks so much

Floor was in good nick - the guy had new and used flooring, I just selected enough that was good from what he'd previously used. If buying new would've been £300. The 50cm string shelving and additional panels is being paid for by my wfh budget - so total cost so far is around £200 (fair few man hours and beers not included!).
Yup that's the stuff I'm going for had considering changing out the sockets for 2 gang galvanised to match but seems un-necessary.

Want to install a pull down screen inside the doorway and then use a short through projector so we can watch films at the end of the garden on the deck - not sure how much use that will be this year but should be a nice to have.

You would be lucky to get a painter in. Maybe if you had someone in your street.

I would try to scrape the whole lot to the left of the window off or at least score the paint in a straight line above the highest patch and scrape off below that line. It is the transition that shows but it's easier to fill and feather a straight line than a rough edge.

I use a 50mm scraper blade which is honed through use on plaster walls so it makes it easier to do without gouging. A 6" T handle scraper is likely to get it done fast and ensures you can get the small bits that are well adhered off but it's easier to gouge which means filling and it's not easy to fill small gouges. A plastic handle with a Stanley blade in is the cheapest option. If you're lucky it will fall off and maybe you have a tiny bit of sanding to do for any little bits that stick. I've stripped 20 times that area in 1/2 hour more than once.

If you are not sure the paint is badly adhered then you might want to skim the holes you have with filler, feather with a sponge and then lightly sand and paint. It will probably grin or flash a bit but you are not going to care after 3 months with a baby in the house. :)

good luck & bon courage

I suspect I already know the answer to this but just want to check re: dimming LED downlighters. I have a lot of these downlighters https://www.bltdirect.com/red-arrow-6w-ip44-round-mini-led-panel-cool-white (about 30 I think) in my house.

I suspect they have these drivers (I found a couple in the building leftovers under the stairs along with a couple of the downlighters)

From a bit of reading up it seems like these aren't dimmable drivers and, without switching the drivers (which is obviously a bit of an effort with so many), there is no way at all to dim the lights. Is this correct or am I missing something that can be done to dim them? Cheers

You'll be able to that yourself - just have all the right equipment (you'll invariably forget something/require something else but still), follow the steps and take a bit of time.

What is it with modernised places and down lights? They strike me as a massive ball ache and the light they put out is...ugh

Viewed a place in Kensal that had been modernised for sale and the high quantity of downlights everywhere made the place feel like it was covered in zits

I googled Red Arrow SP6W, they appear to be 6W circular panels that are dimmable.

Not sure if that's the type of light you have though or maybe these were left behind because they were not useful.

Got a table I have been putting danish oil on. Is it out of the question to Osmo it now?
Is a Gplan laminate so not much depth to sand back.

@Tenderloin looks good! Very similar to my "garden office" - I'm going to get some cork flooring down and then figure out how to install a micro wood burner in an attempt to work through the Scottish winter.

Are you planning on insulating the roof at all?

Best to try and strip it off with a chemical and a furniture scraper. Look at preparation techniques for French polishing. It might not work with the oil though as it depends how much it's penetrated the veneer.