Owning your own home

Many motorised valves have a sliding override that latches. It is designed to open it so you can drain the system and it doesn't go far enough to trigger the switch. But if you take the cover off and wedge a biro in while you activate the override then it does trigger.

Congrats, mate, looks awesome!

LED GU10s for the kitchen, Cool White or Daylight?

If you have pure white / daylight in a hood over the job, then go warmer on the remainder of the kitchen.

If you don't have daylight over the hob, go daylight everywhere.

The trade off is that when you're cooking you want to see the food as it is. But you don't need to see everything under that stark bright white light and in the winter a warmer tone is easier on the eyes.

Went for warm white

Good to see @amey is finding more restoration work (would have looked like pic 2 up until last week or so)

2 Attachments

Do you need a plumber dude?

Ah. You got one,! Cool!

Got one coming tomorrow, ta.

Cut and hung some blinds. Likely semi-temporary as the windows will be replaced sooner or later. Had to stop as mini_com woke up from her nap. Need to do the left one, then exactly the same set up again in the bedroom upstairs.

1 Attachment

Unofficial roof terrace doesn't sound at all concerning
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/76344345#/

Does that mean a roof terrace needs planning permission that this one doesn't have?

In which case that's a strange thing to wave around so prominently in a sales listing given that it's a potential issue during the purchase.

There's something weird about the internal pictures as well, though maybe it's just the lighting and the shutters - they nearly all make it look like the house is underground.

The stairs in my place are turning into a right saga. Changing the newel posts on the half landing returns is impossible because they are integral pieces of the construction and tied-in on 3 sides. The way to do it is to cut the newels and then affix a new part newel to the top of them, but to do this you need to work out how to rout a perfectly centred 40mm hole in the middle of a newel post stump that is in situ. It's really not easy. Job for next weekend.

Left it as a death trap for the decorator.

1 Attachment

🤜🤛

Thanks babes.
Eames wire has since been replaced with a Pallisade for that forum extra tick box ticked off.

I have 40mm Forstner bits if you need? Somewhere.

For those who have recently moved home, how's the Post office redirect working out for you?

So far mines been pretty shit.

No post at all for about 4 weeks, complained and then loads of post turned up in one delivery, no further post for a while and then lodger told us he has sent us some letters that arrived.

It was fine for me a decade ago but post was generally more reliable then. Royal Mail is snowed under at the moment. Unprecedented number of parcels using all the capacity or something.

A decade ago RM wasn’t a private company...

You are well beyond DIY now :) Could you not cut a square mortice and tenon instead. I know it's a cheat too but you could epoxy in a 10mm bolt and then use repair care + wedges to level and fill it. Only you would know if you decorate it properly. Get the shoulders perfect on a mortice there and you would have a very strong joint. I suppose it could get fallen or lent on heavily though.

My parents had success for about 6 months, then letters started piling up at the old house in November. I think they shouted at someone because it seems generally ok again now, only one Christmas card waiting in the hall when I popped by to check up on the place last week. We’ll be setting our own one up in a few weeks and I’m not optimistic.

I suppose it could get fallen or lent on heavily though.

Or just grabbed and swung from as you go up / down the stairs

That's a good thought and one I hadn't had. I've ordered the 50mm router bit now and a length of 50mm dowel so I'll be trying this method first. Tenon is my last chance I reckon if the dowel and holes don't work. I'll run out of post.

Hmm, I have this set up and have had very few things redirected. I assumed it was because there wasn't much post coming to the old address but now wonder if it's just not working ...

When face with similar bannister issues our builder made a solid “wall” out of mdf and wood and topped it with some spare bathroom floor tiles, he inlaid a couple of small shelves with some arty up lights and good to go. Was a much cheaper and quicker fix than fixing bannisters in, we had a longer run to do than yours