Home DIY

I’ll keep an eye on this. Thanks.

Cheers, very functional.

I had loads of quotes from people that will come and do the whole thing and they were all £1500+

The work itself is pretty straightforward but if it goes wrong it can be costly to put right. Worst case scenario requiring everything ripping out and starting again. Because of the cost associated with putting right fuck ups margins tend to be quite high so that this can be swallowed when it does happen.

From what you've described it's straightforward, are you using mesh to re-enforce? Depending on the depth of the slab, I'd recommend hiring a poker it makes for a stronger slab as it chases out air bubbles, pushes the 'fat' (mortar) to the surface making floating it easier as well as being a great help moving the muck around and levelling it - just don't let the tip rest against the shutters for too long as it can cause them to blow.

Want to mount this console on hallway wall. Is the best method just to measure distance between holes and drill accordingly? Or is there a smarter way? Keen not to fuck this up

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Strip of paper/masking tape over the back, trace the hole spacing, transfer onto the wall. Just be wary of putting the paper up the right way round, in case the hole spacing is not symmetrical.

Pretty much how I've done it. But drill the first hole and measure again from there on the off chance the bit moves a couple of mm as you're going and you end up out of place.

Pocket doors. I used to put them on big tv cabinets so you could have the sky box/xbox etc open when you're using them without having doors flapping about.

Not uncommon to see a bit of material hung on some of that net curtain springy cable across the front of open cupboards in the french countryside.

Yep, they also come as bi-fold for even bigger OCD hidey kitchen clutter cabinets, But in my experience unless they are going on well made solid timber doors sag issues become apparent very quickly.

get a spirit level and mask with tape - mark the holes and voila!

I'd do that with a laser level and a story pole / stick.

A story pole is a sacrificial bit of straight timber. In this case I'd make it the same length as the console.

Offer the story pole up to the console so that one edge sits exactly over the brackets mark the location of the centres on your pole (ideally at the corner). Once you've done this using a square mark lines across the 2 sides of the pole that meet at the corner. Establish the desired height on the wall with the laser level offer the story pole up to the line and transfer markings onto wall - at this point because the story pole is the same length as the console you can use it to check the exact location. If you don't have a laser level you can tape a spirit level to what would be the underside of the story pole but be aware that if you do this you will have to check and double check the height because it's easy to move shit about without realising it.

Just bought a big rug (IKEA), forgot to order the underlay for it. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/stopp-filt-rug-underlay-with-anti-slip-90132261/

Given that I'd have to order again, am wondering if there is a better option? the rugs in a playroom on a hard floor so keen to make it as soft to sit on/crawl on/fall on as possible but know nothing about whether it's worth paying more for a different option?

With a kitchen worktop, are better sourcing the material ourselves or getting our carpenter to source it? I'm not sure which is more cost effective/convenient/better quality?

That is pretty cheap.

We used the excess from when our carpet was fitted. It could be easier to look for a local carpet right. But I doubt there will be a noticeable quality or price difference.

These are a wierd kinda sticky material that stops the rug sliding around - rather than carpet underlay which is about increasing squish - I got some similar from B&q

This looks very nice.

Would you mind sharing a photo of how the cooker, splash back, tiles and up stands come together as we need to deal with a similar arrangement soon.

He is ours, it’s similar. The tiles have a trim round them although it’s hard to see in the pic.

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Not the prettiest of work I have ever done, but was a lot worse!

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The Ikea stuff is fine - if nothing else it really does stick down. Your rug aint gonna move.

Bastard to unpack though.

Yeah the Ikea underlay is very thin, so is not really going to provide any more padding, it's just very good (as @Howard says) at keeping the rug in place. mini-com hammers all over the place and it doesn't budge. I have to roll it up to move it as I can't just slide it over a bit.

Cheers all, looking at the price pretty hard to argue with it. Could get 5 of them for what I'd pay anywhere else (I guess 5 might add some cushioning!)

We've been fine with just our Ikea rug on one of those on a laminate floor with an imbalanced toddler.

I'm building a garden office that I will clad vertically with (probably) 96 x 25mm larch. I'd like the deck to the front of the office to follow the vertical lines of the cladding - ie be perpendicular to the doors, as opposed to the more typical parallel to the doors.
If I use the same cladding timber for the decking is there anything I can use to create a non-slip finish?

Decking paint? Or grip strips? I suppose you'd rather keep the wood untainted though.

Yeah, probably should have been clear. I want to leave the wood as 'natural' as possible.