Home DIY

I hadn’t heard of Cutwrights. You have just made a little job I had planned a whole lot easier!

They are good.....

But at the moment Brexit has made the price of some of the boards they stock eyewatering.

As per the gardening thread, I need to make a small retaining wall. Ideally it would be maintenance free. I am thinking concrete posts and double stacked, 1ft high gravel boards. The posts hopefully concreted in 2ft deep holes.

Is this mad?

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I’ll be going for birch ply. Fingers crossed!

I looked into getting them to cut some regular ply about a week ago and weeeeelllllllll.....

lets just say that I received a small shock and didn't pull the trigger.

Do you respect wood? 😁

We have a couple of rooms with large windows that face West. In summer, these rooms become unusably hot during the afternoon.

We cureently have basic blinds (not blackout or solar reflective etc)

We are considering either window films or solar reflective blinds. We'd prefer solar reflective blinds as having loads of light is great at other times of year.

Anybody have any experience with using blinds for reflecting solar radiation?

Roller blackout blinds are pretty cheap and easy to install, so testing their effectiveness isn't too spendy. You could for example do one window with film, one with a blind and one with both, then see who wins. It's not like the problem will go away on its own, unless you move :)

+1 to roller black outs. I have one on my office window (just a cheap Ikea job). That is West facing and even in the warmer spring we had a week or so ago, with it open my office was uncomfortably warm. On the next, even warmer day, I kept it closed and the room was positively chilly.

It's definitely a DIY job. We've just worked through 12 and also had 3 replaced by professionals. Having seen how they did it I wish we had just done it all ourselves, it felt like the worst 5k we've spent renovating.

I hadn't realised how easy it would be, but once you have the beads out you can bring the windows inside and can scrape them and sand them back. The external work is also straightforward if you have a ladder to get to them, or you might be able to paint them inside then put them together after.

Interesting. We have a blackout blind in one of these rooms and it doesn't stop it from hitting 35 degrees on a sunny day.

This is why I was asking for personal experiences. It appears that not all blackout blinds are equal.

It could also be the type of window(s). My office only has one, but it's a tiny room and the window is 6' tall by 2.5' wide, so the glass to wall to room size ratio is relatively big but it is a new double glazed number.

Not sure if / when I'll have the time though.

Fancy coming over and giving me a hand? :)

Have you considered plantation shutters? And cork?
#forumapproved

Do you pay expenses for travel from Edinburgh? From videos and photos, It looks like we ate lots of mince pies and attempts at home made bagels whilst listening to Justin Timberlake.

double post.

I've managed to nab a few off-cuts of PIR insulation board from a neighbour's job. It's double the thickness I'd want for my shed roof and I have about half enough to cover it.

...which prompts me to think I should cut the PIR in half, down the middle.

Would you put the foil facing in, or out? Bearing in mind the following:

• black roof
  
• will have a vapour barrier
  
• will be made of off-cuts taped together with gaps roughly foamed
  
• it's a shed
  
  

Gut says foil facing out/up because the shed has a black roof, and the air gap between the roof and the insulation is where I'd expect most moisture build up.

wooden front door, currently painted with, needs to remain white, but has remnants of 50 years of door furniture and random bolts.

do i need to paint stripper before sanding? or do i just sand it down through the paint? have access to a festool rotex 90 sander

Anyone got a Blanco tap?

Dry fitted this to see if it goes with the new surface, sink combo.

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When you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

You could scrape it off by hand with a tungsten scraper, maybe use an ir stripper to help the process, have it dipped in caustic soda, use chemical paint remover, use a mechanical paint remover, fix holes and use fine surface filler to match current paint level and repaint.

If you decide to sand, use a hoover and set the right suction level, move the sander quickly to stop the pads heating up. Think about how you will strip the mouldings. Sanding is only really a good option if you don't have any of the better tools to hand.

want it to look as close to 10/10 as i can without taking it off its hinges so keen do it properly, ish

thanks for the advice

Before ir stippers the world was an awful place for exterior decorators. If you really can't afford one and that's understandable if you think you'll only use it once, they are almost a requirement if you want to get close to 9/10.

Chemical or just heat or a combination works for some people. The metabo paint eater is also very useful for flat surfaces. The mouldings are slow going depending on how ornate they are, you can get contour scrapers and use chemicals to ease those.

Once you get back to wood everywhere you can fix any problems with epoxy resin and wood filler, fine surface filler, primer, undercoat, 2 top coats. Denib between coats. It's a bit of a performance though.

@ILb what material is that worktop? Looks super nice if you have more details. Thanks

New purchase which will work with my new batteries. A quick look on YouTube revealed a number of uses which I hadn’t considered. Now to look for wee jobs to do!

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Super useful