Home DIY

Tempted! It's getting boxed in this week (hopefully, probably not knowing this builder). Leaving a more normal sized opening for a decorative fireplace. Shitty laminate being ripped up and will eventually be replaced by an off white wool carpet (last thing to go in). Walls will be the second from the right Swatch (schoolhouse White from F&B). Plaster ceiling rose. Curtains of some description.

Will likely take one line of tiles off the front of the current "hearth" as it sits out quite far. Then will use @Señor_Bear 's hearth building technique with self leveling and tiles.

Nice one. It's always slow going but worth it in the end. I spent 6 months on my partners front room!

Nice one! I'm aiming to do something very similar

fox will be devastated tho.

Didn't manage to get English Heritage to list it in time.

I do think the room will feel a lot more spacious though.

#CSB my Masters involved working with the EHS Monuments at Risk register. I don't recall seeing "Fucking eye sore fireplace, CR7. Risk: Irishman with a temper" on there.

@M4xime cheers, my advice would be (if you've been coerced down the floating path) to drill out the securing holes as much as possible. Getting them to line up out of the box was, for me, a nightmare. Now widened and actually useable the shelves do feel more solid.

Can't unsee the left looking duckface :)

Haha

When the true cultural significance of the Thornton Heath poltergeist is recognised you won't be able to get away with that shit, so best to do it now.

Pretty sure they were hiding behind the new plaster in my office and caused it to blow. Sent the new plasterer in as a sacrifice. It's gone a bit quiet now.

What length screws do I need to secure privacy trellis to a single course(sp?) brick wall? Or more to the point how much thread needs to be in the wall? Given that I haven't said how thick they, or the batons are.

Trellis will be 90cm high with 45cm above/on top of the wall and 45cm against the wall. The alley most of it is located gets a savage wind when the wind picks up.

Cheers.

I don't know if there is a formula, but I'd want the screws to be in the brick at least as deep as the thickness of trellis they're going through. So, (trellis thickness) * 2

As for thickness of screw, probably depends on how many you will use. From your description, doesn't sound like they will be under much shear stress so more likely to be pulled out than sheared off. I would go for more of them but not too beefy.

What did it look like before?

When we moved in

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The layer of brick over the wooden beam was just for show. It went up to but barely touched the old cornice/coving. It wasn't supporting anything but itself. You can see a steel lintel across the bottom of the face I have left holding up the rest of it. The plinths were similarly pointless space wasters, built straight onto the floorboards.

New plasterer has taken a look and he's going to render quite a bit of it to secure any bits before boarding over. He seems more thorough than the last guy.

That’s special.

Do you have any idea when the fireplace was built?

trellis thickness) * 2

That makes sense.

1976

No clue. Given the previous owner's habit of doing fuck all in terms of maintenance beyond shit loft/kitchen extensions, it was at least 30 years old. More realistic guess, I'd say some time in the 80's. It's the kind of bullshit that is in houses around the same age as my parents' place and that was 1984.

With my extension making progress I need to figure out what to do about flooring. Builders are going to put in joists to raise the height of the floor (was an existing lower floor) and ply line over the joists - I'm then getting some Larch floorboards which I will fit myself. How should I do this? Should I secret nail, glue or what. There is pipework underneath and while I hope to never need to access it, it does scare me to not have easy-ish access.

Any recommendations for a multi tool blade to cut through screws?
The pics will show the issues I had today. The narrower blade is a DeWalt bi-metal blade. The wider one a cheaper one.

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probs better using an angle grinder

How many screws did you make it through?
I found the blades rather soft.

Aren't screws very hard? Tungsten carbide blade might have a better chance.

Basically try not to do it. If you want to have another go with the blunt ones you can file some teeth into the blade. There are lots of blades that promise they can do it but it's a big ask. You have to keep the heat out of the blade to reduce the damage so go slower or take a lot longer and you can sometimes get there.