Home DIY

they're brick tiles

Don't you want an exterior grout then?

I've got a Kango you could borrow to apply it.

Yes. I meant that I don't think sand alone will hold.

Kango

I'm a bit confused. Like a jackhammer?

Sorry if I missed something.

I'm building a garden office. Too much info to put in here but if anyone's interested

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/333920/

Where can i buy identical curtain rails like these?

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The 1970s?

yeah I know, its for temporary usage .. any options?

or where can I get curtains that I can put on rails that I can't slide the curtains on

or whats a temp cheap way to cover windows in a living environment i.e. nothing permanent like paper on windows.

Do you want the rail or the slider things that go in the rail? I'm pretty sure I have several of those sliders, and the hooks if you need.

I might even have curtains with header tape that you can borrow.

Curtain track gliders

Ebay lists some that look like yours

I was being facetious, obliquely implying you dig it up & start again.

In all seriousness, though - I'd expect drainage to be a problem, and anything you grout it with is going to suffer & eventually just crumble.

Get a bunch of Easy Klips.

this is perfect!

@hoefla PM'd :)

I have those sliders and a curtain track and the pulley so they slide over too.
Available now.

Has anyone fitted insulation under floorboards? I have a suspended floor with exposed floorboards, we don't get drafts through the floorboards as its pretty good condition T&G. But I feel like insulating the floor may make a difference.

Be good to hear if anyone has done it, if it was as hard as I think it could be and whether it made a difference. Thanks

Oh ok.

Yes, we will definitely start again at some point. It's just that it looks fucking shit at the moment, so if there was a way to make it look alright for a weekends work and ~£30, then it seems like a plan.

We've worked out the rough layout of the beds and terrace area (well I have), but beyond that we haven't even really worked out what style we want let alone the rough type of tiles. And now with an extra person usurping and/or disrupting almost every useful block of time available, doing a proper job feels very far away.

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Mild boastpost: toilet replacement, overall, went pretty well. A few attempts to stop the cistern leaking at the the water in/out points but would do again.

The seat that came with it is terrible though so need to see if the old one will fit on.

Whether the boards are nailed or (unlikely) screwed to the joists, it's heavy work to pull up the boards and you'll end up damaging a lot of them. Better to lay your insulation (eg 3 mm expanded foam) over the existing boards and fit extra floor covering over. It's still a lot of work (you will probably have to trim all the doors) but I bloody well wish the neighbours above me would do it.

I did it. Took the entire ground floor up (tongue & groove 1930s pine boards), cleaned out all the crap underneath (sacks and sacks of rubble), put mesh over the airbricks, rebuilt some of the dwarf walls the joists rested on, took out two hearths, built up the fireplace with a new dampcourse and added joists to support the gaps for the boards to sit on.

Then I hung some plastic netting between the joists and suspended about 5" of wool insulation before laying tyvek breathable roofing membrane on top, sealed all the seams with airtightness tape and used the same tape to seal it to strips of plywood fixed all around the room behind the skirting.

Then I had to relay the floorboards and add some extra from a reclamation yard to make up for a few that broke and the extra area where the hearths used to be. This involved a couple of thousand screws which were all countersunk beneath the surface and then covered with 2 part wood filler which needed sanding flush with the boards. Finally we sanded the boards, then filled some of the worst gaps with a mix of sawdust & PVA (don't use this - use a proper filler, it's horrible to sand). Then finally sanded once more with a finer grit and oiled with a couple of coats of Osmo.

Bear in mind you (technically) require building regulations approval if you're renovating more than a certain percentage of your floor area and there are certain U values you're supposed to achieve. Also you should ensure there is adequate volume of air beneath the insulation and be aware of how moist it gets in the subfloor. Our subfloor was concrete so no real dampness do deal with from the ground at least.

Oh and of course we found that there was loads of old wiring and gas pipe and crumbly mortar on the brickwork beneath the floor so we took all that out and repointed where the walls we particularly bad.

So you can do it, but don't underestimate the amount of work to do it 'properly'

Amazing effort! How long did that all take you?

Oh something like 8 months. I wasn't rushing.

Respect

Oh wow @rhowe that is quite an undertaking. It's something I would really want to do but everything you have describes makes me think its not a right now project.

The house we're in is over 200 years old and I do worry what I might uncover if I got started. We want to stay in this place for the next 10 years so maybe its a future project.

Did you notice any significant increase in warmth once you'd finished everything?

We also had double glazing and new heating done so yes

Any recommendations for a carpenter/joiner who can build and install a fitted wardrobe in your typical alcove?

Got the plasterer and electrician the wrong way round. When the electrician was fitting the new switches, discovered they needed new deeper back boxes. Predictably, the wall is made of crumbling hopes and dreams and I've got some making good to do. How should I be filling this in fine people of the DIY thread?(want to cry)

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