Home DIY

PTFE tape is fine once it tight enough if you use enough and you get it into position it'll be fine. Who's actually turning taps once in place apart from to turn them on.

Joiner told me that he was using Upol Easy 1 filler for wood about 3 years ago and that was his go to filler. Thats what I use on all my wood stuff mostly ply and its been dead on and cheap too.

This is for a friend and neighbour who is definitely an outlier. They've turned it to stop it from leaking.

So the timber arrived and we're now done. I say we as I pretty much wimped out and got someone to do it as I worked out I was way out of my depth. Probably no longer worthy of the DIY thread though. Needs some filler and paint to finish but adds some original character back to the property. Just the decorating, installing the radiator and the floor sanding to go then I can move on to the kitchen. Oh, and whoever said that Douglas Fir, when cut smells amazing was bang on. House smells like a winter wonderland.

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Trying to keep the momentum up at the moment with small projects round the house so am taking this lovely sunray pattern door down to the glass shop next week to get some clear safety glass installed and am gong to plane it down and swap it out as the kitchen door. I won it in an eBay auction last year for £20 and had it shipped down from Blackpool.

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Great job, I like the unusual pattern. DF looks like a good match too.

Todays top tip. Avoid buying and using cheap plastic hooks (the ones with pins in them). I have used good ones extensively over the years with no issues at all. Yesterday a mirror feel off a wall and I suspected the cat was responsible but on looking at the plastic hook - it had just bent and the mirror fell. Luckily the mirror was basically undamaged. The wall wasn’t so lucky but it could have been much worse.
You get what you pay for! Pay a bit extra for reduced stress.

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not sure I'd hang a piece of paper with hooks like that

They're normally really good especially into brick or stone.

Depends on the mirror obvs, but I thought they were only for pictures (?)

The good ones work very well. I must have obtained a cheap one somewhere - it was an off-white colour not the usual white.

This mirror is held up with two of the larger hooks and it’s heavy - over 8kg - no issues and no worries.

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That is marginal at best. Those hooks are not designed for anything that heavy. As long as it works you are proving they can handle it though.

I’ve used them a lot with no issues except for the one mentioned and it was a cheaper type of hook. I will report any further issues. Oddly the last heavy mirror I put up, I used thunder bolts - and would recommend them for heavier stuff.

Had forgotten all the other reasons. I don't even own a tin of it these days for all those reasons.

I use them for pictures in frames up to a couple of kgs.

A mirror like the one in the picture I would put a rawlplug in the wall or use the metal plasterboard fixings if it's plasterboard. Then probably mirror hooks as they make sure the mirror is always level.

If the mirror in the photo was above a sofa I would consider that a serious risk to any smaller residents.

I've never used a thunder bolt but they don't look like they would be my first choice unless I was fixing steels to concrete.

I think the reason you didn't get much advice is you have a tricky problem to solve with the corner.

The 'cracks'. Paint with diluted PVA, fill near to level with bonding, finish filling with multi finish or easy fill or any surface filler.

If the area around them is very uneven then sand it flat before you start, maybe wrap some (40 or 80 grit) sandpaper around a block of wood and use that to flatten it.

The corner is a bitch, you really need some angle beading on there but you have no way of fixing it in place. Not sure how I would tackle it, just pleased I don't have to.

Not sure how I would tackle it, just pleased I don't have to.

😂

Can you get 'wide' angle bead? I.e. it's longer on one corner - about 6 inches long or something to drill into the inside alcove wall? Or would very long screws work? Or drill a strip of wood in place (2x2" or something the height of the wall?) to cover that corner and prep for some bead?

The area around the channels slopes up and down to it, much more than some sanding will do tbh. Something like the attached but worse and repeated four times over three walls.

PS. any idea what the strips of wood are for between the bricks?

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If it were me I'd strip back to the brick in the alcove, then dotndab some plasterboard onto the brick so that it finishes flushish (ideally it wants to sit 1-2mm behind) with the front wall.

Next fill behind the plasterboard at the front edge with bonding to almost level with the front of the plasterboard.

Staple the anglebead to the plasterboard so that the bead sits level with the finished plaster on the front wall and skim everything with multifinish feathering it out as best you can at the edges.

Sand it all (you may need to do a lot of this).

Doing a room's worth of ceiling skirting like this with somewhat lacking woodworking skills was kind of a pita. And all the corners are a bit wonky, so that didn't help either. End result isn't perfect, but at least it's done :-)

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Thanks. This seems a faff but probably the most achievable way I can get the smoothest finish. It'll be largely hidden when the fridge is in so I'm not super fussed on perfection but want it decent and also needs to be at a stage the electrician can get in and finish wiring back there (sooner rather than later) so plasterboard seems a sensible choice here?

If you do go for the dotndab the sparx can come and run his cables and put the back box in before the plasterboard goes up then come back to sort out the rest pretty quickly when it's ready.

As a fridge is going in there you will need to be careful and make sure there is enough room for the fridge. It's quite easy to come too far forward with the plasterboard. Ideally you want a bit of space round the sides so the fridge doesn't overheat.

Coving or crown moulding is what I’ve always known it as. And just like skirting it’s a deceptively difficult task. Hence my amazement at Bobbos efforts a page or two back with the skirting round that socket.

I need to knock up a kind of small retaining wall for a 3M diameter round patio, basically a concrete ring, in to which I can compact sub-base and on to which I can lay a round patio kit. It'll end up partially above current ground level so needs shuttering.

My question is this: will 3mm hardboard be up to the job of shuttering if steaked in place, or do I need to go to something more sturdy (and expensive) like UPVC utility board?

New toolbag day. Fck yeah.

And a new pipe cutter to try out from knipex.

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