Some semi finished images

One of my favourite things about the house is this accidental Z:

Front door clad in burnt oak

Lots of splitting due to some of the short lengths involved.
The burning started back in January

WE MOVED IN

The hardest days work on the project so far!
Thanks to everyone!

Handrails

Our lovely Scottish oak handrails ruined by the temporary plywood fall arrest...

Late at night - painting the timber floors

Again thanks to Paul!






and Neil! We are working 15 hour days this week as we have to move in on the 7th February 2009.

Finishing the timber

I've designed the upstairs floor to be light, in contrast to the dark ground floor and so we try out a few methods of doing this, before settling on a standard wood paint watered down 25% with paint thinner.




Bottom right is a test with beeswax for another part of the project.

The staircase gets clad in timber

Laying solid wood floor

Laying the floor turns out to be breeze thanks to one of the best tools we have used on this job:



The flooring handnailer.
The timber is Poplar, an increｄibly soft hardwood that I wouldn't recommend unless you take your shoes off like us.

Concrete polishing - more

The study and kitchen worktops.

Polishing concrete floor

After lots of research and faulse starts we eventually get a concrete polishing machine that is delicate enough to appear to work. Other machines with diamond discs are way too powerful and grind about 1mm per pass off the concrete - these would be great for a rough old slab but our pristine polished floor needs something more delicate. The machine is a large orbital sander uses diamondpaper (like sand paper but much more expensive).

After about £50 worth of sheets we realise it is much more effective to use a 9" angle grinder. On an 80sqm floor! The job takes ages and is painfully horrible (vibration and dust).








Spent the 3 days it took to do this job cursing the supposed experts at Lazenby contracts and the manufacturers of the concrete curing compound Sika Pro Seal W.

And what a difference a lick of paint makes