We didn’t want to do an update yet but Henry made us 😠
Utility Room
We made so much progress in the last update, getting all the cabinets built and adjusted into place. To no one’s surprise we didn’t keep up the same levels of progress.
We installed the kickboard under the cabinets. Not sure if this was really worth it as there’s only one angle to view it without falling on the floor.
Our worktop was delivered to the front of the house (though we asked for it to be delivered to the back). This was a bit annoying because the worktop was too long to fit down the stairs. We managed to convince Will that what he really wanted to do was help us move it, so Ozzy and Will then had to carry the very heavy worktop all around the houses and back up through the garden to get to the basement where we were going to cut it.
First we made a cardboard template of the worktop. This was a really really good idea.
Next was transferring the template to the worktop. We lopped off some bits to get the back edge and length closer to size, then it only just fit for us both to carry it between the utility room and the basement between cuts.
As you may know 🎉🎉🎉 tools are our favourite 🎉🎉🎉 so we couldn’t resist having a go with some of Simon’s when he very kindly offered to let us use them for the worktop.
Saw horses Least exciting but most useful. These sawhorses have slots in the top to fit some standard stud wall lumber in them. This creates a frame that supports the worktop and that we can put some minor slices in without issue. Rating: Very useful 👍
Hoover Another useful-but-not-exciting tool. It sucks dust. The snazziness of this hoover is that you plug your corded power tools into it, and the hoover automatically turns on when it detects you’re using the tool. Rating: Kind of cool 😎
Tracksaw This one is really useful. It’s definitely one that we’ve seen lots of professionals use. The tracks are nice and solid - you can daisy chain them together. The tracks also have a slot in the underside to accomodate the clamps, so you don’t need to worry about the clamps getting in the way of the saw. The saw itself cuts immediately next to the tracks, so you don’t have to worry about adding 34mm on the side of the line you actually want to cut. Rating: Really, really useful 👍👍👍
Jigsaw This one is good, but perhaps we don’t quite understand it yet. The ‘trigger’ is an on-off button rather than something you have to continuously hold down. That’s interesting, but it means that if you want to change the blade you need to remove the battery because otherwise it would be far too easy to accidentally turn it on. The blade itself has its own proprietary connection (boo!) which seems to just make it super awkward to attach. It’s also got a built in light that strobes in time with the blade once it’s at full speed, so that it looks like the blade isn’t moving… We don’t really get the point of that feature…
I tried to film it, but it doesn’t show up very well.
It does leave a very nice finish though. Rating: A bit weird but 👌
We are currently in the ‘lop a bit more off and see if it fits yet’ stage of scribing the worktop to the utility wall. Each cut we make is a ‘scaredy-cut’ because we don’t want to take too much off and have big gaps anywhere.
We wanted to have finished this bit before writing the update, but our builders are making too much progress to put an update off any longer. Plus Henry complained at us. 😠
Hallway
This is arguably the most dramatic change - the hallway has changed from a very bright yellow to a very dark green, by way of a lot of wall filler and white undercoats.
As the hallway gets no natural light, we thought we’d lean into it and make it really dark. We didn’t want it to feel like a poorly lit whiteish room, so we’re aiming for a moodily lit passage to lighter rooms. We are going to be installing wall lights along the stairs, but at time of writing we haven’t sourced any we like. We need to make sure the lights don’t come out too far from the wall or they’ll get in the way.
Simon thinks it looks like a nightclub. We’ll have a strobe party in it with his jigsaw.
Dining Room
Quite a lot of progress has happened in the dining room! The studwork has gone up, which removes some of the height and depth of the room, but has allowed us to install radiator pipes and electrics with a minimum of extra fuss. We were concerned at one point they’d need access to the music room floorboards, requiring us to move everything in there to take the carpet up. Luckily not.
This seems to be a bit of a theme, if you’ve got the space for it then building false walls allows you to hide an awful lot of sins utilities.
Electrics
Rob the Electrician came over to install the wiring for new spotlights, pendants and speakers in the ceiling, and to move all our kitchen sockets at worktop height to be dining room sockets at skirting height.
Just as he was packing up (extra stuff always happens when you’re just packing up) we heard a bang and all the electrics in the house went off! Very concerned, we went down to see what had happened. Luckily Rob was still alive.
The consumer unit has a flap that you have to lift up to access the switches beneath which is hinged with some metal tabs. These tabs have a stupidly sharp edge. Because of our arrangement of consumer units we’ve got an 💪armoured cable💪 supplying this one, and those wires inside are very stiff - very difficult to get where you want them, and then very resistant to moving again. The neutral wire was curved up a little too close to the front of the box and this meant that every time the lid was replaced, the hinge-tab dug a little bit further through the insulation. Until…
It was pretty dramatic. The 80A whole-house-fuse blew. Rob is pretty annoyed with the unit manufacturers for having such a dangerous hinge design. Especially as the dangerous tabs are right next to captive screws that are blunted to avoid this sort of issue.
Fortunately Rob is a very sensible electrician and was using an appropriately insulated screwdriver, and a fibreglass ladder, and only had one hand near the box at the time.
A bit too close for everyone’s liking 😬
We’ve got a system to monitor how much power we use, and Ozzy was definitely kind of interested to see what sort of spike we’d recorded (~230V * 80A ≈ 18,400W) - but then we remembered that our monitoring system only works when the power is on… 🤦
He’s going to come back with either a new front for us or a whole new unit. There were no more incidents after this and the first fix electrics were in place.
Plastering
Simon then installed some new pipes for the radiators, then up went some plasterboard. After that we had Dan the Plasterer over for a few days to cover up the awful textured paint and fill in all the holes left by the kitchen uninstall.
We can really see this room coming together after the plastering. It will soon be painted dark green to match the hallway, and should become a really cosy room. Looking forward to some dinner parties!
Top Floor Bathroom
Works have started in the bathroom. With our builder slot being three months long, they are able to take their time and wait for tiles and things to arrive before they are needed.
For those of you that haven’t seen, or can’t remember, what our guest bathroom looked like, here’s a refresher
Will had so much fun stripping woodchip wallpaper that he was thrilled to find the bathroom covered with more of the same, but even more annoying because it was covered with a shinier bathroom paint. Some of this can be left behind the stud wall instead of removed. Stud walls to the rescue again!
I don’t think we’ve yet shared the design for the top floor bathroom on here. The main idea is that the shower will be at the back, and the toilet and sink on the wall in a line.
There have been quite a few discussions on how far the raised platform comes out from the back wall. In the original design (above) it just encompasses the shower. But given Nikki’s abhorrence of shower doors we decided to pull the platform all the way out to include the toilet as well, so that any extra water splashing from the shower could flow back in.
We were a little unimpressed that the bathroom company had the wrong dimensions in their plan, despite having measured it themselves. Luckily it’s the good side of wrong, we can spread things out a little more than we thought, which might mean we don’t have to have the toilet on the platform after all.
What chair? all the neighbours cried
Nikki’s office chair was vommed on by the cat in March of this year. Since then, she had an order for a new chair which kept being delayed or marked out of stock by the supplier. She got a bit fed up with this and cancelled that chair. The new one she ordered turned up the next day, and is very comfy. Learning point for Nikki is to get fed up earlier.
Backups
When our electrics went off with a bang, our server didn’t immediately start back up once the electricity was back up. Turns out a hard drive had corrupted and we were a bit concerned we might have lost some data. HOWEVER Ozzy is a genius and our data has been backed up. So he restored from the backup and now the server is back up.
We offer our unreserved apologies for the slight down-time of the Nozzy House News website - which we are sure was noticed by everybody.
⚠️🛎️ Public Service Announcement 🛎️⚠️
Backups are important!
🍏 Apples 🍏
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of an apple tree has no idea what to do with them once they’ve made an apple crumble. Having made our requisite crumble we had to work out what to do with the rest.
We visited a friend that has an entire basement dedicated to the production of apple juice, cider, and cider vinegar (which can apparently be used for anything). We came home very impressed, but didn’t quite capture their enthusiasm.
We recently made an apple cake for a friend’s birthday party and it turned out well enough that we might try making it again! Still have tons of apples. 🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏
What’s coming up
Probably more of the same I’m afraid 🎵 dum dum dum more outro music 🎵
Have an apple 🍏