DIY

The long-awaited shower post.

It’s been a quiet few weeks, blog-wise, and I prefer to think it’s because I had, for however brief a time, a life.

That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, the shower in the main-en-suite. My original design featured two shower heads, a conventional rose at conventional height, and a large overhead rose. All of this controlled by a standard bathtub diverter tap (the type you would normally use for a bathtub / shower combination, or a bathtub with a telephone shower).

This is the best picture I have, I’m afraid — I was photographing the curved wall.

The large rose was a given — Tanya likes it, a lot. The idea behind the lower rose is that Tanya could use it if she didn’t want to get her hair wet.

Well, this arrangement worked, but the large rose kept dripping for hours afterwards. And Tanya ended up using the large rose exclusively anyway.

So yours truly devised Plan B, which is to fit a vacuum breaker, figuring that this would make the upper circuit drain more quickly. I also removed the lower arm and rose, what with it not being used and all.

Result : no change, large rose still dripped for hours… I think the water in the rose and pipe didn’t provide enough suction to open the vacuum breaker, maybe.

A lot of late night insomnia led to Plan C.

Spot the difference? Yup, those curved pipes are not for show. The shower now stops dripping almost immediately.

So, if you want a large overhead shower rose, you also need the pipe with the bend in it. Trust me.

2009-02-03 by wrm House 0

I suddenly realised why I’m so damned tired

Emotionally tired, I think, more than physically.

I looked back through some photographs… we’ve come a long way, and we did a helluva lot, but it’s not so obvious if you’re living it day-by-day — it’s much more striking when you look back.

This was the stoep area outside the kitchen door, back in April.

By July, it was looking a lot better.

Of necessity, Frank paved the bricks at quite a slope. This is good, from a water runoff point of view, but I had to chock the washing machine with a couple of 2x4s, otherwise it would bleat piteously and give up on the spin cycle.

I had planned a platform to keep the machines dry and off the deck, as well as a partition to keep the wind and dust at bay, and a table for sorting and folding the washing.

I’ll move the chest freezer when I have help :-)

2009-01-05 by wrm House 2

I’m your customer, not your fscking QA department!

Those following this blog will know that I’ve had many hassles with Lansdowne Boards. This is the second time I’ve run across this specific problem, which is that the board goes through the machine at a slight angle, which means that things don’t line up.

It’s not a lot, but it makes the front of the shelf stand proud by half a millimeter or so, and that looks bad.

The whole point of Lansdowne Boards‘ system is that they have the precision machines so that you can just assemble the stuff without using any complicated tools. In theory this is good. But if your machines are out of calibration or your operators just don’t care, this is the result — one pissed off customer.

So, sadly, I can’t recommend using them. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to suffer, and if you do know what you’re doing, you don’t need them anyway. Go to Davidson’s or someone else instead.

2008-12-31 by wrm House 0

Small World

I should have blogged the start of this story when it happened… I had the dominos, and I had a gas bottle, and I even had some spare flexible gas pipe, but I needed the bits to make it all work.

So I went by the Gas Appliance Centre in Lansdowne Road, with a domino in hand. Girl behind the counter (whom I can totally go in for, except she smokes) takes one look at this, says “yea, you need a hose barb female with a *mumble* thread, they come from the factory with a *mumble-something-else* thread, we have a tap, we can fix it… but we’re out of stock… come back in two days’ time”.

So after checking back a few times they get the fittings into stock (this place is sort of on my way to / from Lansdowne Boards so it’s no hassle). And I buy the two fittings, a T connector, a regulator and a bunch of pipe clamps.

All of this is currently doing duty making the gas dominos work over at the house (there’s still a bit of a leak I need to sort out though).

In the course of this all I spot that they also have cast iron woks, but small ones. Which is a Good Thing, since this was only days after Tanya bought me the Le Creuset. And I spot the corrugated vent pipe they use to vent gas geysers to the outside world. Figuring I could use this to join the miss-applied sewerage pipe to the extractor fan, I ask for a small bit of it. And she says “yea, my brother has off-cuts in the back of the bakkie, I’ll ask him to leave a bit here for you”.

And since then I’ve checked in a few times but the transfer from back of bakkie to under counter had not yet been made.

Which brings us to the other story. I removed four fans, actually, I lie, I removed two fans and the previous owners left us two fans which they removed or never fitted or whatever, from the bedrooms. That still leaves two fans in the house, previous owners were serious fans of… fans. Anyway, stuck the fans on Gumtree. A month or so later this girl phones, says she wants two fans, and she’ll send her cousin or friend or something to collect. No worries, say I, and I stick the fans in the back of the car.

So this morning a fellow pitches, says he’s here for the fans. And he drives a Gas Appliance Centre bakkie. Ahah!

So now I have the bit of corrugated pipe I need to finish the extractor fan installation :-)

2008-12-04 by wrm House 0

Prep bowl

We bought a nice prep bowl at the Muizenberg market.

Then I redesigned the kitchen, and the counter became too narrow for that prep bowl.

Then we started looking for prep bowls to fit the narrow counter, with little success.

Until we went to the Hout Bay craft market, where we found these two bowls:

We both liked the left-hand one more than the right-hand one, but due to the way the clay is fired to get the finish, the right-hand one is slightly smaller.

So we went back home to measure. And I figured that I could make the shiny one fit.

The hole is just inside the cupboard front edge, and it overlaps the batten at the back, but the bowl curves, so it fits, with a centimeter or so to spare.

And then I could fasten the top to the base cupboards, and fit the tap. Yay!

Supper last night was spaghetti Bolognese, Michelle’s recipe via Alosha. And I mixed some speculaas dough, it’s in the fridge, will stick it in the oven tonight.

2008-12-02 by wrm House 0

It doesn’t look like much…

…but it means one less extension cord to trip over.

The wire runs down through the ceiling behind the Colossal Cupboard, under the Hidden Door, and up along the door frame to the plugpoint.

With hindsight it would have been easier to fit the plugpoint before mounting the bookcase on the other side of the wall.

This is the second-last electrical run required. I still need to extend it to Jessica’s room and to the outside plug point for the washer, dryer and chest freezer. (The last electrical run will be for a plug point for Tamsyn’s computer). Edit : of course I’m lying, we still need plug points in the master bedroom, but for some reason that doesn’t come up on my radar…

The master bathroom’s looking good.

2008-11-26 by wrm House 2

Tomato and Beef Kofta, Pita bread, and a bit of bathroom progress

I’ve been browsing through Lex Culinaria, which is not something to do while hungry. The Tomato and Beef Kofta recipe looked good. So I made that (first time I’ve made meatballs, would you believe it?). Also tried my hand at Farmgirl’s pita bread, but slipped up, used too much water, had to add flour, and basically ended up with something closer to naan. No worries, it was great.

It’s easy to lose track of the fact that the house is far from finished when you’re having fun in the kitchen. I suppose I have to start from one side, and since the kids’ rooms are almost there (Jessica has a mirror that still has to go up, and the notwork and computer power points still have to go in) the bathroom’s high on the list.

I don’t know how one is supposed to keep the bath apron in place (note strategic use of batten and screwdriver) but I’m hoping that copious amounts of silicone will do. (I had to cut the tile on the far wall in a curved shape to fit, which is why this took so long. That, and the bath was leaking.)

2008-11-19 by wrm House 1

Appliance garage

I’ve been dreading the assembly of the appliance garage for a while, since it involves precision routing, both straight and curved. Had to bite the bullet, it was time.

The straight bits were easy, I clamped a guide to the panel and routed against that. The rounded bits were done very carefully, by hand. I slipped a few times, but the lip on the channeling is wide enough to hide small mistakes.

The completed right hand side. The way this unit is designed is that it gets a wrapped panel on either side, just like my other cupboards. And this raised a dilemma. If I hang the cupboard doors on the top “third” of this unit, they would hang in front of the side panel (If this doesn’t make sense, never mind, trust me). Point is, it won’t look good.

So I routed the thickness of a door off the front edge of the top “third”.

See?

If this plugpoint ever breaks, the poor bugger won’t be able to get it out (the nuts will just spin). Not Right, but expedient (this plugpoint at the top left hand corner of the middle “third”.

2008-11-15 by wrm House 0

Found the leak

I’ve been sukkeling with the leaking bath all week.

The first time it really was a leak. I originally approached the plumbing gat-om-kop [1], and cemented the drain pipe into the wall before attaching it to the trap. Which means I had to heat and bend the pipe to get it to the trap, and in the process I got it out-of-round, so the seal didn’t.

I got Frank to break the pipe out of the wall again, and fitted a new (round) pipe. But things still leaked. So I went for option 3, get rid of the trap. Still leaked.

Last night I suspected that the overflow was the culprit, since that’s not tied into anything at the moment. Put a little bowl under it this morning when i showered, and it did catch a bit of water, but there’s still a lot of water under the bath.

Then it dawned — the grouting between the lowest row of tiles and the bath is not sealing, because… it’s grouting. It’s not supposed to seal. I need to remove the grouting at a 45 degree angle and fill the resulting gap with silicone sealer. On the to-do list for this weekend.

Then I’ll fit the front cover and take the pictures people have been asking about for weeks. Patience, my little grasshoppers, patience.

[1] Arse about face. But gat-om-kop sounds so much better. Afrikaans is a wonderful language to swear in, because even when you’re not swearing, it sounds as if you are.

2008-11-07 by wrm House 1

We can haz food

Friday was a stuffup. I had to go through to Kommetjie, drop off the double mattress (we decided that Jessica would get the two single beds, not a double, so the mattress got sold back to the new owner of Tanya’s old place), pick up three bags of books and a wooden box, pick up the last of the kithen counters from Lumber City, and drop off the books at Tears animal shelter (they sell them for funds).

Got to Kommetjie, cleaning lady told me that the vacuum cleaner has a two pin plug and we took all the adapters with us. So I went to the cafe, spent an exorbitant amount (R26) on an adapter, went back to Tanya’s place, modified the adapter with my trusty Swiss Army knife (the vacuum cleaner uses the Euro two pin connector, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself fortunate).

Got to Lumber City “You’re going to cut these yourself then? asks sales fellow”. “Erm, no, I ordered it cut”. “Oh yes I see, it’s written down here” “Indeed, make it happen, varlet!” (Well, something like that anyway). So I pay, ask a few questions, figuring they’re cutting the thing so I might as well learn stuph. Hah. Turns out they’re picking their noses waiting for me to come breathe down their necks before they’re going to do anything. Which I proceed to do, which they proceed to do, we eventually leave Lumber City after 9. Note that I do have a boss, and while he’s very understanding, the work doesn’t do itself.

Friday evening we went through again, picked up even more stuff, including Tanya’s clothes rack exercise bicycle. Also picked up Tamsyn’s bed from Tanya’s folks’ place.

I had to [1] go silhouette shooting on Saturday morning, and I took the opportunity to take the trailer back to Bellville. Came back as soon as possible, and fitted the short counter. I used an aliminium strip to join the two counters at a right angle, this is much easier than cutting the two counters (It seems easy with a jig, but I don’t have the jig, and with only one joint, there’s no sense). Liberally applied Woodoc 50 marine varnish to the cut particle board, and used lots of sealant.

On Sunday we bade Tanya’s brother Clive farewell at the airport, he’s off to the land of Oz to look for gold. Or at least a steady employment and a place to stay :-) After that we went to Makro where we spent *mumble* lots on all kinds of house-ey stuff. If you’re looking for curtain rails and the like, start here, not at Builders Warehouse or Hyperama — which is where we got the toothbrush holders, shower racks, toilet brushes & holders, towel rails, a bath mat and so forth and so on from.

Sunday evening I fitted the side panel by the kitchen entrance. It was 4mm too large at the top (the wall is skew) so I screwed a guide to it and used the router with the trim bit (the one with the bearing at the bottom) to trim the panel to size very neatly.

After this I attacked the shelves that are supposed to go in the top cupboard in the corner. They were a few millimeters too wide, the belt sander worked well. I also connected the washing machine to the outside tap and with an extension lead plugged in Tanya could do her first load of washing at the new house.

While I made the first cooked meal at the new house. Lentil and Rice pilaf with stuff.

Recipe from Diana’s Kitchen, modified to fit what I had.

Two small onions, sliced.
One green pepper, sliced.
Two medium carrots, sliced.
1/2 cup lentils, examined for sticks, stones and small furry creatures, and rinsed.
1/2 cup brown rice.
1 tomato.
Stock powder.
1 teaspoon dried thyme.
Salt & pepper.
Hoisin sauce (ran out of Worcester).

Fry onion, pepper and carrot in a bit of oil. Remove from pot. Bring two cups of water to boil, add stock powder, add lentils, cover and cook 5 minutes.

Add rice and onion, pepper and carrot mix. I added just a bit of Hoisin, since the kids are not as tolerant to chili as I am. Add pepper, thyme.

Simmer for as long as it takes to get the rice done (20-30 minutes). Check and add water as required.

That’s what Jessica had. To Tanya and Tamsyn’s portions, we added some diced pork chops we had left over from Friday’s braai. To mine, I added some shredded pork ribs also left over from Friday. Very nice smokey flavour, worked well.

Found during the move. A friend gave me this, years ago, saying that it reminded him of me.

Tanya and the kids think it’s hideous. Which obviously proves the friend’s point.

Suggestions please

This is the view of the kitchen from the living room. Ignoring the fact that it looks like a hurricane hit the place, what should we put over the sink? Or rather, we’re putting a cupboard with a built-in drying rack over the sink, what should the cupboard look like (all suggestions will most likely be ignored, but I’m looking for ideas).

And on the downside, the bloody bath drain is still leaking. I’ve asked Frank to chip the pipe out of the wall, this calls for Drastic Measures.

[1] Had to, because to keep my licences I need to be a dedicated sport shooter, and to be dedicated I have to shoot a lot. ‘stroo.

2008-11-03 by wrm Foooooood House 3

DIY