Onwards and Upwards

We have now started to build our new bedroom, before we finish the ceiling off, as building wisdom is to build your walls first, before you try to join the ceiling to them.

First up is the outside wall. We opted for the lafarge metal railing system, as it is quicker and cheaper than the UK method of building wooden stud work.

We didn't need any scaffolding this time, as we were only going up 4 metres, so we could just use ladders. The railings are joined together by crimping them with a specially designed tool. It is very quick, but hard work if have a girly handshake like I do.

The insulation is a by product of the NASA space program, and it turns out that something that stops Astronauts from cooking is also good for keeping your bedroom warm. It does also look a bit like a set from the old sci-fi series "Blakes 7" although it is a lot more sturdy.

It only took a few days to build the whole wall. The trickiest bit was fixing brackets on the wall, halfway up the railings, as the railings can twang a bit, if you use long lengths, and a twangy wall is no good to no-one ( apart from Blakes 7 that is).

More Death Defying Stunts

Not content with making the extractor fan duct disappear, as if by magic, our next trick involved feats of daring unseen since Blondel walked across Niagara Falls.


Not really, but it did involve working up a very tall scaffold.






We had a load of insulated plasterboard left over from last years work that had started to bend a bit, so the best way to straighten it out seemed to be screwing onto the ceiling. That's all well and good, but to get to the ceiling it meant that I had to build the scaffold really high.





To get to the highest bit, the scaffold had to go right to the edge of the landing, leaving me staring at a 6 metre drop.





When it came to the front part of the barn, we had to put the scaffold up yet another layer, making it extra wobbly. Extra care had to be taken when any Queens of the Stone Age or Undertones was played on the radio, in case I pogo-ed my way to an early grave.

Luckily, this was all done a couple of months ago, before Saints went into administration, or else the local pompieres (fire brigade) might been needed to talk me down from the edge. It is comforting to know that apparently it is not Rupert Lowe's fault, according to ......... uhm Rupert Lowe . Perhaps now that he has a bit more time on his hands he can pop round to Fred Goodwins house, and they can swap notes .