Bedtime ( part 2 )

The next step was to get the wardrobes in. We bought them in IKEA in the UK and had them shipped out to France, as this worked out much cheaper than buying them in Bordeaux.


Being IKEA, they are pretty solid, and easy to put together, but not that easy to manoeuvre. Levelling them all out took a bit of doing as well, even though we had tried to level the floor as best as possible.






The floor needed a bit more sanding, as it was impossible to move the cupboard into place without the odd scuff mark. 3 coats of varnish later, and we were ready to paper the wall.

Tina had chosen a bold paper for the wall above the bed. As neither of us had done any wallpapering for years, and the walls were 3 meters high in places, we got our friend Pete over to hang the paper, after we had sized the walls.



The first three rolls went up well, but then we noticed that the next roll looked slightly different. We checked the labels, and although all the batch numbers were the same, there were different letters on the rolls.

It turns out that the french use a letter as well as a string of numbers to identify the batch number, and we had bought two different batches.

We went back to Leroys where we had bought it, but they didn't have our batch left. They rung around all of the stores in the Charente, with no luck. In the end, we had to drive all the way down to Bordeaux. They didn't have the batch either, but they did at least have 5 rolls from another batch.

This meant we had to strip of the 3 rolls on the wall and start again.

It was all worth it though, as you can see.

Bedtime

The more alert readers may well have read the last two posts about the en-suite and thought,
"hang on, you can't call it an en-suite as you haven't finished the bedroom yet".

To avoid a nasty visit from the grammar police, we thought it best to press on with the bedroom, to correct this anomaly.

The chipboard floor in the bedroom had been screwed onto oak beams years ago, but over the years the beams had shrunk and twisted in places, particularly after the underfloor heating had been switched on. This lead to dips in some parts of the floor, and peaks in others, sometimes up to 2cm. This needed to be levelled out before we could start to fix the parquet.

After a lot of thought, I came up with a solution. The dips could be packed out, but the peaks would need something more radical. I decided to cut the chipboard either side of the offending beam, and then to fix the flooring onto battens screwed onto the sides of the beam.



Cutting them out wasn't too tricky, using a multi-master and a circular saw. After this I removed the chipboard from the top of the beam. Tina then stood on the now bouncy sheets of chipboard, checking a spirit level until the floor was level ( a fairly responsible job to give to a girl ) while I screwed the battens on downstairs.



Now we were ready to fit the parquet, using my friend Pete's nail gun.

It took a few days, as the room is so long. So long in fact, that I it was too long for my sash clamps. and I had to come up with other methods of closing the gaps. It turned out that whacking the back of the giant nail gun worked a treat.

Although the room is big, I still didn't trust myself with a giant belt sander, so I finished it of with a 1/2 sheet sander and a lot of patience.

En-Suite tout de suite ( part2 )

We were now ready to hand over to Mr H to do the plumbing. There are lots of skills that Tina and I have picked up over the last 5 years, but plumbing a bathroom isn't one of them.




We went for twin sinks, so we could see which of us makes the most mess ( me obviously).



I built up a wooden frame under the bath to support it, and covered it with chipboard ready to tile. This took ages, as I had to keep adjusting the levels, making sure the bath was level, that the u-bend was not too close to the ground and that the panels were deep enough for me to be able to tile on top.

I then tiled it, and fitted an inspection hatch for the u-bend, using some new magnetic clips. Unfortunately, the clips weren't strong enough, and the inspection hatch kept popping off every time you had a bath. This new-fangled invention has now been replaced with an old fashioned piano hinge and a hatch, which seems to work fine.




Here's one I prepared earlier.

With a few more finishing touches, we were ready to go.

En-Suite tout de suite ( part 1 )

With the floor finished, we were ready to press on with the tiling.

Last time I tried to tile a bath, the batten slipped on the wall, and the tiles sloped gracefully into one corner, so I took extra care this time.

The shower was tanked out, as an extra layer of waterproofing.

Before the rest of the plumbing could start, we then had to fit the shower cabinet.

This was a bit scary, as it had two big glass screens. To help matters, we didn't have any instructions, as it was an ex display model.

Adding to the confusion. it came with a bag of nuts and bolts that were nothing to do with it and one of the seals for the bottom of the glass screens was missing as well. It turned out that seals like that are no standard, and the shower screen manufactorer no longer existed, so we had to improvise that bit with silicone.

It took four of us all afternoon to get the glass into its supporting frame, as the rubber seals had gone so hard in the five years that it had been in storage . Not much fun, as we were all afraid that the glass might shatter if we pushed down on it too much.

Getting it vertical, and screwing it together was a comparative doddle after that.

But it does look good, now that it's in