Suspension sinks on Sundays! C5 X7 that works hard + 206 GTi HDi (and 406 Coupe and 306 HDi). - MattBLancs

[MattBLancs]

My toaster keeps crashing. Can you fix it?

Need to slow down, you're toasting too fast!

[Rp0thejester]

Can't beat crumpets in a toaster!! Pre heat toaster at max then pop!! Then they go in, wait till smoking and then grab them out with asbestos hands, slap the butter on, stab the tops for burning your fingers, then more butter!!! So Matt, are you slowly demolishing someone's house?

[MattBLancs]

Matt, why are you always doing dump runs on a Sunday? Are you slowly demolishing someone's house?

Ah there's the question. About, gosh! 13 years ago we got the keys to our first house, a 1929 semi in sunny Leyland. Unfortunately it coincided near perfectly with having to work at the other end of the country 4 days a week.

House needed "a little modernisation" in that it basically hadn't been touched since the 1970's. Wood chip wallpaper on every wall and most ceilings, polystyrene ceiling tiles on the rest.

We then set to knocking it into shape with an ever increasing job list. Top tip: woodchip wallpaper was generally popular as covered up crap plaster fit for nothing else! So wallpaper scraping led to knocking plaster off.

So all external walls insulated internally, then plasterboard and re plastered. Rewired and new heating system at same time. Did almost everything we could ourselves pretty much every hour when not 200 miles away or asleep!

Just about 2 years till it was habitable upstairs (comfortably so, we didn't want to be completely immersed in the grime and dust). Downstairs in contrast still bare brick, no ceilings!

Carried on and finished off. Comfortable and happy with our lot.

Then next door (the other half of our semi) was first vacant then eventually put up for sale.

So partly as we knew what it would likely need doing with it (i.e. everything, same as ours had!) And partly as fearful we could end up with an inconsiderate new neighbour knocking the house next door into shape whilst we were trying to get newborn to sleep - we hatched a plan.

Long story short, I'm doing all the same jobs I did a decade ago, again! Quite a bit slower than last time as fitting in around two little boys.

So currently in the bashing plaster off,ceilings down stage. Ceilings down in a house old enough to have had a few decades of coal soot deposited on top of the ceilings = one of the dirtiest jobs.

Plan initially was just fix it (then rent it out or sell it) but since then have decided it's a load of work not to then get any benefit from - so intent to create one big house and it'll have everything we could need for two you boys to grow into full grown (stroppy teenagers, then hopefully leave that behind!) Men over the next couple of decades.

Glutton for punishment

I think other folks go on holiday, watch TV / football etc etc, but that's not really me!
Thankfully that's not really my lovely wife's favourite things either, so arguably we're both as daft as one another - certainly made for one another for definite!

[MattBLancs]

P.S. you lots are making me hungry and only just finished my tea!

Crumpets with cheese on, yep get the grill on,
Crumpets with butter, toaster for speed!

[Rp0thejester]

Well looking at that photo it is old indeed, I call it laugh and plaster ceiling. Laugh as you put it on because if a fly sat the other side it would collapse!!

[MattBLancs]

Well looking at that photo it is old indeed, I call it laugh and plaster ceiling. Laugh as you put it on because if a fly sat the other side it would collapse!!

Yes, original 1929 lathe and plaster. Or "loose and past it"!

The (horse hair, lime and sand??? Plaster on the walls has similarly handed it's notice in for large areas so is also getting a tickle from the SDS chisel)

It's had a good innings really, my plasterer reckoned expected design life for plasterboard is less than that!

[Rp0thejester]

Need to be careful with horse hair plaster as some contained asbestos, unlikely in a house though. And a drillers nightmare is lime mortar, it burns!!!

[MattBLancs]

Need to be careful with horse hair plaster as some contained asbestos, unlikely in a house though. And a drillers nightmare is lime mortar, it burns!!!

Yes just been reading about that (as was googling as trying to remember the three things that were mixed: horse hair, lime and.... I went blank! Think plastering sand was the other ingredient. Our plasterer was a hive of information but I can't remember loads of it!)

Finishing plaster goes off - keep it too long and it's no use, sets too quick and so can't do a decent job with it.

The other stuff, browning? Does not go off.

The grey plaster we had (patch repairs here and there) could date when if was done - pre 1982??? But memory failed me on the date.

His trowel was treated like a baby, with such care. Reckoned it was about ,15 years old and said he would cry when it failed (rivets go) he showed me it was a good 10-15mm smaller in size than an identical one he was trying to break in.


All sorts of interesting stuff he knew!

[CitroJim]

That's a great house project Matt! Thoroughly enjoyed reading that I thought my house renovations was a major undertaking but compared to yours, nothing more than a bit of decorating...

Keep us up to date with progress. I do know that at the end of all the work it'll be great And very good you're going to stay there and enjoy the fruit of your hard work.

I'm now just about to go for a run. First, I'll take a crumpet out of the freezer and then when I'm back it'll be good to toast and cover in cheese

[MattBLancs]

That's a great house project Matt! Thoroughly enjoyed reading that I thought my house renovations was a major undertaking but compared to yours, nothing more than a bit of decorating...

Keep us up to date with progress. I do know that at the end of all the work it'll be great And very good you're going to stay there and enjoy the fruit of your hard work.

Very much a job that "snowballed" we started taking up carpets and steaming off wallpaper etc, then it became apparent that what lay underneath was past it.

Benefit of hindsight, we wasted time initially - in contrast with "next door" we've just set too with the big hammers from the word go!

Was huge amount of learning as you go, and we both enjoyed that.

Am looking forward to getting some new plasterboard up next door - the scale of the transformation when it flicks from bare brick to even just the boards up in place is a massive moral boost.

I'm now just about to go for a run. First, I'll take a crumpet out of the freezer and then when I'm back it'll be good to toast and cover in cheese

Enjoy the run Jim! I've not said enjoy the cheese topped crumpets only as a foregone conclusion!

My "normal" Monday to Friday job is what used to be an "office job" but thankfully now is about half and half with working from home (thank you global pandemic!) - so about 8 hours sitting on my backside with only my brain / fingers etc actually on the move awaits.

But thankfully I have the joy of the school run first - eldest son is on his 6th day ever of being a schoolboy - so I'm enjoying taking him off for that (when I've not got to trudge down the M6)

[MattBLancs]

Good example of learning on the job:

Digger!

Initially it's overwhelming amount to try and remember and put into practice, generally a lot of moving the wrong bit or the wrong direction.

Couple of days in, it's getting more natural, usually one movement at at time but normally in line with what you were attempting to do.

End of a week, all starting to become "fluid", multiple things all at once, filling the wheelbarrow quicker than it can be emptied!


This was digging foundations for a nice big block work shed at the bottom of the garden. Loved it! Think I could quite happily drive a digger all day

[Rp0thejester]

Best tip I can give on driving diggers is to not think! Your brain will confuse you. It's like typing on a keyboard don't think just do

[c16rkc]

Wow from the look of that ceiling it must be an old house, you really have got a lot to do!

Best of luck with it, hopefully you will end up with a mega dream house!

[MattBLancs]

Photos "ten years ago today"

Google reminding me of similar tasks a decade ago!

[c16rkc]

306?