---
layout: ../../layouts/LayoutMdx.astro
title: 2022 Autumn Works 1
date: 2022-09-15
dir: year2022-w1
image: utility-progress
description: we get the people back
---

import { generateImageHyrdationFunction } from "../../utils";
export const s = generateImageHyrdationFunction("year2022-w1");

import Cards from "../../components/Cards.astro";
import Callout from "../../components/Callout.astro";
import Solocard from "../../components/Solocard.astro";
import NextPrev from "../../components/NextPrev.astro";
import Progress from "../../components/Progress.astro";
import YTVideo from "../../components/YTVideo.astro";
import Quote from "../../components/Quote.astro";

Hooray, it's another update! As promised, it is not 8 months since the last one, yet in just half a month there's enough progress that we want to have another update.

## Utility Room (the slightly less dreaded)

As we hinted last time, we have been beavering away on our own project: reinstating the utility of the utility room! The kitchen sink is so nice that we feel guilty putting anything in it that isn't strictly food related - but other things need washing like paint brushes, muddy shoes...

Cast your mind back, to the days of yore, when ceilings were fluffy and mould ran amok.

<Solocard title="What it was like pre-moving in" src={s("utility-original")} />

We already had a layout in mind, and as we were going to install everything ourselves, we went with an IKEA kitchen - the instructions are always very good and there are lots of resources online for others doing the same sort of thing.

Cue several weeks of triple checking the shopping list. This was our record-breaking most expensive IKEA order, and we wanted to make sure we accounted for everything. Perhaps we mentioned we overthink a lot?

Delivery was pants. The drivers seemed to be gig-economy self-employed, liable for any tickets and fines they incurred on the job, cost-saving whip-cracking type of manager, and kept getting lost. We ended up feeling a little sorry for them even though their more-than-my-jobs-worth attitude meant that we needed to carry all the heavy things up the length of the garden ourselves on a very hot day (even though delivery should have been to a room of our choice). We had 84 separate items in total, fortunately 24 of those items were storage boxes, and another 24 were lids. We used some of the storage boxes to carry other storage boxes - efficient!

First off - extra storage. Another 8 of the parcels were boxes for these shelves. Very useful! We will have to come up with more wacky drawer combinations, like our coffee-and-cheesegrater drawer, or the cat-food-and-sewing-machine cupboard. The shelving unit fitted in with only a few millimetres to spare. Optimal!!

<Solocard title="🥳 More Storaaaage 🥳" src={s("utility-storage")} />

Next we started tackling the sink side. The much more exciting side!

One of the things to note about using IKEA kitchens is that they are notorious for having no service void at the back. This posed a problem for us as there are copper pipes running the length of the room. We got around it by installing our own service void with battening. We'll have a slightly deeper worktop as a result, but given we're already going to extend the worktop over the windowsill, it won't be much extra.

When we'd measured the wall-to-wall width, it was approx 2m70 - easily enough room for 2 x 40cm drawer units, a 60cm sink unit and 2 x 60cm machines. BUT WAIT, we needed room for cover boards to make the sides of the machines look nicer. Each of these adds another 1.5cm width. BUT WAIT, the machines need extra to get them in and out of their holes. BUT WAIT, the walls have sticky-outy bits that eat into the room width. Getting the cabinets to fit around the wide variety of obstacles was pretty difficult: shutoff taps, gas pipes, wonky walls, dodgy tiling jobs... We made good use of our router and jigsaw.

<Cards
  images={[
    { title: "Channelling", src: s("utility-channelling") },
    { title: "Fitting", src: s("utility-fitting") },
    { title: "Cutouts for everything", src: s("utility-tap-access") },
  ]}
/>

We really pushed our luck with fitting as much as we could sideways on both sides of the room. It somehow turned out fine, living on the wild side ;)

The sink cabinet needed extra adjustments. We still had the old butler sink - but on closer inspection it was a non-standard slightly-too-big size, needed a lot of cleaning and restoring and was mega heavy. In the end we decided it wasn't worth the effort. We ordered a new very similar, but lighter, sink and then got to work on the cabinet. IKEA don't expect you to use a sink that they haven't sold you, so this is where we really made use of the online resources. Big cut-outs on the sides, wood platform to sit the sink on, drill a hole for the waste, drill holes at the back for the pipes. (new tool! 🎉🎉🎉). Is it really yours if you don't drill holes in it?

<Cards
  images={[
    { title: "Cut-outs", src: s("utility-cutout") },
    { title: "Wood platform and waste hole", src: s("utility-wastecut") },
    { title: "Pipe holes, new tool!! 🎉🎉🎉", src: s("holesaw", "gif") },
    { title: "Installing the pipes", src: s("utility-pipes") },
  ]}
/>

Next was a lot of painting. Ozzy hates painting as we have all heard, so Nikki did it all. Painting the cabinets may have been a mistake - the finish isn't strong enough and the paint scratches easily. Looks nice though. Painty painty paint.

<Solocard title="Painty painty" src={s("utility-painty")} />

We installed the water supply pipes and the sink, sink waste and a 3-armed trap for also draining the washing machine and tumble dryer. The sink and machines are now operational again! We've also ordered the worktop but this isn't likely to arrive until the end of the month.

There's still a good few things to do but we're really really pleased with how it's going so far.

<Solocard title="Current progress" src={s("utility-progress")} />

## Builders Part II - Scraping Boogaloo

Our builders, Simon and Will, are back. They got stuck right in, and they have made so much progress in just a few days.

### Dining Room

The mystery of 'what's underneath all this lino' has finally been solved. It's all flagstones! Honestly better than we thought possible. We had been resigned to having a frankenfloor of mixed materials given what it sounded like when tapping it, but we are preferring this reality. They will be scrubbed clean and sealed, and eventually we'll cover them with a rug anyway 😅.

Another mystery, the 'why would you paint a Bath stone fireplace with textured paint' has yet to be solved, but luckily the paint looks like it'll come off ok\*. Simon has been using a very strong paint stripper, and a lot of scraping and now a lot of sanding. The house is getting very dusty despite keeping all the doors closed. It is likely to take at least a week to get the rest off.

_\*That counts as ok when you're not the person doing it_

<Solocard title="Stone!" src={s("dining-stone")} />

A quick win was to chisel the window edges so that it could be crowbarred open (what is it with windows and crowbars?) Success!! We'll need to get this window properly restored at some point as one of the panes contains one of those horrible vent windmill things - might get that glazier in as part of these works.

### Hallway

Will has been having a lot of not fun with scraping woodchip off pretty much every surface in the hallway. Nikki thought the walls were too yellowed before the paper came off, but now... wow! There's a lot of yellow!

It is every bit as annoying a job as it looked, which means we are not looking forward to the time when we remove the woodchip that covers the rest of our stairway...

The hallway's version of the 'what's underneath all this lino' mystery has also been solved - it's proper floorboards which we can sand and stain to match the kitchen (fingers crossed!!)

<Cards
  images={[
    {
      title: "🎵 look at the floor, see how there's floorboards too 🎵",
      src: s("hallway-floorboard"),
    },
    { title: "🎵 and it was all yellow 🎵", src: s("hallway-yellow") },
  ]}
/>

It's always really lovely to uncover some of the human history of the house. Sam & Bill, I hope you're still happy out there!

<Solocard title="Yay for Sam & Bill" src={s("hallway-graffiti")} />

We expect them to start work on the upstairs bathroom in another week or so.

## Better Wifi

As the saying goes: Happy wifi, happy lifi. We noticed the signal was a bit weaker in parts of the house - mostly the dining room, utility and basement. This was a bit troublesome when we wanted to cast films to the cinema, or play music in the dining room, or get a notification when the washing machine has finished. As we're having lots of work done to this part of the house, it made sense to install an extra access point before it's all made good.

The wires to the access point had to come from the other side of our lounge - the exit point from our wall fishing exercise. Ozzy had to pry up several floorboards to fish more wires across the lounge, then into the hallway, then through the ceiling to sit in the hallway below. The idea is that if we need to extend the wires any further, they can chain from this access point.

The lesson learned here is: Be careful if you're using a laser level near light bulbs

<Cards images={[

    {title: "Getting the floorboards up (crowbar seeing a lot of use)", src: s("floorboards-up")},
    {title: "Happy wifi", src: s("happy-wifi")},
    {title: "Laser levelling", src: s("laserlevelling","gif")},

]} />

## Gutters

Right. Gutters. Firstly, the loft is a horrible place. It's dark and dusty and awkward. Ozzy has now got a designated pair of trousers that are the loft trousers that he gets to wear with the respirator, knee pads, glasses, old shoes, and long sleeve t-shirt.

Now that we've changed our water arrangement to mains pressure we were able to sponge out the remaining water from the cold water tanks and shove them out of the way. This finally gave us access to the internal gutter at the back of the house, from which we proceeded to scoop out all the sediment.

The front of the house also required some work to get to. We bought some loft flooring and placed it down to be able to get access to the gutter. We had to move some of the top layer of insulation in the process, but there's still insulation underneath. Again, Ozzy got to scoop out all the sediment from the gutters, but apart from that scooping there really weren't any issues that could be solved. We did find a previous attempt at fixing the leak...

In the end I think we're going to end up with the same approach as everyone else when it comes to keeping gutters clean.

<Cards images={[

    {title: "Guttersweeps", src: s("guttersweep")},
    {title: "Gutters in action", src: s("guttersweeping")},
    {title: "Previous attempt", src: s("gutterPreviousAttempt")},
    {title: "Our solution", src: s("gutterSolution","png")},

]} />

## Cat cat cat

We were surprised one day to enter our kitchen and see a not-ours cat casually sat there. Argh. We really don't want territorial disputes inside our house thank you. As a result we have installed a microchip operated cat flap, and are in the process of trying to coax the cat to use it. The whirring of the catch has been putting her off, but we think she's slowly getting there.

## Outro

It's really great to have the builders back in. They are like a comedy duo: Simon the enthusiastic and Will the long-suffering sidekick. It's even more fantastic to not have to do anything and yet progress happens. Can't wait to see progress in the upstairs bathroom too! Come back next time for mooorrre... Nozzy House News!! 🎵 _dum dum dum outro music_ 🎵

<NextPrev prev="year2022-1" next="year2022-w2" />