A carpenter's daughter and husband restoring a 4 acre farm auction flood disaster bungalow with the original 200 year old Lincolnshire cottage in the backgarden.
After renovating 2 bungalows, then living off grid on a narrowboat for 2 years, how hard can things be?
Follow along to watch us fix, patch and repair while learning on the job and trying to grow our own vegetables. New videos every Sunday.
You might also have seen me on:
- Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh - BBC One's Right on the Money - ITV's Tonight Programme - Regularly on BBC radio London, etc
Hans is so cute! I bet he and my Flóki would play together well 🐾 Regarding the wall that was taken down and the debate over having doors vs open plan, I would say have doors. Just my opinion, I’m a person who likes individual rooms, and you have such huge space that the rooms themselves will seem like open plan in any other house anyway.
Treat yourself to a small shovel for mixing. It has turned up side edges and is set at an easier angle to the handle and designed for mixing and turning. A spade is for digging. Also, I would have used the mortar in about 4 small piles so that as the hearth is lowered, tapped down, there is room for it to spread out. There is no need for every inch of undersurface to be in contact with the mortar as long as the whole is well supported. But keep it up, you are a great example of 'can do'.
Conflicting advice is the worst because you know one route is THE best, you just can’t get a definitive answer on what is. But then you just use common sense and it just works… most of the time!
Finally catching up with your videos - physicists need to invent longer days just for RU-vid subs! Anyway, great job on the brick and blockwork. I’m building a block retaining wall now and I struggle with buttering the ends as well. How these masters get to do it so effortlessly and get it to stick just have taken years of practise. Look at beautiful Hans! Sadly, my Collie doesn’t like the log burner. The rumble of the fire as the door opens sends him running in terror!
Hi Vikkie, A daft little work environment tip with Henry Hoover 1. Get a car air freshener, 2. Open the packet a little and pull it out partly 3. Place it on top of the bag but under the cotton filter Doesn't affect the performance, but it gets rid of the stale dusty smell when vacuuming up Keep up the good work!
You do realize that electric heat is the most expensive option and puts you at the mercy of the communist government that can bill you whatever they feel like.
For tile cutting you need an electric tile cutter, like a table saw but for tile not wood, with a diamond blade that you can use with water to cool the blade. You can cut all sorts of akward angles and shapes and curves with one.
Nice work, I cant remember which video it was but you were asking for good goggles recommendations. I like the uvex ultrasonic ones (orange frame) they are airtight and you can even wear them with glasses on. I went through about 6 different pairs before settling on them
The hearth is looking good! I'm surprised it's two piece though, I thought they cut them to any shape and size. I made mine out of a lovely 50mm thick slab of reclaimed slate and made a beveled edge trim from reclaimed mahogany from the old window surrounds. Make the most of having scaffold up but i wouldn't worry about it going quickly, I had my chimney rendered (not my preference) and it was up for over three months!
You did a smashing job on the hearth. But I thought you said you were going to repoint the chimney - the video showed you rebidding the flashing but also showed the chimney stack still needs pointing 😳 Have fun.
Great vids as always. I now use lime (nhl) instead of cement, its brilliant, you’ve got ages to work with it, can redo it if needed and strong soon enough
Oh I do like those tiles Vikkie, great choice. Also getting on that roof , I could not do it, no head for heights even a bungalow roof. Great job on the hearth, looks so good, same as what I had in my previous home.
Yes, they are supposed to be modern storage heaters with fans in them. We're only using a couple of them until we sort our tariffs out and get all the solar certificates and everything. Next step more solar and batteries and different certificates.😄.
Just a tip regarding solar - get as many panels on the roof as possible, and then get as many batteries as you can afford, my advice would be to get a system where you can add batteries yourself without having to pay someone to come and do it - pylontech are good, easy to install if you want to add on to as well.
The company that had the contract for this job have done us a quote to go from a g98 to a g99. With another 12 panels taking us to 8kw, and 22kwh worth of batteries. Still wondering if we could cut the bill a bit by cutting the 6 batteries down to 4 maybe.
@TheCarpentersDaughterUK 22kw of batteries is a big system, we have 20 400w panels..can't get no more on the roof, but only have 10.5kw of batteries, that does set us by but only just on dark dull days, there is only 2 of us but are buying another 5kw battery to add, it's probably the best thing we have ever had fitted to the house, the standing charge is basically our bill, but you can get your own meters fitted to cut the standing charge out
@kroozer5215 is your heating electric aswell? We have no gas in the area and we want to avoid getting oil or gas tanks installed, our nieghbour has a 10+ year old tariff that he won't budge from i think he said sometimes he doesn't even have to pay the standing charge... they do have oil heating though and thier home is always roasting compared to ours.. 😄
@TheCarpentersDaughterUK no our heating is gas, if I were in your position I would get as many batteries as you can, I didn't realise you had no gas, hence may explain the large battery bank you stated
That black hearth looks bloody great. Might pay you to get a #2 (or even a #1) square mouth shovel for mixing your cement/mortar. Should be about a fiver for the Chinese lightweight metal one.
Well done, again. Gloves, bigger trowel, hold the hammer further back from the head, otherwise, coming along nicely!! Also, use a wheelbarrow to move the rubble, fewer trips, less effort. Roll on next week.
Looking good. I love the dog! My only recommendation - and I wish I'd got one sooner - it to use an angle grinder and develop the skills and confidence needed. But I think you already have both!
Thanks so much! 😀 the angle grinder will be my last resort on the tiles incase I don't cut straight... unless I Clamp a guide to each one if absolutely needed 😆😆
@@TheCarpentersDaughterUK Hee hee. Cool pup. "unless I Clamp a guide to each one if absolutely needed " I've done this with wood,, and it's not given great resuts because the AG disc will chew up the edge. This means impromptu tracksaws with homemade jigs - or AG use with some care. What I'd say is that a diamond cutting wheel (e.g.. a Bosch Tile Diamond Disc) is good as you can work your way to line probably by doing a fairly shallow cut and then going through - and this is able to sand material to a line as well, so if you err slightly on the side of caution, you can basically cut back to the line you want, paying attention to getting it going down at 90 degrees as well as following that line. Hard to explain ... I did porcelain tiles at the end of my bath and a stone window ledge this way - with great results. The remainders had messy edges, but that's the price I paid for good edges on the stuff I was installing. It's an art, but one within your abilities. So, in summary, I do this: (1) cut a score line on one waste of that line, (2) cut through - at 90 degrees to the face, then (3) tidy up the whole edge - being really careful with 90 degrees to the face. Steps 0 and 5 are optional and involve clamping the workpeice and having a hot drink.
