Zac's spray-paint stencil desk top

We have two old desks (made in 1952) which we got out of a garage clearance and I am trying to revive them for the boys rooms.  The sides and legs of the desk are solid oak which I have sanded the stain off and they look pretty good.  The desk top was a veneered top which someone has sanded through in places so it was decided to paint it.

After looking at paterns to paint it I decided to try spay-paint stenciling.  After a conversation with David Leicher who gave me some tips we gave it a go and below is the result.

There are a few things I would do differently next time.....but I am not unhappy with the result!

Soffit boards up

I have put up the soffit boards all in preparation for rendering the front wall. In the picture I have only completed half the soffit.

Zac's room is ready

Zac got to move into his room yesterday!

Extending driveway 2

I forgot to say, Alison laid all the bricks in the picture in the previous post.

Extending driveway

I have had another bit of luck! My neighbours had some work done on their gas tank by contractors and they very kindly offered their digger to me for the weekend, they also said I could use the rest of the space in their skip which was almost empty.
So I have spent the weekend diving up pay off the lawn with the digger, putting it into wheelbarrows and pushing it around to Peter & Ann to put in the skip. After I had filled the skip with lovely top soil Gwyn from down the road comes past and says he will take the top soil!!!  If he had come past the day before he would have saved me a lot of barrowing, but I was still very grateful for him to take everything that wouldn't fit in the skip which worked out to be the green dumper trucks full.

Gwyn asked me to connect a electric cooker for him so in exchange I am using his wacker plate (compactor) to flatten the new bit of the driveway.

While this is all happening I am still going as fast as possible to get Zac's room finished which means sanding and painting his floor with for coats in the evenings.  I put the last coat on tonight so tomorrow I need to start fitting his skirting boards.

Zac's floor

I have stayed on zac's floor. All screw holes have been filled and the whole floor sanded and I have put the first coat of primer on.

Manifold & screed

The underfloor heating manifold is now assembled and mounted on the wall. It took me forever to pressure test the thing and I flooded the house a bit trying to work out how to do it.

Once the tubing was done and tested I got Jean in to screed the floor and teach me. I was also the laborer and shovelled 2 tons of sand and half a ton of cement into Rosie's mixer then barrowed it into the house for Jean to use.  And now I know how to screed a floor!

Laying pipe

Started laying underfloor heating pipe last night with Liam's help.

Fitting cupboards

I have a new phone which makes it easier to post pictures so hopefully there will be more pictures in future.

Putting in waste pip for upstairs bathroom

A bridge was put in place so the family could still get in and out the house / annex.

There were lots of signs of rodents when digging under the floors.

This is all now in place and covered up again.

Concrete sub floor

Plastic membrane to keep the floor dry

This is the chute to get the concrete in from the mixer on the drive outside.

 Concrete poured and leveled, this now needs insulation on it, then underfloor heating pipes, then cement screed over the top.

Chimney

After looking at these pictures I realise I don't have many picture of the inside, I will try to take some more this weekend.  The chimney was one of the better buys I have had on this build, it is half the price of a local supplier so I was expecting not great quality but it has turned out to be good! :-)

Rendered other gable

Finally got around to rendering the other gable end with Rich's help

Stud walls

Sorry about the lack of updates.  I have started on the stud walls upstairs.