HEY THERE AGAIN!

Look ma all caps to start a post aint I clever. As Recently promised here is the brand new, hot off the press post you've all been holding your breath for.

I hope you haven't actually... Oxygen starvation can do strange things to the brain and body.

Seriously, BREATHE!

I thought it might be a bit fun to share our recently begun home renovation project. All work has been carried out by my own 2 fair hands. So sadly any fuck ups I make are, Well my own damn fault.

Bonus! My wife somehow manages to make even my shoddy craftsmanship look great.

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So here's step 1 in my journey of Making this house of ours a home. As with most big adventures in life this one started with a beginning and end in mind.

After The loss of my wifes parents one after the other this year, we have found ourselves fortunate enough to be the proud owners of a Big, Badly renovated, but beautiful old Farm House Here in southwestern France.

Mission Goal: RE-Renovate A previously badly done bedroom for my sons new room.

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Downside...
It needs completely gutted and redone.

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Now let me make this clear before you carry on reading any further. Its Important to state Now that I am not nor ever was I a Professional house basher in a current or previous life.

The boy; Well his wants were simple. Blue walls, colorful furniture, and A Rug to play Lego on.

So First Thing was ripping up the original floor and reinforcing the 300 year old floor joists. Seriously this thing was built sometime in the 17th Century.

I Used a Laser Level For getting a height and temporarily packed up new pads before bracing everything out.

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Using a previously used Image, Sorry forgot to take any real before pictures

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Here to the left is me changing the north facing windows for double glazed units.
Sometimes we loose track of things when we get stuck into a project, especially when we end up renovating a room or doing general home improvements. Budgets stretch, Ideas grow, Unforeseen problems and equally some interesting solutions arise.

As with any project there were complications, Materials Have increased drastically in Price here since the whole covid malarky. Supply shortages etc.

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At the beginning we had hoped to keep a lot of the original work that had been done, Until I Stepped through a chunk of the floor, and started taking off the old sockets and finding the electrics behind the boxes...

To be honest I've been lucky enough through my life to acquire, borrow and steal most of the skills I needed to do the work myself, So I Replaced The electrics from the RCD board onwards (I had them checked by a qualified elechicken don't worry!)

After fitting the new windows and frames something became apparent. The Back wall was seriously on the piss.

So for the rear Wall we came up with a solution to straighten out the original wall, which remarkably was so un-plumb there was a 7 inch difference between floor and ceiling.

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Some Panelling, Just for Character You know

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In the alcove next to his door I built a Tv stand with some drawers for his clothes underneath. Tied it in nicely to the new door surround.

Made the casing from plywood and planed down some chestnut to face everything off. Looked pretty damn good if I say so myself when it was done.

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The young master at work.

Whale alert

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For the floor overlay I choose IPE or Brazilian Walnut. I cant think of a better hardwood for a kids room. This stuffs as hard as nails, quite literally . Has the same fire rating as concrete and steel. This stuff is Dense.

This floor alone ate 3 saw blades, one on the trusty rail saw and the other 2 on my cross cut.

I used a pneumatic nailer and headless Stainless steel flooring nails to pin through each tongue as it went down. Even with fine wire nails I had to set every other nail. Did I mention these floor boards are tough...

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Hey baldy baldy baldy!

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So As you can see progress was ticking away. Day by day I was getting closer to finishing everything Up. As a Family we all put in some hours. I did the manual work, The Missus did the painting, cleaning up after my messy ass and generally just made everything look awesome.

By the end of the first few weeks I have to say we were all feeling a bit impatient, drained, Asking that dreaded question...

WILL WE EVER FINISH!

And then The Renovation gods said....

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Let the decorating commence!

Seriously the act of simply hanging something on the wall made such an impact on our morale at this stage you wouldn't believe it. I hung this mirror up at about 10pm the night before we started moving furniture in.

That transition from building site to a soon livable space did us all some good.

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Boooom!

So the lad finally has his own bedroom, We all worked together as a team and to be honest I think it came together well.

I'm not the worlds tidiest worker, but in the end the bones of the house and a bit of TLC came through to achieve the boys wants and needs.

The windows are insulated and no longer drafty. The floor is rock solid. The walls are painted and the electrics are safe and work. What else could A Kid Ask for.

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So The little man is in his room now and here it is today. Hes still finding decorations and things he likes for it. He spends as much time as he can in there. So I will call that Objective complete.

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This rooms Woods of Choice-

Ipe or Brazilian Walnut- Flooring

Chestnut- Fireplace facing and surround and any other pale wood you see

Niangon- Baseboards or skirting depending on your locale

Drinks of choice during this project-
Coffee - Lots of
Beer- More of

So in closing, Hopefully this post displays correctly. I tried a few new things with the image layout and some of that dreaded code stuff.

As usual all photos are from either mine or the bosses chinesium phone.

Most Importantly Thanks for visiting and hope you enjoyed room 1 of many to come.

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Our Next job is our own bedroom, which we will be keeping a lot more of the original features and character. A more traditional approach you might say.

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Stay tuned for the next episode!

Sincerely yours, Rubido The Wood Butcher.