Your Day (apart from gardening) - what took place?

Beautiful @HarryS . Many successful cook outs on it.

 

Today spent cutting aerated blockwork to shape and laying blocks, tomorrow will be working on adapting floor boarding, screeding and plastering

Got it not that far from you, a fantastic place to visit if interested in period stuff http://www.c20fireplaces.co.uk/ They also supply lots of fireplaces for period drama film sets. When I went to collect mine there was 3 people working on producing new tiled fireplace/stove surrounds and they had about 20 finished and awaiting collection.

 

Nice looking surround. I will be making on for the summer house shortly the wife likes the 30/40s look and chose this one, I do tiling as part of my trade so it will save me a few pound.

http://www.c20fireplaces.co.uk/repro-fireplace-complete/rfpc023_handley-1920s-all-tiled-fireplace

 

I could have saved many £100's of pounds by making it myself, but I'm sure it wouldn't have looked so good (even if I'd used a wet bench cutter) as there's around 100 fair cut edges, and maybe a quite a bit of wastage if I'd had to buy the 5 colours in whole boxes (+ one colour in 2 sizes), plus the time it could have taken would have lost me either a growing season or a winter of use. I believe that sometimes bit of indulgence is OK if balanced by savings elsewhere.

Are you intending to install an open fireplace or a stove? I got a cracking price from http://www.stovebay.com when I contacted them and they quoted even lower than their advertised price, plus with an enhanced finish at no additional cost.

If you're interested in repro period furniture have a look here (where we got our 3 piece suite) http://www.artdeco-sofas.com/index.html


P.S. Quarry tile and chequered block pavings are another matter, our house (a 'heritage asset') got a mention in our Conservation Area document for various original features, including the reclaimed diamond pattern red/blue tile front garden paths & block pavings (all with reclaimed Victorian edging tiles) that I laid myself.

 

Hi Scrungee, I used to tile show room kitchens so i should have no problem with the quality of what i make,

Ive already bought a fire and will be doing a few alterations to the design ive link to make it fit round this


Many thanks for the link and information, i would love to see a few pictures of your tiled path.

 

Is that Calor gas? That'll avoid a raft of Building Regs. Stove surrounds like mine have Perlite added to the concrete backing to reduce the weight, plus they have a rebated profile, 112mm at edges inclusive of tiling, 50mm wide at central opening (again inclusive of tiling). I've installed both fireplaces & stoves (including in vehicles) before the 'nanny state' banned it.

 

Yes its Calor gas and avoids regs there will be adequate ventilation when finished, at a later date i would like a real fire in there, its a plan ive had in mind when money permits, the flu will go through the greenhouse and keep the GH warm for whatever i decide to put in there,

Ive been in the building trade for over 30 years now, kitchen installations is my main line of work but done nearly every aspect over the years, now days i have someone to do my gas/electric work, thanks again S.

 

Picked up Teigan night before last for a check over. She's one of the baby hedgehogs I had 2012/3. She's done very well for herself since her release and is my absolute favourite hoggy - she's such a nice natured hog . Unfortunately she seems to have been sleeping in a tick infested nest. We spent hour and half removing over a hundred of them, big ones to tiny cobblestone ones. Poor girly, she must have felt very uncomfortable. She was such a star about us removing them too.

Sat on sofa at 6.30am yesterday with coffee and Theo when Blackbird chick flew into window. Made horrible bang . One very dazed bundle of feathers on floor. Put him/ her in covered pet carrier in bedroom ( which is quiet room ). Half hour later chick was feeling much better so let go in garden. That's the third bird that has collided with the window over past 2 months.

 

Ouchie! Have you considered putting some decals/stickers on the windows?

 

Ill send her down shiney






two camels ovno .

 

Yes that will be fine , alpaca her bags .

 

A friend gave us one of those quadrocopter drone things. It had about had it. The batteries were so worn out and the propellers so chipped it couldn't generate enough lift. Our friend said we could use it for creative experiments. So, when 1.1 decided he wanted to make a toy hovercraft out of balsa wood, I thought why not add a bit of actual science and engineering. So we took one of the motors, a propeller and the worn battery from the drone, and mounted them on the balsa wood hull. A switch from his electronics set was added, and a long piece of string so we could retrieve it all if it died in the middle of the lake.