Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

No leaves on the line this time.

 

19th November 2024

It was a cold night last night, so this morning, we had the first snow of the 2024/25 Winter. I'm pleased I'm working inside on the bedroom now!

 

Despite the storm, so far, everything in the garden is where it should be. The rain isn't falling, it's going sideways at a considerable speed. Cold frames are still in place and even the hanging basket by the back door is still there!

Hope everyone else is surviving.

 

7th December 2024

In other news, a month in, I'm yet to start decorating the bedroom, as I'm still pulling it to pieces! The room was covered in lining paper when we moved in, so I knew there were going to be some hidden horrors behind the paper. With the paper removed, I found lots of cracks in the plaster - some large, some small. I think most of this probably came from the foundations settling when the extension was first built, possibly 35+ years ago. There were no wrinkles in the lining paper before removal, so it didn't appear to have moved since that was applied.

Steaming off the paper, also pulled some plaster off the radiator wall. Further scraping showed this grey layer was a skim, over the top of the original, lilac painted plaster. There had been no surface prep, so the grey plaster hadn't bonded well, so I started chiselling all of that off. I noticed some bumps above the light switch, which turned out to be the lighting cable sticking up proud of the plaster skim! The sockets weren't too secure either!



Over by the window, there were two patches of cream plaster. These turned out to be an area that had been boxed in, from what looked like a much longer original window. There were a number of cracks between these patches and the original wall, plus crumbling plaster and voids. More areas that were pulled to pieces.

There was a crack all along the underside of the window sill and further investigation showed a thin plaster skim, over rolled up paper plaster bags as packing. Any pressure on the window sill, was flexing the plaster, causing the cracking. Back to the radiator wall, there were several horizontal cracks up near the ceiling. This room was originally a garage, later converted to a bedroom.

Raising the floor from the original concrete, up to the house floor level, I think left the original ceiling too low. So it appears that the ceiling was then raised, resulting in a strip all round in different materials, including wood, that the plaster didn't bond to. All of this plaster was cut away straight and I think I'll replace the area with plasterboard and have the whole wall skimmed.



I knew it was going to be a major project ( seems to be a common theme for me ) and will keep me busy probably until early spring! Then it's back out in the garden for the lawn edging.

 

I've had a couple of horror stories like that in the past. I think it's harder trying to sort it out when it's a bodged job. The consolation is that you know exactly what has gone on and the job will be finished properly. Good luck!

 

If anyone can do it you can @ArmyAirForce!, keep up the good work and I look forward to your next update.

 

Not sure which room this is in respect of the whole house, though suspect it might be the room extending towards the exisitng stand alone double garage ?

Looking back at your house pictures the roofing does look to be on a couple of levels. has it been extended more than once ?

 

The room to the far right is my workshop, not the bedroom.

The window on the left is the kitchen window. To its right, is one of the small back corridor windows. On the other side of the house, behind this window is the en-suit with the master bedroom to its left - under the highest part of the roof. From what we can tell, the property has been extended at least three times - the kitchen and sunroom being one, my daughters bedroom and ours on the far side of this image and my workshop which is the roof to the right. I don't know if these happened across several years, or whether some happened concurrently.

 

9th December 2024

A couple of days ago, the paving company delivered the other twenty four concrete sleepers for the lawn edging. They'll be sitting outside the workshop until the Spring ( or whenever the bedroom is finally finished! ).



Surprisingly, there are still one or two plants flowering in the garden. Some Daisy Pomponettes are still in bloom, as are some of the Hebes.

 

The forecast here isn't great for the next few days. I want to get out and catch Jupiter, since it is just passed opposition, but again, my anti-cloud filter is still in development!