Mike's ext'n & renovation (solar panels)

[Mike G]

Thanks Phil. Yes, there will be a partial vertical boxing under the basin, as far up as the isolating valves. As for the porch roof, I'm not sure what you're seeing. Here are some alternative photos:

 

[Phil]

Mike, this one.

Maybe just the colour of the tiles?

 

[Mike G]

The tiles are wonky hand-made things, deliberately to achieve a wonky hand-made look to the roof. However, the bottom edges (eaves) are straight and horizontal.

 

[billybuntus]

He's a cool dog (or she) what kind is it mike?

PS, excellent progress

 

[Mike G]

That's Mabel. She's a golden doodle (retriever crossed with standard poodle).

 

[Mike G]

I write this well after the event. I will be posting about 8 or 10 weeks worth of work over the next few days, and these were highly intense bouts of work, too, with a wedding reception in my garden as an absolute and unmovable deadline. I had to basically get two bedrooms and a bathroom ready for a house full of guests, plus the porch, dining room and hall to be finished, and a patio and garden steps ready for the party.

The two bedrooms hadn't been touched since we bought the place. The lime plaster was loose, cracked, and covered in a rock-hard layer of something which meant that not only did paint not stick to the wall, but neither would plaster. The floors were patched with 1930's pine repairs, and modern damage and repairs. They were loose, and rotten in places.

Bedroom 3 first. This was the place where they ran out of dry ice when ice-blasting the paint off the timber a couple of years ago. So, I had to start by manually stripping the timbers. This involved applying a paste, covering it with cling-film, leaving it 24 to 48 hours, scraping off the paste/ paint mixture, then wet-brushing the saponified paint remnants, then finally washing the beam down. It is messy and laborious, but works nicely:





This post, which had been covered in thick glossy black paint, revealed a carpenter's mark:



Next on the agenda was stripping the lath and plaster covering from the tie beam, which had previously been built into a wall. Those paying attention will remember that I removed the wall a few months ago. Before:



After:







That beam tells a fascinating tale, and if anyone cares to do some house-sleuthing and speculate on what it tells us it will be a fascinating little insight into the history of the house.

After the disaster of the Great Dust-Storm of a few months back where I filled the house with can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dust, I borrowed a massive fan from a friend, and set it in the window opening. It was so powerful it just about sucked the plaster off the wall itself:



I borrowed this chasing tool from my electrician buddy, and set it to cut grooves 2 or 3mm deep. The key thing about it was that connects to an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner:



With everything cleared, the openings sealed, the fan on, and dust-mask and goggles in place, I tackled the walls and ceiling:







After screwing up with large washers any areas of loose plaster, I was ready to start plastering.

With a low scaffold set up (on blocks), I plastered the ceiling. This took 2 coats of lime plaster, with the base coat being a courser "Thermoline" and the top coat being "Finelime", both from Anglia Lime in Sudbury (pre-mixed). In the middle of the heatwave, lime plastering was a nightmare. Everything had to be dripping with water to give me any chance of getting a finish on it:





There is lots of work where the plaster meets the old timbers:



There aren't many pictures of plastering, because, frankly, it's pretty dull stuff. Next, the floor, starting with replacing pine with oak.

Before:



After:



It was whilst cleaning everything up and inspecting closely that I realised that the original floor was elm, not oak!! Oh well. Elm is a bit hard to come by these days, and the oak matches in well with a bit of work. The next step with the floor was to clean down with a strong solution of sugar soap, which is actually quite a powerful chemical:



This is what it doesn't instantly it splashes on oak:



All the gaps, shakes, splits, knots etc are picked out with a bradawl and various sharpened implements, and the floor is washed down a total of 5 times over 2 days as it is essential to neutralise the sugar soap. After drying, I fitted a few Dutchmen where necessary, then lacquered with 3 coats of a matt/ egg-shell water-based lacquer:





This is what washing revealed on some of the floorboards:



It took a few minutes for the penny to drop, but eventually I worked out that these are re-used boards (remember that every original timber in the house comes from a much older, much grander, donor building). The stripes are where the boards have had laths nailed on them with the board originally being the other way up. The ceiling was plastered directly to the underside of the boards.

My wife was soon choosing the clay-paint:





.........and I moved on to the next bedroom. Just to give you some perspective, I spent 2 days stripping paint, 3 full days on hands and knees sorting the floor, after 4 days of preparation, and 4 days of plastering, then a day or two tidying up the details and applying additional coats of lacquer. That's a lot of time and effort for one room.

The next room at least had the benefit of already having the timbers stripped. Other than that, it was much the same job as the previous room. The plaster was in much worse condition, though, and the ceiling was just a little wonkier:















At least there was an easy new wall for some light relief:



There aren't many "after" piccies:







That's another 10 days work summed up in a few photos. Prepare yourselves for an essay on doors!!

 

[Mike G]

I bought some seasoned (French) oak boards, and planed most of it up on a friend's wide planer/ thicknesser:



Some of the boards were too wide even for his monster machine:



This is for three doors: the external front door (porch door), the internal front door, and the downstairs loo door. I started with the outside front door. Before I could start work on the door itself I had to make the 4-centred arch door head, which is done with a pair of spandrels. First, a template:









That last photo shows the long mortices I left when I made the porch last year. Now, with a wedding coming up in no time at all, I needed to make the spandrels, but I wouldn't have time to carve them, so they'll have to be removable for carving later. I had set aside a large piece of green oak from the porch build, but as it was over a year old it wasn't quite so green any more:









Big as it was, it wasn't big enough to do the spandrels in one piece a side, so I had to glue on an extra bit:





Marking up the template on the door opening revealed no surprises at aLL..........the timbers weren't straight:





To cut the long shoulder of the top mortice I clamped a guide-piece to the spandrel and just sawed. There are a number of other ways this could be done:



Hogging off the waste:





A bit of wax to help it into place:



And the first trial fit:



It needed a whack or two with a rubber mallet, but went in rather well.

The second one was always going to be more awkward, because the first one is ion the way. I shaped the tenon:









The butt joint in the middle is obviously never going to be weather-tight:



So my solution was to add a groove to each piece:





And in due course I shall whack in a sliding tenon. Of course, that can't happen until the spandrels have been completely finished and carved, because they won't be removable after the loose tenon is fitted.

And so to the door.........

 

[Stargazer]

Looking great! Love the shape of the arch.

Ian

 

[Mike G]

Not many people make their front door on saw horses outside, but the weather was beautiful.....

The original plan for the front door had been a three-board door, but the extra wide boards I'd found in the woodyard (Thorogoods, Ardleigh, Nr Colchester) might just lend themselves to a 2 board door if I can squeak enough out of each board between the sapwood. These boards had been too wide to put through a planer/ thicknesser, so I cleaned them up "by hand", albeit not with hand-tools. First, the planer:



That's a bit of a mis-laeding photo, as I used it as a scrub-plane to start with, working along the board at 45 degrees, before cleaning up a bit with the planer orientated as shown. Then across the grain with the belt sander (40 grit), then with the grain (same grit), and finally finish off with some 100 grit paper:





Before anyone says that I should have cut the boards to length first, It was necessary first to fully reveal the edge of the sapwood, as I needed every mm of width I could manage to squeeze in. I ripped off the waste with a circular saw against a straight-edge:



After crudely cutting to a coupl;e of inches over-long, I was finally able to put the boards together to see what I was going to get:



You'll notice that one board is wider than the other, and that the junction therefore isn't in the middle. Worry not!!

I did a half-lap for the junction, using the hand-held circular saw and a router with a winged side cutter. There is no need for this to be furniture grade, as it will be permanently hidden:



I had in stock some 38mm thick off-cuts, albeit with lots of sapwood (that's why they're off-cuts). Perfect for my ledges:



The sapwood ran through the wood at about 30 degrees, so I cut it off at that angle, again using the straight-edge and circular saw:





I propped the boards roughly in place so as to mark the final door width on the boards so that I could make the ledges the necessary length:





Now, it's not as simple as that. The hinge side of the door has the ledges cut off square and close to the edge, but the leading edge of the door doesn't need that. I'll explain later.

Sizing up the aesthetics. Three ledges or 4? With the arched top, three looked right, and 4 looked silly. Oh, and no-one said the boards had to be flat:



Here's a little trick of mine. To prevent any board dropping relative to another in a boarded door, I came up with the idea of a pin in the adjoining edges. Stainless steel obviously, as it is oak:





Time to glue up. Before I fixed the ledges permanently in place, I opened the gap up between the vertical boards. This is seasoned timber, on the hottest day of the year in the middle of a heatwave. They're going to expand rather than contract. Note the lack of glue. Of course, there would have been no glue used at all in old doors. The key thing to note is that the ledges are only fixed to the boards at the outer edges, so all the seasonal movement will be at the middle of the door:



Note also the shaped end of the non-glued ledges, towards the top of the above photo. This is the end at the leading edge of the door. I left the door clamped overnight (not that the glue needed it, but I was running out of light):



The next day:





Cinched-over hand-made nails in pilot holes......and a revelation. I had often wondered why you see hammer-marks on old ledged door. I just thought that the carpenters must have been in a rush, or clumsy, but in doing this myself I found that you have to nail up from the underside of the door. So you're kneeling, and hammering upwards with only half a view of the nail-head, and the occasional accident is hard to avoid.

After the outer nails only in each ledge were nailed and cinched over, I offered the door up to the opening and marked the arch:



Critically, I remembered to off-set this by an inch:





Time to shape up the outer cover-strip. Note the two little rebates (10mmx3mm), again, all done outside on the saw horses:



At the bottom edge of the door is a weather strip, to deflect rain away from the underside of the door. This one has another function too:

There's a reason I keep off-cuts. This is ex-4":













Why the big rebate at the bottom? Well, the threshold seals that are commonly available don't deal with a 22mm thick boarded door. They're designed to 40-odd mm thick doors, so the rebate is to act with the external seal of the 2 in the threshold strip, like this:



Holes from the inside of the door for screwing the weather strip into place, and to take an oak plug:



Now, the magic ingredient. It is a watertight expanding foam seal, which will expand from its original 3mm to up to 13mm thickness, and depending on how tightly it is squeezed will resist in the ingress of a hurricane. I was worried about how quickly it would expand, so didn't take a photo mid-process, but you can see it here at the top of the fixed-in-place weather strip:



Now that the top of the door is cut out, and the bottom is determined by the weather-strip, I could cut the central cover-strip to length and fix that in place. Note the hugely oversized holes in the door boards, and the two lines of my expanding foam tape. Again, this is so that the inner edges of the boards are trapped against the ledge, but not constrained in movement across the grain:









Note that I left a small gap at the lower end of the cover strip, so that any moisture can dry off rather than be trapped between 2 pieces of timber:



The top end shaped:

 

[Mike G]

Flipping the door over to the inside face, I made a cover strip for the join there too. This is obviously in pieces to allow for the ledges:





Time to prop it in position. The spandrels don't yet have a rebate, so I had to pop them out:



Now, for the ironmongery. 18" tee hinges and some monkey-tail bolts from Suffolk Latch Company:



Photos out of sequence, somewhat:



This is how I rebated the spandrels to suit the door head:













Note the damage where the 45 degree grain tapers to zero. This is obviously a design flaw, and I'll have to do a repair later on. There was something of a cover-up opportunity for me on the leading edge, though:





Again, those photos are slightly out of order as I haven't yet shown the making of the groove for the seal. I have worried about this part of the job for, literally, years. I may even have asked a question about it here some time ago. Anyway, I made a scratch-stock:













It isn't the neatest groove I've ever run, but it will be hidden by the seal itself. It was an awkward and slow job, not helped by the changing grain direction around the curve.

That will do for that door for the time being. I'll come back to it in a few weeks. Now, on to the second......

 

[Mike G]

Looking great! Love the shape of the arch.

Ian

Thanks Ian. It's a very traditional mediaeval shape, set out in the old-fashioned manner dividing the height of the arch by three and doing some compass work. The really important thing with a 4 centred arch is that the upper part of the arch is properly curved. You often see replicas where that part is made straight, and it looks terrible.

 

[Rod]

Fascinating read, that explains why we haven’t heard from you for a while, you’ve been extremely busy!!

With no edge restraint on the door, isn’t there a greater risk of warping etc?

Rod

 

[Robert]

Took a while to read through that but it must have taken a lot longer to put together. Thanks for putting the effort in with such a big update.

Having seen how much movement there was when I was daft enough to make a table top with breadboard ends (it's now firewood) I too would be worried about future warping. Hope it doesn't happen and your centre expansion idea copes with the movement. My 2ft wide table top was moving around 6mm from summer to winter humidity changes despite a good coat of polyurethane.

 

[Malc2098]

Wow! Bloomin' wow!

 

[Coley]

You have been a busy boy ! [emoji41] My only concern is the expansion gap youve allowed in the centre of the boards- i dont think its anywhere big enough. At the very least I think you'll have bowed rails once it starts getting damp ! The ironmongery looks like a match made in heaven [emoji8]


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[Mike G]

Fascinating read, that explains why we haven’t heard from you for a while, you’ve been extremely busy!!

With no edge restraint on the door, isn’t there a greater risk of warping etc?

Rod

Thanks Rod. But there is edge restraint. The outside edges of the boards are captured by the nails (and a bit of glue), with the inside edges being held by the cover strip which is nailed through into the ledges. You'll find plenty of examples of this construction still going strong 400 years later.

 

[Mike G]

Took a while to read through that but it must have taken a lot longer to put together. Thanks for putting the effort in with such a big update.

There's loads more to come!

Having seen how much movement there was when I was daft enough to make a table top with breadboard ends (it's now firewood) I too would be worried about future warping. Hope it doesn't happen and your centre expansion idea copes with the movement. My 2ft wide table top was moving around 6mm from summer to winter humidity changes despite a good coat of polyurethane

I think this door will cope with 7 or 8mm of movement before it starts bending the ledges.

I'm doing a big dining table with breadboard ends next year. If you've got detail photos of yours, I'd love to see it.

 

[Coley]

I think this door will cope with 7 or 8mm of movement before it starts bending the ledges.

Umm, I'm not so sure. Your expansion gap is almost touching already and the outside of the boards are glued so won't move that much. I think it could erupt in the middle like a volcano ! On 4-8 inch boards I try and allow 1- 1.5mm expansion for every 100mm of board. There's no question your wide boarded door looks great, I just wonder if you'll be forever easing it once it starts getting damp. A wider cover strip and a half inch middle expansion joint would have made me feel much more confident [emoji6]


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[Mike G]

The next door. This is the downstairs loo door, and is 900mm (C.3 feet) wide. This is where it is going:



Again, I needed to squeeze as much width as I could out of 3 boards. The boards were already planed, and the head isn't arched, so this was a much quicker and easier build:



Again, half-laps at the board edges. This not only allows for expansion & contraction without leaving gaps through the doors (who wants gaps in a loo door!), but it means that the edge of one board acts to trap down the edge of the adjacent board. However, this one wasn't going to be just as simple as half-laps:







I profiled the middle board, planing and sanding away half the depth tapering down to nothing. This is a traditional mediaeval detail, giving some texture and interest to what would otherwise be just a flat expanse of wood. The slight complication with this one is that it is outward opening, so the hinge is one the board side of the door, not the ledges. I had to offer the hinge up first to make sure that there was a flat bit for the end to rest on. otherwise I would have tapered the board to an apex in the middle.



I did my trick with the pins again, hidden under the ledge positions:



I glued and nailed the ledges as per the last door, fixing the outer edge of the outer boards, and the centre of the middle board:



The inner edge junctions needed to allow for expansion and contraction, so I did the following:













There was a nasty little knot hole on the edge of one of the boards:



I cleaned it up and made a patch:





The Suffolk latch took some working out, particularly as it was on the "wrong" side of the door (it being an outward opening door). I had to make a small packing piece for the handle:



I cut a slot longer than proved necessary, but no matter. Note, too, how far from the edge of the door the ledges finish. Again, this is for the outward opening door, to allow for the stops being on the ledge side, rather than the normal board side.

Ready for hanging:



I can't back far enough away to get a decent photo of the whole door:





Here's the stop, showing the ledges cut short to clear it/ them:



The hinge flying across the tapered board:



I cobbled together a pin and chain to lock the door:







What's this? Did I mis-measure?



In due course that will have a leaded light for a little "borrowed light" into the room. The loo doesn't have a window. I finished the door with a couple of coats of a satin water-based lacquer. It could probably do with another one, next time I've got some on the go.

 

[Mike G]

Here's a drawing of the next door. It will be far more complicated than these previous two, and will be insulated. This will take the thickness up to 71mm, so it will weigh a ton:



Again, the spandrels will eventually be carved. I'll get to this door in 2 or 3 weeks, I reckon.

 

[Mike G]

Before I could fit the door, I needed to do a threshold. I laid a few brick-on-edges:



Three or 4 years ago a local farmer fell off his ladder whilst cleaning out a flat gutter. He landed on his back on a paved yard, and broke his spine in a couple of places. He is 100% now, but as soon as he got out of hospital he organised for someone to rip up all of the paving bricks and replace them with shingle, presumably so that next time he fell it didn't hurt so much. He chucked the bricks in a pile behind a barn.

In return for making him a new gate he let me have as many of the bricks as I wanted. These are traditional floor bricks, made to show the top (or bottom) rather than the face you see in a brick wall. They vary enormously, both in colour and in size, and this is what they looked like when I collected the first few:



I set up a cleaning station, soaking them in water, then soaking them in sugar soap, then scrubbing and rinsing them. It was very slow and laborious:



So, I bought some hydrochloric acid:



....and covered myself up from head to toe before brushing it on, leaving it a while, then hosing it off thoroughly (before and after):





I was planning to use a thick bed tile adhesive to set them down, until I saw how much the thickness varied. They finished between 20 and 50mm thick, although averaged out around 35 to 40mm. So instead I knocked up some mortar, and started laying:





The second photo shows the final few stones in the hall having been laid to meet the bricks. Floor bricks are traditionally laid on sand, without deliberate gaps, and have sand brushed into the gaps afterwards, but I grouted with the same stuff I used for the stone:

 

[Malc2098]

Thrice, wow!

 

[Rod]

Lovely floor

Rod

 

[Coley]

Lovely floor

Rod

+1 It looks superb [emoji41]

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[Mike G]

Having only spent a week or 10 days on my knees doing bedroom floors and the porch floor, I thought another few days kneeling would be a good idea. We wanted the patio ready in time for the wedding. This is how it looked before I started:





I had bought a whole load of sandstone last year, and I spent rather a lot of time working out the best way of cutting it such that it fitted in the circle with enough left over to do the steps. I had 33 900x600 slabs.

The falls on this patio were critical because of the gulley and retaining walls, so I laid out the easy cruciform pieces to start with, establishing levels:





I had lots of floor bricks left over, but as they were all too thick I had to cut them down. I spent days cutting brick and stone, going through 3 diamond blades in the process. Turns out that the old-fashioned cutting blades did a much better job with the sandstone:



It turned out OK in the end:





The other job was the steps up to the garden:











No, I've not stuffed up the levels! The sub-base up to the bottom step is much lower than the eventual patio level will be, because there will be a conservatory over much of this area, and the patio will be near-flush with its floor level.

One thing I did stuff up though was a stand for a parasol, which I chemical-anchored (2 part resin) to the stonework of the patio:







It didn't survive the first strong wind. I'll pop that slab up, weld some captive nuts onto a steel plate below it, and re-set the slab. One day.

 

[Malc2098]

I'm running out of words!

 

[Mike G]

The last of my tools leaves the house. Never in 4 years has this house not had tools in it......until the day before the wedding:



Unfortunately, the only place they can go is into the hell-hole that my workshop has become:







There is no point thinking of tidying it up, there is simply too much stuff in there. That can only mean one thing....................time for a new shed. Luckily, I have a bit of waste ground alongside my workshop:





Unfortunately, in clearing and leveling the ground I disturbed a wasps nest, so that was it for the day.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Looks fantastic Mike, you've certainly been a busy lad. How did the wedding go?

 

[Mike G]

The wedding was just great thanks Mark. No photos I'm afraid for 3 or 4 weeks.

 

[jules70]

Thanks for taking the time post Mike. Love looking in and seeing the results of your hard labour !

Floor and patio look particularly good.

 

[Coley]

You'll find plenty of examples of this construction still going strong 400 years later.

But things have moved on a bit since then Mike. We have double glazing, insulation and draught strips/excluders to try and keep the heat in nowadays. A draughty and gappy door was probably the norm 400 years ago....not so much now [emoji6]


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[Mike G]

Thanks Jules.

 

[the bear]

Not got much to add that hasn't already been said. I don't know how you get so much done. I'm currently renovating my place and would love to be able to keep a similar progress going. I particularly like the brick floor in the porch.

Mark

 

[the bear]

I forgot to ask, what lacquer did you use on the floor and doors please Mike?

Mark

 

[Mike G]

I forgot to ask, what lacquer did you use on the floor and doors please Mike?

I used Smith & Rodger Aquacoat SP Satin (by mistake, I ordered matt) initially, but found that Ingilby Paints of Glemsford, who I use for limewash, also supply their own waterbased lacquer at well under half the price, so I tried that, then bought in bulk. Theirs is called Seacoat Lacquer (Clear), and they gave me some matting agent separately so I could take it down to as matt as I wanted. Their product is a deal thicker than S&R's, so I mixed 200ml of water with 800ml of lacquer, and 25g of matting agent (which is just a white powder). This is just slightly glossier than the S&R satin, but close enough.

As an aside, Ingilbys say the lacquer can be used to seal floorbricks, and should last 5 to 10 years before needing recoating. I shall be experimenting soon, but I think that watering it down a lot to soak in well is the likely starting point.

..... I don't know how you get so much done. I'm currently renovating my place and would love to be able to keep a similar progress going..........

A hundred hours a week is how. There were plenty of other jobs in that time that didn't warrant coverage here. A couple of days doing electrics, for instance, and a new shower screen shaped under a sloped ceiling, fitting the shower, plastering a wall in the kitchen, finishing the brick plinth in the dining room, boxing in an SVP in the dining room, and so on. Hell, putting together a new bed took 3 hours..... I was so knackered I couldn't keep my eyes open to post anything anywhere.

 

[Mike G]

A day to dig then ground and remove the stinging nettles. Half a day to cast the base, 3 hours to do the brickwork, and a lazy afternoon knocking together the panels:



Note the water. I flooded the surface of the concrete to help prevent it shrinking and cracking in this heat (over 30C on the day of pouring, and the following day). This is on made up ground, across an old back-filled ditch. There is no way of ever getting down to solid sub-soil without putting piles down, so I simply dug through the softest of the topsoil, tamped down some hardcore, and cast up a pretty strong mix of concrete. It's only a lightweight store-shed, and even if it were to move a little it wouldn't be the end of the world. The base is 2353 x 2353.......the nearest brick dimension under 2400. Eight foot square .

I was going to do this on concrete lintels and have a timber suspended floor, but firstly my local builder's merchants didn't have any the right length, and secondly, that would have been a more expensive option anyway (albeit probably more appropriate for the ground conditions). Anyway, the normal low brick plinth:



Then marking out the plates (45x45, or ex 2"x2"):



Finally for now, nailing together the frames. As we've got to walk this into position I just put on the lower piece of 9mm OSB, which squares everything up:

 

[fiveeyes]

Malcolm said it first..WOW. As a 'colonist' , this is a first rate education in the ways done long ago. Fully appreciated. Most of all, I must thank you for WIP, as that is time consuming, and your pride in workmanship is quite apparent. bscene-drinkingcheers: bill

 

[Mike G]

Thanks Bill. Here are a few more of the shed, which I doubt has anyone thinking "wow"> It is going to make an enormous difference here, though, enabling me to clear out my workshop and use it properly for the first time in months.







I wish I'd made the roof steeper. It looks too boxy, It has shelves 600 wide full height each side of a central aisle, floor to ceiling, so will hold an awful lot of stuff.

 

[wallace]

My daughter at the age of 20 no longer needs her wendy house so I liberated it to store things that clutter the workshop. Its amazing what you find when de cluttering

 

[Mike G]

"Liiberated it". :lol: Love it.