Guy's House Project
Discussion
BigBen said:
Spuffington said:
Excellent thread. Look forward to seeing it progress.
Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
And a new soft play at Caxton any month now. But agree for the moment Bury Lane is the one to visit.Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
E36GUY said:
BigBen said:
Spuffington said:
Excellent thread. Look forward to seeing it progress.
Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
And a new soft play at Caxton any month now. But agree for the moment Bury Lane is the one to visit.Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
BigBen said:
E36GUY said:
BigBen said:
Spuffington said:
Excellent thread. Look forward to seeing it progress.
Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
And a new soft play at Caxton any month now. But agree for the moment Bury Lane is the one to visit.Bury Lane Farm Shop & Soft Play is great for the kids - just around the corner from you. My little'un loves it.
We're over nr Saffron Walden so not quite on our doorstep, but sometimes visit friends around Melbourn and take the kids to Bury Lane.
E36GUY said:
In the meantime, we've had a local plumber round re-fitting what will be the boy's shower room following my stripping of the utterly hideous 'blue cheese' tiles etc. It's all looking rather nice. Great to have at least one space nearly finished!
Ah, chicken tiles. We had some of those until recently too but in pink!
Edited by uluru on Saturday 5th March 21:08
Not a huge amount to report this week. Strip down is pretty much finished, the celotex exterior insulation is broadly finsihed and re-boarding has begun. Did some electrical work at the weekend with a electrician client/mate/legend which seemed to mostly revolve around removing the ridiculous items the previous lunatic owner had installed such as a full commercial fire alarm system and an old knackered burglar alarm. The wiring in this place is an absolute nightmare. Used 100 wires where two would have done.
It's been good to see the frame is all in good shape having had the interior walls out. Solid and dry as a bone all around the ground level and under the floorboards of the older part of the house. A considerable relief that nothing nasty has been uncovered.
Stair lift has been removed much to the disappointment of my boys who rather enjoyed it.....
.....allowing me to last night installed my stringer lights which are being set as two groups of three, one in the upper half of the stairs and one in the lower. The brick 'keys' for the exterior walls as well as some of the frame prevent me from doing one every other step as originally planned. Have used the ZEP3 In-Ground Dark Lights with Trim (a lip). Nice and small at only 38mm cut out and 44mm overall. These can be run anywhere from 1W (65 lumens) to 10W (over 900) but for my purposes, they will be 1W. If I decide that's not quite bright enough later on, it's just a case of swapping the single driver for one of a higher output.
The purpose of a dark light is that it recesses the light source inside a black non-reflective collar so that you get the output of the light but no line of sight into the light source and thus no glare. This is a theme that shall follow throughout the rest of the house.
Spark is back in tomorrow to finish off the required wiring then the builders shall close up and get plastering. We move on the 24th!!
It's been good to see the frame is all in good shape having had the interior walls out. Solid and dry as a bone all around the ground level and under the floorboards of the older part of the house. A considerable relief that nothing nasty has been uncovered.
Stair lift has been removed much to the disappointment of my boys who rather enjoyed it.....
.....allowing me to last night installed my stringer lights which are being set as two groups of three, one in the upper half of the stairs and one in the lower. The brick 'keys' for the exterior walls as well as some of the frame prevent me from doing one every other step as originally planned. Have used the ZEP3 In-Ground Dark Lights with Trim (a lip). Nice and small at only 38mm cut out and 44mm overall. These can be run anywhere from 1W (65 lumens) to 10W (over 900) but for my purposes, they will be 1W. If I decide that's not quite bright enough later on, it's just a case of swapping the single driver for one of a higher output.
The purpose of a dark light is that it recesses the light source inside a black non-reflective collar so that you get the output of the light but no line of sight into the light source and thus no glare. This is a theme that shall follow throughout the rest of the house.
Spark is back in tomorrow to finish off the required wiring then the builders shall close up and get plastering. We move on the 24th!!
red_slr said:
Looking like good progress. We are just at the end of ours. 3 months of hell. About 10 skips, lots of late nights (almost every night) and thrown more money at it than I care to recall. Carpets went in today, move in on Friday.
Congrats! Can't wait to move in. It's been years since we lived in a home we actually own!!
snobetter said:
Also regarding your stair lights, what depth are they and do they need a void behind?
Thanks.
Well I have used Dark Lights with the 1-4w engine which by their nature have a deeper bezel to recess the light source so these are 38mm cut out and need 80mm behind but they don't have to be as deep if you use the regular bezel which needs 60mm. We also have one imaginatively titled 'Low Profile' which needs 45mm but this would only be used if you're really pushed for space as it's drawback is that the size of the bezel does not allow any optics inside so we can't control the beam angles.Thanks.
Progress report.
It's going rather well. I've been waiting for something to go wrong and yesterday it did. I have not used the contractors for electrical as being in the lighting business I have several sparks that owe me a favour so I have been cashing in. Broadly we can re-use existing wiring circuits so there was no need to carry out any massive re-wiring. Until the builders, instead of simply stuffing the existing pendants from the landings up into the loft, just cut them away so we ended up with a mass of cables that we couldn't identify where they came from or where they went. A large pain the arse but my spark is a legend and now has it all sorted so we are pretty much done now with lighting circuits ready for my to install the fittings and throw the switch.
Plastering is now in full swing and is about 70% there and the rooms feel like rooms again. Already I can feel the difference the new insulation is making. Electrical should be finished tomorrow and then its the remains of the plastering and decorating the latter of which is already underway. Much to do in a week but we seem to be on track to move next Thursday!
In more PH oriented news, with my commute going from 5 miles to 24, it is time to retire the thirsty daily V8 for the weekends and I am awaiting delivery of my new commuter vehicle
It's going rather well. I've been waiting for something to go wrong and yesterday it did. I have not used the contractors for electrical as being in the lighting business I have several sparks that owe me a favour so I have been cashing in. Broadly we can re-use existing wiring circuits so there was no need to carry out any massive re-wiring. Until the builders, instead of simply stuffing the existing pendants from the landings up into the loft, just cut them away so we ended up with a mass of cables that we couldn't identify where they came from or where they went. A large pain the arse but my spark is a legend and now has it all sorted so we are pretty much done now with lighting circuits ready for my to install the fittings and throw the switch.
Plastering is now in full swing and is about 70% there and the rooms feel like rooms again. Already I can feel the difference the new insulation is making. Electrical should be finished tomorrow and then its the remains of the plastering and decorating the latter of which is already underway. Much to do in a week but we seem to be on track to move next Thursday!
In more PH oriented news, with my commute going from 5 miles to 24, it is time to retire the thirsty daily V8 for the weekends and I am awaiting delivery of my new commuter vehicle
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