It’s taken quite a while to get the dining room sorted over the last year but I think we’re pretty much there in terms of construction. Pheebs and I have now painted the doors and cabinets as well as getting the glass shelves and doors installed. The glass was supplied from AK Glass Glazing in Basingstoke who were extremely helpful in getting the right panes and shelves cut to size. I still need to tidy the doors and drawers up as they’re still catching a little bit and the drawers are a little bit tempermental when opening/closing but at least they can be used. It does make a huge difference now in the room with the feature wall being green instead of brown and the new dining room table also is a nice finishing touch to the room. Right, next onto the rest of the house……

Having spent some more time on the dining room cabinet project, I’ve made some progress in finally getting the doors glued together and attached via hinges to the cabinets themselves. It’s certainly been tricky as the cabinets aren’t exactly contracted with 90 degree angles! That’s mainly due to the alcoves also not being straight and true. This is unfortunately the price to pay for old houses but never the less they still look good and have much more character than modern houses. I also managed to sort out getting the drawers fitted and all the door knobs on. Just need to fill & sand the woodwork down and then get the shelves and door glass sorted before we can think about painting!

With some help from John (my father-in-law), we’ve managed to fit a new window in the kitchen roof. The reason for this is that we’re going to block up the back door in preparation for a new kitchen which will allow us more space and light in the current space we’ve got. Big thanks to John for his advice and assistance!

Finally got round to sorting out the alcove shelves in our bedroom which Phoebe has been waiting for a while. It was slightly challanging due to manhandling the 40mm MDF I was using which I’d also used downstairs for the dining room cabinets! The shelves were attached to the alcoves using mini battons via a channel chased in the shelf edge. This gives the impression of a floating shelf…..just need to prime and paint…..

Using some left over wood, I constructed a simple potting bench to go into our new allotment greenhouse. Hopefully it’ll get some use next year when we start getting the crop ready for planting in the spring.

I’ve now managed to finish erecting the other fence panel in our back yard which looks much better than the corrugated iron panel one before. Michael (Next Door Neighbour) and I also managed to fit their new fence panel as well, so we both have some additional privacy and a nice looking fence!

So Pheebs and I finally received some of hurdles from Natural Fencing which enabled us to put them up in the back yard. We’re hoping that we get the other 4 fence panels from this company who so far haven’t been the best in the world at providing active communication on the progress of our order. Shocking really but the hurdles supplied are very well made so we’re pleased from that perspective. Let’s hope the other 4 turn up before christmas……

Anyway, they do look good plus provide both us and our neighbours a little more privacy. They’ll also enable us to complete the planting in the back yard as we do want to grow stuff up them to create our mini oasis.

Pheebs has also used the ex-dining room tiles we had left over from creating the garden patio to create a cool path in the front garden. We also drilled some anchor points in the front wall for the Virginia Climber and Wisteria to grow further and provide coverage over the wall. It’ll be interesting to see how much it grows over the next year!

Pheebs and I have been busy this weekend in completing further work in our back yard. We managed to source some FSC certified sleepers from Oakridge Timber which I managed to pick up on the way back from Man Camp this year. After some fun and games of man handling the 100x200x1200mm sleepers we managed to get them bolted together and level (within reason) before filling in the centre with earth. Once that was completed, Pheebs laid the old 1/4″ quarry tiles ( which came from the dining room prior to the timber floor being laid) to provide us a much needed patio/seating area, whilst I finished the raised timber bed. To be even more Eco we didn’t use concrete to secure the tiles so they’re just resting on earth & sand to encourage moss/plant growth through the gaps. Hopefully that’ll give it a rustic look! Once completed we filled the raised beds with pro-grow compost and planted the first of many plants. We’re both now looking forward to the Summer to enjoy it once it’s complete.

I finally got round to making a new back gate from scratch which was good fun. Essentially used planks of wood joined together by biscuit joints (using my Triton Biscuit Joiner on the router table) and then cross members glued to that to provide further strength. Now that it’s fitted, I’ll have to fill in the sides of the frame with mortar and then paint to preserve it to ensure it lasts the next 20 odd years.

It’s been another hectic week off completing various DIY tasks that have been sat festering. Whilst Pheebs was off sorting the allotment out, I was busy trying to finish the dinning room cupboards and other various tasks. I did manage to build a step in front of the french doors which was fun using a combination of my Triton table saw and router table + finger jointer. I often wonder if my grandad would raise an eyebrow to using machinery to complete woodworking tasks considering he was a pattern maker so an excellent carpenter but it would probably take me a week just to do the finger joining. However using the finger jointer took all of 4 minutes to complete the job. After the step was built I moved onto putting an extra couple of sockets in, 1 by the step (double) and another in the cupboard shelf (single) area as it’ll be useful to have some that side of the dining room. After wiring in those I finished off the 40mm cupboard top but did have to make one piece from gluing and clamping some MDF sheets together. Hopefully once the cupboard is sanded and finished we or anyone else more to the point will notice. I also managed to start building the cupboard doors but ran out of time so I’ll have to complete this when we need have available time. However, we’ve also got the front & back gardens to complete + an allotment to prepare. Man alive there is too much to do and not enough time to do it.