Well, the last phew days have been very pleasant regards the weather haven’t they? And the sky’s been a joy to behold wot with all those con-trails doing wot I know not.
The most noticeable thing regards a bit o’ bright weather is the reaction to this of just about all the folk of an age – and that age group I’d guess at early teens to mid forties and predominately of the opposite gender to me. Now I realise that could mean a whole host of folk these days, so for the sake of simplicity, female...
Y’all, I’m sure, know wot I mean. Several layers of outer garments have been cast aside in favour of brightly multi-coloured super skimpy barely coverings of questionable construction.
This coupled with the desire to have hair coloured blue, purple, red or green, or a bit of all on one head, had my little nest of vipers and I feeling like we’d been transported to the centre circle of Billy Smarts Circus as they brought on the clowns...
No offence; do as you wish while you still can, okay?
One thought; with the seemingly ever growing popularity to have multi facial piercings to house rings, studs, buds an’ such, do those items get a tad hot on warm, sunny days?
Anyhoo, time to continue our stroll through the kaleidoscope that is the new world order.
Quote; Tamerlan Kuzgov.
“Clowns are made by those who made a circus out of life.”
7 comments:
Mac,
Several layers of outer garments have been cast aside in favour of brightly multi-coloured super skimpy barely coverings of questionable construction."
Although I object to nose rings, piercings and clown coloured hair I've never seen anything wrong with young ladies displaying a bit of flesh and some curves. Call me a pervert but it makes the arrival of summer all the more pleasant IMO. Note that I do not include beached whales, lard buckets or fat butts hanging out of lycra in that comment as I've run out of eye bleach.
Anyhoo, I'm wishing for the opportunity to get out to see such sights. House is now done but there's a lot of finishing off to do - am tiling at the moment, then decorating, some wooden fittings need to be made then carpeting. The dust from the new concrete floor in the kitchen has been horrendous but its looking great.
Ripper,
Good to find you well and well on the way to completion.
Yes, there sure are some sizes waddling about these days.
Tiling was a task I used to enjoy. Carpet? Not hard wood or laminate? All we have in the way of carpet is the stairs and landing. Everything else parquet downstairs and laminate upstairs. Bathroom is tiled of course.
Mac,
I'd love a parquet floor but the materials cost for a proper one would be prohibitive. I've spent just about everything I had on this renovation even though its been done mainly on the cheap. The kitchen, being a concrete floor, was dug out to a depth of 18 inches to bare soil and a new 8 inch thick slab laid. For that, only ceramic tiles are tough enough. The living room floor (wood) was also leveled by packing the joists and I made floorboard repairs over about a third of it and made it flush in the doorway with the new concrete slab. A 10mm gap was allowed under the doors and kitchen units for floor covering, a carpet to tile strip is 10mm high so I've used 7mm thick tiles (12 in square) with 3mm adhesive bed. This has worked out well because its all fitted nicely and the tiles were pennies compared to the gigantic tiles used nowadays. Just cheap ones from B&Q but they look great. But now, for the rest of the stuff I have to do I have to count the pennies. All the floors in the house are wood, and I don't like carpet grips and underlay, so I've covered the floors in 3mm ply to take up discrepancies in floorboard thickness and will be having felt backed carpet, short pile, glued down. Its a cheap trick but it works and you don't notice any difference. The short pile carpet is tough and easier to run the vacuum cleaner over. In the toilet there will be a LVT floor and the bathroom is ceramic tiled over wood.
I'm a champion tiler, 1980-1982 I worked for a tile company and was one of the team that did the demo kitchens/bathrooms for the ideal homes exhibition.
Anyway, for my cheapness, I got gloss white bespoke kitchen units (hand made to order) with jet black worktop (£300 a length), 3 solid oak doors with new frames, new architrave/skirting throughout, new upvc back door and window, double fan oven in tall unit and halogen hobs, microwave, a doorway bricked up and new one opened up, gas leak found and fixed, boiler condensate pipe removed outside and re routed into the toilet sink drain to stop it from freezing every winter and the gas meter moved. Also a complete re-plaster and rewire - the sparky even installed an extra MCB and put a junction box outside, for outside lighting and 2 new radiators. That's the whole of the downstairs done. The best brands have been used too, for example the kitchen sink/tap is all Franke.
Ripper,
I may have miss-led you a tad regards parquet flooring. When I did to this place what you're doing now, they sold a solid wood parquet effect flooring. This came in the form of, for want of a better description, tiles. The final effect is perfect. I was just in time as they went off the market so as to save the trees and the planet...
Mac,
I do recall those parquet wooden tiles and did wonder why I've not seen any for years. I'm quite fussy about flooring, the first priority for me is that it needs to withstand any kind of abuse, and nothing does that better than ceramic tiles. On a wood floor I prefer carpet because its easily and relatively cheaply replaced and soft to walk/lie on compared to LVT or laminate. Parquet flooring is perfect for a wooden floor but it has to be the real deal, imitations won't stand up to abuse without damage. I'm recalling the real parquet floors we had at school, tough as hell and still looked great after years of abuse. But have you priced real parquet recently? I can find quick fault with every other type of flooring, laminate distorts and dissolves if you get it wet, and LVT scratches up almost immediately and is difficult to clean because its plastic.
I did consider sanding/varnishing the original floorboards in the living room, since they are oak. However, when I did the floorboard repairs there are areas that were previously repaired by the council, who put down 20mm redwood boards in the middle of 22mm oak ones. I would have to reboard the entire floor and in oak, that's a lot of money. I've used the same redwood boards in my repairs because they don't do 22mm any more, but I shimmed the ones I replaced. Hence the 3mm ply covering, to even out the council's 2mm discrepancy in certain areas. But at least the floor no longer slopes toward the wall.
Mac,
I have a story about the kitchen floor (if you are still awake lol). It sloped from the living room door toward the sink wall opposite, and in the other direction the floor dropped about 30mm over 1m along the sink wall according to my builder's level. It came back up towards the other end and I'd estimate it sagged about 100mm at its worst point in the middle.
It had always worried me, I had heard stories of these houses suffering from subsidence (the estate is built over mine works and there were tremors years ago), some people said 'red ash' and mentioned 'underpinning'. I went onto the NCB site (yes they still exist) to find out, and they said if the house was more than 90 years old it would have stopped moving by now.
Anyway, fast forward to today, the floor was dug out right down to soil and I discovered why the floor had sagged. A stoneware sewer pipe under the floor had collapsed. This pipe had transferred the air circulation from the underfloor vents at the front to a vent at the back, but the vent had been taken out and bricked up. Not good. I've had two plastic pipes put in with a second vent.
Secondly, why did the pipe collapse? Well, under the approx 5 inch concrete slab (still with its terracotta quarry tiles), when the house was built in 1931 some clever git at the council thought it would be great to use a lorry load of broken roof tile as hardcore. So really the house hasn't budged, just the kitchen floor. 11 tons of rubble went out that day - in wheelbarrows down the entryway. One thing is for sure, the new floor is going nowhere, not now, not ever. Its true what they say - they don't build em like that anymore, thank god.
Ripper,
These parquet 'tiles' have stood up to the test of time even better that I expected. Still as good as the day I stuck 'em down.
Many a long year ago, I sanded, treated and varnished a wooden board floor. Man, what a mess. Never tried that again.
Well done with the kitchen floor. Similar kitchen floor story. Folk a few doors up had great trouble with mice then rats and nothing tried worked. Finally ripped up the kitchen floor and found that sometime in the past the sewage waste pipe had been moved about to foot. So what? So whoever did this didn't block/plug the top of the old soil pipe so up they came. Plugged, floor back down, rodent problem gone.
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