Faking it

It has occurred to us that while you may read the blog, you may have trouble following the blog. It probably seems like we jump from one thing to another without every really finishing anything. So far you've seen us strip wallpaper (a task we continue to do as we find little bits hiding), go to the dump 10 times, buy radiators, look into asbestos issues, sell scrap metal (another load of that coming next week), go to the UK to buy loads of stuff and res-door a small fraction of all the doors in the house. And that's just the highlights. "Will you ever actually finish anything?" I hear you scream! Part of renovating the way we are doing it - taking lots of little jobs off the pros to save money - necessitates lots of facilitation and firefighting, which results in constantly jumping between things. It's the maker vs manager productivity issue*, and it it can be frustrating. Which mean that we were happy to actually finish a task last week!

So what was the job? This was the job.

Err... why is the wall blue?

Blocking up a doorway with a partition wall (or "fake wall" as we'd translate from French). Looks easy, right? Look at these pictures then think again!

Step 1: Door and frame removed. Sounds easy... but takes time and effort. (followed by step 1b -cement the brick opening to stop bricks falling out and leaving a bit of time to cure)

Step 2 and 3: a sturdy wooden frame. First top and bottom, then the verticals with max 40cm between vertical "beams". Finally the noggins to strengthen between beams (but not all on the same line). Then... insulate with rockwool to stop sound.

Step 3 (b):we go to the other side of the door. More rockwool - Sound blocking is apparently all about density and strategic air gaps, so 2 layers are better than 1!

Step 4: same frame with same principle but on the other side. Oh and remember where your wood is for step 5.... a photo or marks on the wall always help!

Step 5(a): Plasterboard (gyproc)! A pain to cut as our hole was a bit wonky, so the gyproc had to be too. It needs to be cut carefully but not forced otherwise it cracks....

As we found out in one place. Thankfully only small so we could just hack it out.

Step 5b: same thing other side. But a different colour! This blue one is sound insulation gyproc. But it's more expensive than normal gyrpoc. A tip we picked up from the guys who sold us the sound insulation membrane was to use the fireproof gyproc as a chepaer alternative to acoustic. That's the pink colour you saw above (yep we are classy pikeys).

It took a good day and a half, with bits of feeling through problems. Notably we now have a wide collection of screws (4 types) as I had to keep getting more ones having apparently not chosen the ideal type the first time. The kind of thing you only realise when however hard you try, you can't get the last 1cm of screw in to the material. But it's great to have entirely finished something, and to see it work - it's solid and noise resistant. Just what we wanted. Plus our "undertaker" has now plastered over it so it looks like real wall.

OK, I lied, we didn't finish finish. We only finished the 1st floor and the undertaker will now plaster it. We still have to do exactly the same thing again on the 2nd floor. But the door and frame are already out and now we know what we're doing it should be a walk in the park (right?!)

This one on the 2nd floor is still to go... but the frame is out.

Though a bit of brick joint work needed first probably.

* See https://gettingthingsdone.com/2011/01/maker-vs-manager-how-i-schedule-my-day/