Levelling up!

Joists that is! So here we are day 1 flooring. A green field site, with the supporting beams ready to put in the floor joists.

This time I'm using softwood to make a conventional joist floor using 175 x 63 treated timber. Max span is 2m between the joists so that section should be plenty and I'm going to use a mixture of joist hangers and nails to hold it all together.

Believe it or not there is about 550 euro's worth of timber there! Mind you stuff in France has gone up a lot in recent years. Only 2 years ago when I put the floor in over the kitchen, oak was 500 euros a cubic metre , now its 650! Anyway back to the floor; its going to be laid 16" (400mm) on centres and tied into the walls at the edges and double joists under the partition walls. That should do the trick. As the wood is a bit long for one person I'm going to be assisted by my eldest daughter Frankie (whether she likes it or not). Fourtunately when we had the "major work" done by the builders they raised the oak beams by about 15 inches in the wall and also levelled them up as best they could. This now makes my job putting in the floor so much easier than it otherwise would be!

Frankie's Bedroom

Well after much sweat here it is:

Clean and very white, Monastic even!

That door by the way is made out of 100yr old reclaimed timber. 300mm wide boards, three boards wide. This I admit is a bit sad, but you try getting that timber new, either its wet and twists or it costs a fortune! This is the real deal, straight, dry and nail holes aside a lovely character,

That's the hand scraped joint between the boards; sad but nice at the same time

Tis the work of the Devil

You put the dishes in the white box and press the button. An hour later they come out clean, Evil Genius! Ok I know many of you have suggested that I should send the kids down to the river to do the washing and washing up but In the end I did a deal with them; They could have a dishwasher as long as they agreed to fill and unload it each day. We will see how long it lasts?
As you can see from the picture the laundry room has had a makeover, I got sick of no space to put anything and no splash back that I could keep clean so in a fit of pique I've ripped it all out and have re-done it with new cupboards from the local brico. Normally I would have made the cupboards but you know, it's hidden away and life to short to start mucking about making cupboards for a laundry room. One thing i'll say about fitted cupboards though, they are actually kind of practical. Lets say I'm warming to them.