Jason found a hammer holster in some of the bits and bobs which Mr Rooney, our southern-dwelling builder, left behind in our garage.
Jason imagines he's a tradie but I have to remind him that he's not...especially when he's carrying one of the children's hammers in the hammer holster...It's true!
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| hammer holster |
So, fully armed with his holster attached to his middle, Jason began work on the study. The project involves
fixing up botched window architraves and a wonky bullnose and scotia. It was a bit of a pig's breakfast, really.
The new architraves are similar to the what is in the rest of the house. Jason also reinstated some VJs (vertical join boards) which were missing near the windows. We find that giving the windows some TLC goes a long way to improving the look of a room. And with a coat of paint or two, it will come up schmicko!
Stay tuned for another study update soon.
P.S thanks so much for all the lovely well-wishes for my birthday.xx
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| removal of bullnose and scotia. It will be recycled again in the study. |
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| All the old window architraves have been removed |
Does Jason ever sleep?? :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday belatedly
F xx
That hammer holster looks a bit beat-up to me. I mean well-used. Would it be possible for you to recover it in a bit of Cath Kidston fabric to make it more cheerful for poor hard-working Jason?
ReplyDeleteI think I need a translator. Bullnose, scotia, architraves?
ReplyDeleteI do believe poor Jason needs to go back to shed and search for one of Mr Rooneys discarded shirts.
ReplyDeleteOh your jason is too funny. Men and their toys lol.
ReplyDeleteI am sure the study is going to look as wonderful as the rest of the renovation. Can't wait to see it finished:)
Happy belated birthday from down south :) The hammer holster is a great idea, kid hammer and all.
ReplyDeletePoor Deb. So much to learn, so much to learn.
ReplyDeleteI wondered where that got to.
ReplyDeleteThose 20 Oz 'Protool' hmmers are are much unde-rated thing. They only cost about six bucks but have exceptionally good balance and heft. You can pay 10 times as much for a gucci job like an 'Estwing' or a 'Vaughan' and not get a handier hammer. They truly are an exceptional bargain.
Like any hammer, if the face is covered with paint, crap or the greased up from hammering galvanised nails, they will slip and you will bend every nail every time. Very frustrating. Dress the face often with a bit of sandpaper, or just rub them on concrete or a brick and see how much better you do. It avoids a lot of bad language.
I note that the orange 8 metre 'Lufkin' tape measure is still going strong. That is unusual. Normally the blade has broken, long before the brand decal has worn off.
Here is a free tip. If you have a renovator in your life and it is Christmas, or a birthday or fathers day etc. Go and buy her/him a 10 metre 'Stanley Fat Max' tape measure. They cost up to fifty wallaby skins but are worth their weight in gold. They have an enormous 'stand out'. That is, the distance you can extend them before the tape collapses. Stanley claim about 4 metres for them, but in reality it is a bit less than 3 metres in anything more than 5 knots of wind. Still pretty awesome. Perfect for when you are working by yourself and don't have someone to hang off the other end.
Even if you are a weekend warrior. Work smart. Get a nailbag on, it makes you efficient. Have good tools; that makes you effective. You'll get the job done and avoid the four O'Clock 'filthies' Everyone is happy.
Simples.
Mr Rooney, you've pretty much described the weekend. There were bent nails galore. So a bit of a sand and a clean should do the trick. The four o'clock filthies did eventuate mostly due to knocking down a full beer...Also, Jason was having trouble with his new drill - the screws weren't driving into the wood and he'd only manage to get them half way in? The wood was pine which was as soft as butter. What went wrong?
ReplyDeleteYou should write us a 'do as Mr Rooney says' column.
Fantastic reno you guys are doing with the sow's ear. I tried leaving a comment from my phone on the Deck Reveal post (didn't publish) to congratulate you on how great this job turned out. We have a stack of insulation sitting on our driveway to install on our deck for the exact same reason.
ReplyDeleteJason is a champ, my hubs is the same and loves nothing better than donning his work gear and getting stuck in. Saves a bundle on labour costs too.
xx
Man I love those windows. Happy belated birthday - just catching up on all my new year blog reading now - some hot and sexy pressies there, and wow have you guys done some work on the house over the past year. Very inspiring. Looking forward to a new year of transformations.
ReplyDeleteStop me if I get boring....
ReplyDeleteYou’ve got two problems. Nails bending and screws not doing what they said they would do on the packet.
First thing you have to appreciate is that you are not screwing INTO pine. You are screwing ‘THROUGH pine’ and into the hardwood frame, underneath. That is the problem.
The chippy’s who built your house would have been in total awe at the array of tools Jas has at his disposal. Circular saws, cordless drills, no more gaps were all science fiction when it was built. The bones and structure of your home is the hardwood frame. When it was built the hardwood (Eucalyptus non descriptus) studs were all checked in to the hardwood top and bottom plate with handsaws and a hammer and chisel and then nailed off.
The ONLY advantage, of this non mechanised way of work that the old school guys had was that the hardwood framing was unseasoned. It was as green as grass and sappier than Bert Newton. That made it really easy to handsaw especially, when you chiselled it, great big bleeding chunks would fly off. Nailing through it and into it was easier than Kim Kardashian.
Roll on through a cycle of 70 Queensland summers and the frame isn’t green any more. The framing has been oven baked to a hardness that rates slightly below diamonds on Mohs scale. Your frame is one of the hardest I’ve ever worked on. It blunts drill bits and makes the bearings in a circular saw scream in pain.
If you are screwing or nailing pine mouldings into your hardwood frame, everything has to be pre drilled. Every time. Use a drill bit that is 2/3rds the diameter of the fixing, whether it is a nail or a screw. It helps to lube up the fixing too. In the olden days chippy’s would run the nail through their hair. Brylcream worked a treat. Stabbing the fixing into a bar of soap, before driving it home, works just as well. Dry lube, beeswax, even ear wax at a pinch, are all good, just don’t use anything silicone based or the paint or finish won’t stick to the timber.
The next problem is fixing off finicky pine mouldings. You’re lucky if you have a pneumatic or gas finishing gun. That is because you can hold the piece in position with one hand and go bang with the other and fix it. That doesn’t work at your place because the frame is so hard the gun nails just smash and bend, marring the pine moulding. The problem with hand nailing is that you need three hands. One to hold the piece accurately in position, one to hold the nail and one to wield the hammer. Unless you are from Tasmania, you’re in deep and dark trouble.
Luckily the techmolgy to overcome this problem is readily available in most homes. Go to the missus’ hobby tub and find the hot glue gun that she bought to ‘do scrapbooking’ or some other such waste of time. Make sure you have glue sticks. Flash the glue gun up. It takes a while to heat up. About the same time as it takes to make and drink a cup of tea. So go have one.
Once the glue is as hot as it is going to get, dab a bit on the moulding at about 300mm intervals. While the glue is still liquid press the moulding into place and hold it for about a minute. If you let go it will stay in place precisely where you want it to be. Pre-drill it and fix it off with your hammer or your cordless driver.
Simples
Thank-you RRC and OOH. xx
ReplyDeleteMr Rooney, your response is worthy of a blog post in itself! And seriously, do you think I'd have the time to scrapbook when I blog?? xx