What "man jobs" have you done today?

its taken today and yesterday but...

when we moved house 4 month ago the "drive way" was best described as a bit of waste ground at the side of the house.. the decorating and getting the house fixed up as taken priority over the garden. the only thing I did was pulled the hedge out between me and the neighbor. so with all the rain that's fell the "drive" had turned into a marsh and was bordering on being dangerous. so the boy's went back to school and nursery yesterday so it was time something got done..

1 mini digger to the rescue.. 15 tons of muck has been removed and then a weed barrier was put down and a layer of gravel then about 10 ton of type 1 was put down.. its still work in progress. plan is to get a fence up between us and the neighbor. finish the edge between the drive and the path rebuild the retaining wall between the drive and path then decide what's going on top.. but its now a hard surface!!

before
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after
used the wife's mop bucket to throw water on the path for cleaning up..
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before
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after
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as I say.. still unfinished but its an improvement on what it was..

and yes... for the eagle eyed.. we did pull out the large bushes up the back of the neighbors garden for her while we had the mini digger there.. but then she was kind enough to let me park my Audi in her drive..
 
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Be be honest I think that "drive" was infact a garden and was shared between both houses with a fence down the middle originally. Someone has come along in the past and claimed it all as a makeshift car park. :p
 
LeeUK said:
^ Having difficulty working out which house the drive belongs to, left or right? :confused:
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the one on the right

Participant said:
Having difficulty working out why the fact that it's an Audi is relevant :confused:. Or is it that Audi drivers are normally such knobs that she went above and beyond by letting you park on her drive :D.
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main reason I said Audi was we have 2 car's the other being a seat leon.
also really no need to brag about my Audi.. its the oldest car in the street..
its an old 1997 A4 avant. but its diesel and 4 wheel drive.. it does everything I want it to do and gets me in and out of the village in the bad weather..
and I can throw my tools in the boot or the wee mans dirt bike on the trailer his bike gear in the back and him once he's covered in mud after a fun day out.. and I dont need worry about it.

LeeUK said:
Be be honest I think that "drive" was infact a garden and was shared between both houses with a fence down the middle originally. Someone has come along in the past and claimed it all as a makeshift car park. :p
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no our rear garden is a lot smaller than the next door neighbors as we sit on the corner. the hedge I pulled out when we got the house looked as if it had been there for many of years. I also found the original concrete fence posts where the hedge was so it looks to be the original border.

looking on google streetview you can see the hedge. when we moved in it was badly overgrown and the drive had no red chips.

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Fitted 2 new light bulb holders, stripped the old silicone around shower tray and reapplied new one.

What a pain removing old silicone from shower tray!

Note to self, wear gloves too, took ages getting it off my hands lol
 
I managed to put a nail through a central heating pipe if that counts as a man job? Feel like a right idiot as I'd checked all the other floorboards I'd put down, just didn't check this one properly and there was already a nail hole through it so I just banged another one through. At least it was a fairly simple fix.
 
House refurb is underway, ripped out old bathroom and started to figure out how these wall hung toilets work.

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Also fitted some downlights in the cloakroom below whilst the floor is up, put a pir sensor

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Quite impressed with it, works really well
 
Finally sorted out the cold tap in the kitchen why it was running so slow!

Piece of debris from the building work must if gotten into the pipe work and stuck in the end of the flexible pipe.
 
Cleared out the garage which included moving a home multi-gym, treadmill and workbench as well as six car loads to the tip and one to the charity shop

went from

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to

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Also managed to squeeze a 5 foot freezer in the back of an A5 - much to the amazement of the chap working at the tip :D

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Well on Saturday and Sunday the not Father in Law and I installed a loft hatch and ladder. Today I started to fit some loftzone loft legs for storage. Should finish stage 1 tomorrow or Thursday.
 
PlacidCasual said:
Well on Saturday and Sunday the not Father in Law and I installed a loft hatch and ladder. Today I started to fit some loftzone loft legs for storage. Should finish stage 1 tomorrow or Thursday.
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OK so it took me 3 days of 1.5 hours to install a 2.4m by 2.4 m loftzone pack and chipboard loft boards as well as install the insulation under it. I'm really quite happy with it, it feels pretty robust. So that should be enough area for us to store what we need.

I'm going to put down some Wickes loft legs and loft boards to cover a few awkward areas around the loft hatch next to the loftzone flooring and improve the insulation there and then box the edges in with a bit of MDF.

We have a large loft and stage 2 is to put down some walways from one end of the loft to the other for access, intending to use a layer of MDF onto the rafters (400mm separation 3" by 2") in the direction the run. Then 2 layers of 50mm polystrene insulation then MDF again. That should be strong enough to walk on without being too heavy I hope. Then I have to remove some old dirty insulation and replace it (nice). Then I'm going to top up further as I have 150mm depth insulation at best. Penultimately I'm going to cover the insulation in paper to help keep it clean, ours is a very old house so the loft space gets bats. Finally I'm going to use scafold netting to barrier off the areas where I have flooring to stop the bats getting in there.

So I've made a big start but still a lot to do.
 
Did the manly thing and put my hand in my pocket and paid a tiler to do the splashbacks in the kitchen:

From this (pic taken before we moved in over a year a go):



To this:



Things to do for the kitchen:

  • Get decorator in to paint the walls, add a feature wall and re-do the gloss work.
  • Sort some blinds to be made for the windows and for me to put the curtains up on the French doors.
  • Get a new American Style F/F with flat faced front doors to add a more sleek look.
  • Change all sockets and switches to shiny chrome to match the light fittings and door handles.
And then on to the garden before we do the living room.
 
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