Baby Room Part 8 - Coving and Window frame

Still no movement..... The day that I am writing this is the official due date, so clocks really ticking now! Anyway, here's a tummy pick painting the coving for the ceiling, which, I have to say was a little bit of a challenge to cut out. Oops, watch the paint cat!

Undercoat on and another cat.

And in place, I used a little flexible filler stuff in the joins, as they were not perfect! We also found out that the pre painted ceiling panels were not as white as the white paint we used so they got 2 coats of white paint as well.

Baby Room Part 7 - Wall papering

Don't worry, the baby rooms come a lot further than this, I'm playing catch up and no, there's no movement yet.

After 3 hours in the decor shop deciding which wall paper to have, in the end we had to settle for our second choice as it turned out our first choice was an old model and no longer available, typical.

Out first choice involved a border and 2 different types of paper so in some respects life was made a lot easier by the simplicity of chioce no.2.

The last time I was involved with wall paper was helping Father of All in the Bathroom in the Organists house, in 1980 something.... Then it was wall paper paste on the paper. Now, over here, it's glue on the wall and a damp sponge on the paper. Not difficult but easier than it sounds all the same!



Job done, not 100% but not at all bad! Would you look at all those cute rabbits, all together now "Ahhhhh".



We've had lots of requests for photos of the tummy before it dissapears, we're on the case but the tummy is proving not to be the slightest bit photogenic.

Baby Room Part 6 - Prep and Paint.

The baby room will have (well has already actually, still playing blog catch up) 2 walls painted and 2 walls with wall paper.

Preperation for painting and papering is pretty simple, all that's involved is a little filler on the joins of the panels that will be wallpapered, filler in all of the staple holes and a little flexible filler/sealent stuff in the corners.

Something like this.



I did make the job a little more difficult for myself when I cocked up with measuring the last panel and ended up with a couple of extra joins to fill. Somehow I measurde 103cm but wrote down 113cm. It must have something to do with this metric business, if I had been working in inches it would never have happened!

Still, it turned out OK in the end.



Painting the walls involved 1 undercoat followed by 2 top coats. The first top coat was rolled on and then smoothed out with a brush to give a real wood effect, the second top coat was brushed on.



The walls for wallpaper got a primer of watered down wallpaper adhesive to seal them.

Baby Room Part 5 - Wall Panelling

Much the same technique as the ceiling, but bigger and more unwieldy panels and doors and windows to work around.





The job progressed pretty quickly, the only 2 delays were preparing holes for the cables (light and sockets) and when I found out that the back wall wasn't verticle. I had to build this out a little at the top so that the back wall lined up with the verticle lines in the panelling.

Baby Room Part 4 - Ceiling

The last couple of weeks have been one of those times that there's been so much to blog about that I havn't had time to blog.

Anyway, there has been loads of progress in the baby room. After solving the bathroom problem it was back to work. After attaching a layer of plastic to the ceiling and outside walls (to stop condensation) I was ready to get the ceiling boards up.



With both the instructions that I recieved and the nail gun I borrowed from the neighbour the job went pretty quickly and the result was more than satisfactory.

Baby Room Part 3/Bathroom Mods Part 1 - New Shower/Bubble Bath

You may well ask, why does fixing up the baby room involve installing a new shower in the bathroom. Well, I've said it before, that one project leads to another, and I'll say it again.

On removing the panelling on the wall that is between the baby room and the bathroom we found out that our bathroom, which is supposed to be a wet room, is not 100% watertight. There's a small but all the same significant leak somewhere in the corner of the shower area. Wet rooms are suppose to have a waterproof membrane behind any walls/tiles, needless to say, this is nowhere to be seen.

After unsucessful attemts with some silicon sealant we decided the only 100% safe solution was to install a shower cabinet. The cheapest shower cabinets available are seam to be around 4000,- Kroner, a lot of money for a quick fix which will be thrown out in a few years when we re-do the bathroom properly!

Today, this appeared on Finn.no, Norways internet market place. It's the full pack, Bubble bath with 7 nozzles, back massage and seperate foot massage facility. Integrated shower with handheld shower head,shower head in the roof and 3 side nozzles. 3 years old. New Pris 21,000,- Kr.

You may well ask, why on earth I knowingly have purchased a bath/shower unit that's 225cms high when the bathrooms only 215cms to the ceiling. As ever, "I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN"

Baby Room Part 2 - Cutting to length

Saturday morning dissapeared to an extended visit to the local builders shop. This was confounded by being relatively new to the whole wooden house thing and getting, I think it's fair to say, poor guidance from the sales assistant.

Finally we settled on ready painted white ceiling panelling, which although it was on offer for Friday only, I perseuded them that since I took monday of it was only Friday so we got this at the offer price. Then we went for unpainted panels (Saturdays offer!) that are profiled to look like panelling for two of the walls and fibre boards, which will be wall papered over for the other two walls.

I ran down in the ever faithfull landrover to fetch this lot, taking my chance with the changable weather, as the 120cm wide fibre boards had to go on the roof.

On Sunday afternoon, after moving the saw, but before I set to work on it (so this post is in sequence), I unloaded this lot and took the oppurtunity to cut it all to the correct length before stacking it up in the house.



Many thanks to partner in crime (who now has his own blog, www.elkego.blogspot.com, more on that later) for lending me one of his "Rettholt"s, the long aluminium guide, invaluable when doing long cuts with the circular saw. If any of you can tell me what a rettholt is in English I would be most appreciative!



So with it all cut to length, it's now stacked up down stairs in the warm, where it is advised to leave it for a few days before it's all put in place. A nice man will be lending me his compressor and nail gun, maybe even from tommorrow evening. Ceilings first thing to go up, who knows, maybe it's done and dusted by this time tomorrow!



Floor, coving, skirting and trim around the door and window will be another visit to the builders suppliers.

Baby Room Part 1 - Dismantling

After Fridays success with the David Brown and some more wood splitting, it was time to move inside and start on the "Baby room". The decision had already been taken that it was going to be easier to remove walls and ceiling instead of removing wall paper and fixing the multitude of holes that were, for one reason or another in the walls.

During the course of Saturday morning we removed the panels from 3 of the walls and the thin panels that were covering the floor boards.

After another wood chopping session on Saturday afternoon(see next post) and Sunday mornings visit to the swimming pool, this part of the job was more or less finished by Sunday late afternoon.

Just a little more tidying and a trip to buy the neccesary materials next weekend and we'll be ready to start putting it all back together.