Chair Seat Frame Repair

A local upholster phone me up the other day to see if I was interested in repairing a chair for her. 

 The inside frame had some serious woodworm and had broken through in one place as well as all the joints coming loose or snapping.

 I made a complete new frame using beech and dowelled joints at the corners. I'd forgotten how much I hate dowels, doing them by hand is not as easy as you'd think and the fact that the frame is a trapezium made it awkward to line them up. 

Although only a little job you never know what might come from it in the future and as I was always taught growing up - "You never turn work down". Also it's good to work with (and for) other local tradesmen (and women) as you never know when you might require their skills and expertise.

How To Patch A Floor

Removing or moving a wall can sometimes mean that a floor has to be repaired. This is what happened today at work.

the area that needs some new boards

The repair was to be over a small area, ideally I would have preferred to take out a longer section of flooring and replaced the boards over a larger area. But this area is going to be carpeted and the two sets of boards in the different rooms don't match up (in line or thickness) so we decided this was the best course of action.

Both sides trimmed out to finish half way on a joist



To start with I removed any nails I could before using the circular saw to cut the floor boards back so the ends finish half way on the joist, this means that the boards have something to rest on and they are supported. Make sure your saw is set only to the depth of the boards or you'll be weakening the joists!

The floor boards in the different rooms are different thicknesses meaning one side had to be packed




The one room has floor boards a slightly different thickness to the other so I had to use packers to bring it to the same level (you can just make your own out of wood, but these plastic packers are great as they come in different sizes and are ready to use).

All screws have to be pilot holed and countersunk so the boards don't split

I fixed the boards as I went and as the screws are near the edge of the boards they all had to have a pilot hole and countersink to save splitting the wood. I also made sure that all the original boards I cut were fixed down as well as I had removed some of the nails from them earlier.

The finished repair ready for carpet

A basic repair but when it has carpet on top no one will ever know I've been there!

Ceiling Repair

A Bit of Restoration Work

This is some work I did a few weeks ago for a long standing customer. They live in a beautiful old Rectory in a near by village and I love working on the house.

The work was a semi emergency repair to a ceiling in one of their B&B rooms. I say "semi emergency" as I was there to look at some other work they wanted doing and she showed it me this as "future work" but I thought it was a little too dangerous to leave any longer.

A past leak in the roof had cause the lath to rot and plaster to crack

I arranged to do all the work while they were on holiday so there would be no disturbance to them and it would be all painted and cleaned up by the time they got back.

Getting the scaffold up there was the hardest part, it all has to go up slowly to avoid damaging any walls, door or paintings. I also cut sheets of ply to protect the floor and wallpaper.

The loose plaster removed and rotten lath - the roof is no longer leaking!

I only had to touch the cracked area and it came down on top of me! Messy job - I wouldn't have wanted to leave this repair any longer!

Now for the bit of controversy - the modern repair.

I'm afraid to say that no lath went back up. Instead two layers of plasterboard to bring it out to somewhere near the same level as the old plaster. And also no lime plaster was used just multifinish as this repair needed to be finished in the week with paying customers due in the B&B at the weekend - no chance of waiting for lime plaster to dry!

I first framed the hole out to make sure there was plenty of fixings for the plaster board, then cut the boards so there was minimum gaps all the way round.

The hole boarded out ready for plastering

I got my friend, Sean, to plaster the repair and blend it in with the old ceiling, I like using top tradesmen I can trust when it's not my area of expertise and I've known Sean for many years andhis work is always of a high standard.

This repair may crack slightly in the future at the joint between old and new, but that can be filled if needed and will blend with some of the other cracks already in the ceiling, i do think this will be minimal though from past experience.

Sean plastering and blending it in

I then waited a few days for it to dry before giving it about 5 coats of paint and removing all the other evidence that I'd been there.

She was a happy customer when she returned from her holiday! No mess and a B&B room ready to hire out with no risk of a ceiling dropping on any ones head!