Summerfield Park

Well on Monday I finally handed over the park keepers cottage at Summerfield Park to the Council. The orginal deadline had no bearing on the end date as we unearthed so many problems that had to be taken care of. It went from this:

To this:

I'm really pleased with how the project turned out, on the whole I enjoyed it and made some good friends and learnt a lot in the process. It's a shame that we couldn't render the outside like the oringal plan or paint the whole of the inside but with the extra works we had to do to the roof and other areas the budget wouldn't allow it. That said I'm really pleased they decided to go with a new roof covering as this will last the building many years to come and looks really smart when viewed from the park. The other area I really like is the landing upstairs. The ceiling here was so low you almost had to be hunched up to walk around it. That ceiling pretty much fell down as we were working on it so under instruction we created a "vaulted" ceiling and a much larger feeling landing with the purlins on show, when painted out this area is going to look great.

I've been invited to go back and see how it looks when its all wallpapered and painted out and I'm looking forward to seeing the building in use.

Right next project please!

How to Fit Skirting

Well the last two days have been spent on my knees.

I've not found a new religion- I've been fitting skirting board at Summerfield Park.

On an old property like this it can be a nightmare to fit. All the walls are out, nothing is square and the floor is as level as the Peak District! All this makes for some slow going if its to be done right, luckily I'm not on my own and another carpenter, "Rocket" is helping me and we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The skirting is fixed to the wall using a grab adhesive (like gripfill) and then screwed and plugged to the wall. All mitres are glued and pinned.

It's funny but its always easy to see when an amateur has fitted skirting (normally you notice this when your sat on someones toilet) and your see that an internal joint has been mitred instead of scribed. The scribe joint means that if the wood shrinks when it drys out the gap wont open whereas an internal mitre would open up leaving an unsightly gap (although I'm sure the spiders would love it).

To cut a scribe (in a modern "on site" sort of way) you first cut a 45 degree mitre on the skirting, sloping so that the end grain you see is where you want your waste to be. You then cut along the line left by the saw (see the picture above) with a jack saw (you can colour this line in with a pencil to make it easier to see). Undercutting this slightly makes it easier to fit the pieces of skirting together.

Next you take your copping saw and undercut round the detail at the top of the skirting (see above picture again).

This should leave you something like this.

Which will slot into another piece of skirting like this - Giving you the perfect scribe joint.

I can't tell you how many of these there are in this house - it seems to be the longest bit of skirting in some rooms it's 2' before you come to another corner! (although I'm probably exaggerating)

From Coppicing to Birmingham

I do like the variety that my life seems to bring.

The week before last I spent with my brother coppicing close to where we grew up, on a beautiful river bank coppicing trees as part of a grant program. My brother's a tree surgeon and it's always enjoyable working with him, I always seem to learn lots and its interesting seeing timber from a different perspective.

I even fell my first tree all by myself (with a chainsaw, this was before the axe course - sorry the posts aren't in order).

Then skip forward a week and I'm just taking on a job in Birmingham that's been offered to me. Luckily it's in the middle of a park (the only reason I agreed to do it - I can pretend I'm not in the city!) gutting and then restoring a turn of the century park keepers cottage into offices and mess rooms. I'm going to be on site as a working Foreman and a carpenter so it should bring more variety my way as well as a full diary for a couple of months. The place needs a lot of work but it's always interesting working on old properties - you never know what you might find. Also on a clear frosty morning the park looks quite nice. You'd never guess we were working in a city!