One Of Those Days

Another weekend with the family down at the chalet.

On Friday evening, just as we left I had stopped in the big DIY superstore here in Zürich and bought some lovely door handles and before we went to bed we fitted these. They are solid aluminum and sculpted just a little. They feel wonderful and solid and make the doors really look finished.

This time I was concentrating on the plumbing. I need to get water to the shower and the kitchen. This means bringing the water across the chalet, up in to the shower, along through the second bathroom and then up into the kitchen. I was pretty sure I was not going to get all of it done but if I could sort out the fiddly bits then the main runs would be that much easier. The main "fiddly bit" was bringing the pipes up into the shower and splitting them off for the basin, toilet and shower. I wanted to be able to seal off sections of the plumbing without turning the whole house off, so I installed taps in the ceiling of the store room at the bottom of the stairs.

You can also see in the photo the waste water for the shower room, which I need just one more bit to finish. Isn't that always the case!
The pipes then come through the floor by the wall and up into the shower. It rapidly turned into "one of those days", nothing was going to go right. Joints would not solder, pipes would not fit, every second hole I drilled into the concrete would hit re-bar half way in. Well, with these days the only thing to do is to continue on and work though it.

So it was unsurprising when I realized I did not have nearly enough pipe to finish and that the pipes I had fit for the shower supply way to high and it would have to be changed.

Eventually, sometime after dinner the remaining pipes I had were all in place.
Next time I just need to take the run across the ceiling and in to the hot room to connect it up. The kitchen will run from the second set of taps through the wall and second bathroom, up into the kitchen along under the units and finally up in to the tap by the sink. This run I intend to do in plastic, if I can figure out the easiest way to join my copper to plastic and the plastic to the kitchen.

After running out of pipe I set to work on the stud walls between the shower and the bedroom and in the full "nothing is going to go right" spirit I determined that there was not enough room for the shower door!

I had spent a long time umming and ahhing about whether to have on suite bathrooms or not, this bathroom shower was the perfect example. It could go either way. I decided that if I was going to have a nice shower then it should really be available to everybody and not just the one bedroom. So I had decided against on suite, although I was told that on suite is basically worth more in both the rental terms and final selling price.

Anyway it turns out there was not a decision to make anyway. There is not enough room for the door so the shower will be on suite! Anyway I ran out of wood pretty quick as the studding really soaks it up.

Looks like I need another delivery!

Saturday night saw us in the kitchen again fixing some of the remaining doors and handles. The fridge door was my main target but I quickly discovered that that there was a box of bits missing. The important bits that connect the fridge door to the unit door!

OK they must be here somewhere, but we could not find them at all. I suppose it is possible they got chucked out with all the polystyrene or cardboard last weekend but I think thats unlikely. More likely they are just hiding under something waiting until I have gone out and spent more time and money to get replacements then they will reveal them selves and laugh at me (OK they wont actually laugh, but you know what I mean)

OK so no fridge door.

Sunday saw me trying to put some of the finish on the top stairs. I had decided to clad the stair way hole in timber and leave it for a while, in the meantime the timber would enable me to paint the walls and finish the rest off while I waited for inspiration about the hole.
Using the new miter saw and cutting some fancy angles into the timbers, I clad out some of the hole and with my eldest sons help we screwed it to the sides.

OK time to go. Never enough time to do very much on a weekend visit like this. I will get more done next week. I am staying for 2 weeks.

So a big push to get "finished" or at least not quite as deadly as it is at the moment where one wrong move will trip you over or pull wires out of sockets or flood the electrics with water or any number of other horrible things. Especially with my kids wandering around. I would feel a lot better about it if I could get rid of the most deadly stuff lying around!

My aim is to get all the chipboard floors down in the saloon, the dining room, the kitchen, the entrance hall, the first landing, the second bedroom, the shower and the first bedroom. I want to get the shower and bathroom tiled, walls and floors, so everything up to that stage. I want to install an oven and the dishwasher, maybe even the washing machine and dryer.
I want to tile the entrance hall, the first flight of stairs and the first landing. I want to paint the second bedroom and finish the first bedroom (T&G, paint walls and ceiling)
I want to finish the mezzanine floor and get some timber on to the balconies. I want to sort out the electric panel in the hot room.

I think that should keep me busy for a couple of weeks!

Instructions Inside

The whole family went with me down to Morzine this weekend. My wife spent her first night in the chalet on Friday and although it was a little cold it was OK (I think)

With only the weekend there was loads to do, Friday evening we emptied the one semi finished bedroom and hoovered the floor then put the beds we bought up in the van into it with the mattresses.I checked the fridge out and wired its plug into the mains. After putting the kids to bed my wife and I sat in the kitchen putting drawers together until midnight and oiling worktops ready for Saturday.

Friday night was distinctly cold and as this was my wifes first weekend I was anxious to make it as comfortable as I could, so first thing Saturday morning I set to work wiring up the bedroom heating.

A quick trip down to Voirons, mainly to pay my bill (for the Mezzanine) and I set to work clearing out all the cardboard plastic and polystyrene and general crap that had accumulated to about head height in the dining room. Basically if it was cardboard my three year old and I chucked it out the window, if it was plastic or polystyrene it went onto bin bags.

Its still a mess but there is now a whole load less rubbish!

I then began to assembly the shower. loads of bits and no instructions! bags of screws and strips of plastic, feet things and roller things and all sorts of strange fittings and clips. How does all this go together? The shower came in four big boxes and we slowly unpacked each box trying to find any sort of guidance on how it all went together. I mean the basics are not that difficult, we have a shower base, big white quarter circle thing made of fiberglass - Check


Drain and U bend assembly screwed into base.
Leveling feet go into base base gets leveled up.

Two big glassy panels go each side of the smaller silvery panel, but which screws/bolts hold them together and what are these big strips of silicon rubber for?


How do all these nozzles and pipes go together, OK so the nozzles screw in to the holes in the big panels but how do they all get water? What do we do with all these pipes and clips?

Well we discovered some bits of paper with the glass doors right at the bottom under everything else along with a whole load more screws and bits. A huge helps the instructions were! Obviously in French but they were for a different make of shower. It was close but not quite the same. I could only assume that the principles were going to be the same and to water proof everything!

Saturday evening we had a barbecue - I need to get a proper grill for the barbecue, our makeshift assortment of supports drops more food into the fire than we get to eat!

Saturday evening saw my wife and I in the kitchen again, we cut the hole in the worktop for the sink and started on the drawer handles and cupboards.

Saturday night was lovely and warm, the radiator working a treat, I was worried as the other 2 radiators I had tried warmed up once and then never got hot again!

Sunday and I was only allowed a cup of coffee once I got the hob working! So I set to work wiring up the hob in the kitchen. Simple job, undo a few screws wire it up tighten it all back again made really annoying by the French design which uses star headed screws! Nothing normal like a cross headed screw, but a star so I have to dig about to find a star bit that fits and then cos the only thing I have that will move them is the electric screwdriver I end up shearing off one the screws and generally having to bodge up the whole job!
Not too happy I decide not to completely stick down the hob into the worktop as it sounds like it will probably have to come up again! Anyway I got my coffee!

The electric distribution panel is getting to be a real mess. I know what I want to do with it, to give me more room for all the "hundreds" of cables coming in I want to do what we did in the kitchen and stud panel the wall to give me room to drop all the cables down behind the panel and bring them through but its quite a big job and basically I will not have any power while I do it.
Mind you the longer I leave it the worse it will be to resolve! Well lets say, it has risen in priority and leave it at that!

The sink went into the now oiled worktop and although not very impressed with the fixings that came with the sink, I do not think its going anywhere.


A door on the bathroom was todays challenge. The frames and doors we brought up in the van are ever so slightly different to the three I had bought before but you would not notice unless it was pointed out, one or two of the edges are rounded in the new doors rather than square on the old and the finish is a bit better generally.
Anyway these new doors actually came with instructions - in English! (and French and Italian and polish and ....) so I can now finally see exactly how you are supposed to install these doors and apparently I have been doing it completely wrong! Any way i prefer my way of putting them up it seems stronger and all the wedges and foam installation they suggested sounds tricky!


So the door went in and I found my self with a few hours before we left, so my three year old and I started on the studding walls for the next bedroom and bathroom. We cut the sole plates, drilled and screwed them into the floor. Hari, my three year old looks cute in his ear defenders and bob the builder helmet! He helped measure up the timber and pull the trigger on the drills.

Time to go I was pleased with what I had done and even more pleased my wife and children had enjoyed the weekend.
We plan on doing the same thing next weekend and then I get 2 weeks to do as much as possible.

I have my orders from my wife, shower and kitchen sink, get them working! I intend to use the plastic plumbing we bought to hopefully speed up the plumbing but need to think more about the fittings.

I need to make a list!