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!