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Following on from the other thread about paint sprayers, I now have one, and the next thing I need is to build some dismountable racks for supporting skirting boards for finishing / painting. I need enough to spray do about 32 4m lengths of skirting in one session, and I need to be able to store them in a small space for next time. My current thinking is for a pair of 2.4m CLS (bought too much CLS) A-frames, joined by a pair of horizontals each side which can be removed for storage. The skirtings to be supported by 2" screws driven 15mm in on the faces of the A-frames at 225mm intervals. That would give me space for 8x 4m or 5m lengths each side for spraying with a finish or paint. i was trying to do a diagram, but it was looking comical so I may just build one and take a photo. I wonder if anyone has any tested designs they could post? Thanks for any help. Ferdinand

Hi, I need advice about painting the exterior of my house. It's not had any attention in years and some of the paint was bubbled and just fell away. I thought brushing off all the bad paint and just painting over would be fine but you can clearly see the areas of disrepair where I tried this. I've applied Polyfilla exterior today to repair the other damaged areas and cracks but the original builder used a particular surface finish which the smooth pollyfilla doesn't match. Areas where the original paint was good look fine when painted over but the section below I tackled today looks horrible (!) and I need to figure out a better approach before I make things worse..........! Thanks!

Hi, I want to remove all wallpaper from the house and replace with paint. Unfortunately after stripping one of the bedroom walls I found out that the original builders just slapped wallpaper directly onto the plasterboard without a skim first. The wallpaper was subsequently removed in later years and replaced with newer wallpaper. What I'm finding is that after using a steamer the backing of one of the wallpapers is still present. If I damp an area with warm water and try scrapping the backing away I end up removing the plasterboard lining (circled). I've started so I may as well finish but are there any good options besides getting the walls skimmed or removing all the backing/glue by hand (tortuous!)? I was thinking of a shellac based primer on top of the backing, with plasterboard tape for the seams and some polyfilla on this and any rougher areas? Thanks.

Can anyone give me suggestions for covering the rust showing on the corners of our front porch, in the render? I plan to give it a coat of white paint to freshen it up but assume if I just paint over the rust, it will soon show up. Its on most of the corners both at the front of the hosue on the porch and at the back on the kitchen extension. I wondered about Hammerite as better it has a slightly different shade of white than the rust. Or could I then paint over it?

Wow, I cannot believe its 4 months since the last blog entry. Life has just been busy, busy, busy and for a while, there didnt seem to be much to report, even though we have been busy. The bedrooms have been plastered and painted, skirting fixed and the bedrooms doors have been bought and are awaiting fixing. The best thing was finally gettitng the bathroom fitted. Its been a while since we had a working loo and while the 'portaloo' in the cellar was adequate, the new one is fab! Fist we had to rebuild the walls which was a shame as the middle room has looked great with all that space. Then we addede 9mmply (I think) which covered all the chipboard joins and gave it rigidity. Sealed with pva and screwed down. Although there are joins on the left hand side, these are going to be under the units and bath so we arent worried about them. The main part is all one for the lino to cover. The bath was one of the smallest we could find, 150cm long and we extended the side wall into the middle room to fit it in without having to dig into the exterior wall to fit it in, although fitting it was a PITA. AS always, the OH soon had it all fittd and I could start the tiling. having looked round at showrooms, we went for couple of vertical mosiacs, one opp the loo so you can see your relection!, and the other above the bath, along the shower line. They look smart although I did have some issues as they are a thinner tile than the rest and it took a bit of time to get it right. The loo was a bit of a pain as we didnt really have many options for its location due to the plumbing already in place, but then we had to get the waste through the floor avoiding the floori beams, which of course were directly where he wanted to go. So he had to use a side bendy thing to mive the waste a few inches to the left. Its not perfect but it works and once the sink was in, it was not too noticable. We're quite pleased with the final look - sorry about the photo's - its hard to get a decent picture of such a small room. But its almost finished, just a couple of little touch ups with the sealant and a glass screen. Even the radiator is up and running. still needs a door! but a curtain works for now. Upstairs the walls were plastered and painted and I'm very pleased with the look. The lounge has also been done and the ceiling repaired from the foot through it - you cant see where it happened. Am very happy with the plasterers apart from the mess they make! I spent a couple of hours cleaning the stairs, ready for painting the edge, only for the OH to paint the walls and not bother cleaning off the excess off the wood, so I had to do it all over again! But after filling and rubbing down the wood, I have undercoated the sides of the stairs ready for the final coat and the carpet. Its not briliant but as the wood is probably over a hundred years old, the buyer will have to accept the odd bump and crack that I couldnt cover. Here are before and after shots. So what else? Here's the lounge with the lights fitted and working. the skirting is cut and just needs to be fixed and I ahve the coving to put up - going for a polyeuythene one from Screwfix which had excellent reviews as its very lightweight and easy to cut. I shall let you know how it goes as i have ever done coving before. We had a chap in yesterday to come up with a plan for the kitchen. As it is such as small space, we wanted to get some ideas to add to the layout that we have come up with. We have gone for Howdens as they are very reasonably priced and they have a sale on now so hopefully we can get a really good price. But thats for the next blog post - I'll have finished the garden wall then too so more photo's. Its all coming together now but still seems to be taking ages to get to that finishing line. I guess we'll ge there, when we get there, no good rushing and making a mess.

Since the last update, the interior of the cottage has come on leaps and bounds. The rather unusual partitions and ceilings were all framed up and then plasterboarded. I was sensible enough to enlist help with some vaulted ceilings, having learnt the hard way that a 9.5mm board balanced on your head is quite liable to snap in half. I had originally planned to simply tape and fill, but at short notice heard that a plasterer was up on the island and available for work (his original contract had been delayed). So it was a mad rush to finish all those fiddly little window reveals etc and then watch the amazing transformation as the whole interior received a full plaster skim. It's made an enormous difference to the feel of the building, turning it from the untidy patchwork of plasterboard to a lovely smooth dusky pink uniformity. You can now truly get a feel for how the space works- and the feeling is good! My electrician was a little less pleased than I was, because we hadn't quite finished all of the wiring yet, but it was nothing that some educated guesswork and some poking around with a bit of bent fencewire couldn't resolve. I did put one hole in the wrong place, and was pleasantly surprised to find that polyfilla does actually work, creating a perfect seamless repair. I'd only ever used it on plasterboard surfaces previously, and you just can't quite hide the edge between filler and paper. Next step was to get on with painting- it seems to make sense to do this before installing flooring, kitchen, doors etc. The new plaster is fairly gobbling up my contract white paint, but I'm sure it'll only take a few more coats before I can switch to the final finish. The worst part so far has been the section of wall which will have the woodburner flue running in front of it. This is boarded with cement fibre board and the plaster has taken on a noticeably darker tone, which the paint has not entirely managed to hide. It feels as though the end is very much in sight, but of course the remaining interior work- paint, tiles, floor, skirting, doors, kitchen, bathroom, plumbing- is a huge amount of work, and then there is the outside jobs that have yet to be completed. One last piece of progress has been my electrical connection. Originally I had been quoted around £2000 for this, and the work had proceeded up to the point where the cable would enter the house, but no final connection was made. A few months later I was told that my quote had expired, and I received a partial refund to reflect the outstanding work. Fast forward a few more months, and when I tried to get the remaining work done, I was once again quoted the full £2000. It turned out that they hadn't updated their records and thought that no work had been carried out yet. There followed several emails and phonecalls to various different people, but this morning I received a revised quote which, in their words, had 'come down quite a bit'. Indeed it had- it was now for under £300, as expected. So, that was time well spent. If in doubt, always query the bill!

Things have been moving forward last month with the render on the gable wall finished. I think it looks great and so I was able to get it painted as we have had such good weather! Three coats on the new bits and one coat on the rest. And the idiot that I am, I have no photographs of the finished work from up the scaffolding. You will just have to take my word that it looks really good! But with autumn here and winter arriving far too quickly, it was becoming clear that we needed to get some heat into the house. We had had a quote for woodburning stoves for the front and back rooms but it was for over £6k so we said no thanks. After much researching online, it seemed that while we could do it ourselves, we would not be able to certify the work and I found no one was willing to complete a certificate if they had not done the work themselves, understandably, I suppose. A friend recommended one chap who came to have a look. He quoted around £2,300 for a stove, liner, all the trimmings and the certificate. After looking aorund online, I found the same stove for £130 less than he quoted and he was happy to order it for me, and even had it delivered to his address which solved the access issue at ours. So we went with him. And I made sure I was there to watch how it was all done. Before the installation, he told me I had to raise the hearth by about an inch to comply with regs. I managed to remove the tiles, only breaking a few (they had been there for years!) but as we had found a pile of spares in the cellar I was not too worried. So after buying a bag of self leveling compound, I set about edging the hearth with some wood and after mixing it up, poured a bucketful of the compound onto the old hearth. I guess I should have realised that the wood round the edge would not work very well as it was sitting on tongue and groove. Groove being the problem! It was like that chap who tried to keep the tide back.......As fast as I sponged it into the hearth, it seeped out again. Luckily it started to set after 10 mins and after I pushed kitchen paper into the gaps, it stopped seeping out. And I guess thats part of the learning curve! I returned the next day and mixed up another bucketful and this lot stayed within the wood surround but it was too thick and dried uneven. By the third bucketful, I think I had it right. Not too runny and not too thick. It leveled out up to the top of the wood surround and I was happy to lay the tiles ontop. However, when laying the tiles, I ended up being two short! After visits to several tile shops and quite a few telephone calls I discovered its quite hard to buy hexagonal quarry tiles of that thinkness. But I was not deterred! I bought another tile of a similar colour and after making a cardboard template, I was able to cut two tiles from the one larger one and fit them in. Due to the variable colouring of the tiles, I dont think anyone will even notice. Particulaly as they will be under the stove. We will need to edge the whole hearth evenually but thats a problem for another day. Our intention is to have bamboo flooring thoughout the ground floor and we may try to edge it with something similar. So the chaps came on wednesday and after providing tea/coffee and biscuits (and toast for elevenses) in large amounts, they seemed happy enought answering all my questions. And to be fair, I think we made the right decision to get the professionals in. Following instructions from Online sites and YouTubes would not have been enough and we would not have been able to install it as well. so we now have a working stove! Unfortunatly due to circumstances, we were not able to light it till today so I was quite excited to finally get it going. And with the drop in temperatures outside, the house is really starting to feel cold. And later we enjoyed our first lunch sitting in front of the fire. The OH had been busy making a log store using a load of featheredged boards that I had found in a skip. Theyre around 3 ft long and they filled the car boot. so for the price of four lengths of treated timber for the frame we now have a great store outside for when we get more logs. Picture to follow of the finished article - I was too busy gazing into the fire! Things learnt - slef leveling compound does not go very far. It took two bags for that small area. And when doing the budgeting, I did not include costs for things like the compound and the adhesive for the tiles - all of which will add up to quite a lot by the time we finish the house. They are more expensive than I thought.