Relaxing times?

Finally! It is done! The rebuild of the bathroom is finished! Phil the builder has done a fantastic job and Mrs. Woody is most pleased with it which makes my life so much easier even if the WMD coffers are much depleted! I can now have a relaxing time in the bath in the future, preferably after a bike ride or some model making activities which I can hopefully now find some time to do again.

As you might note from the pictures, Mrs. Woody has moved us and the cats into the newly finished facilities! By the way, that odd looking thing next to the toilet is not a cat loo but a cat water dish that replenishes itself from the reservoir above. It cost £3.99 and is probably the best and most useful cat related item we have bought!

Whilst I may think that I am going to have a relaxing time from now on there is of course the matter of Mrs. W's chore/job list for me that doesn't appear to have been flushed away and is very much still in existence! Oh well - you can't have everything!

Half the time!

I did manage to sneak an hour in the Man cave to create another length of cable trunking. Whilst the first length I built took 2 hours to make this latest length was less than an hour! That's half the time for the job!

And talking about halves and time and jobs, Mrs. Woody was pleased to note that the previously half painted bathroom door featured a few days ago...

has now been painted....

and on both sides!

Just wish that job had taken half the time of when I only painted half of it!

Half a job!

Whilst Phil the builder has been doing a great job with fitting the cupboard doors, plumbing in the sink, fitting the shower and all the skirting and architrave.....

I have managed half a job of painting the door!

Mrs. Woody will be impressed - she always says I only ever do half a job so this just proves her point!

Hopefully all this work will be finished by the end of this week aso I can back to some model making in amongst Mrs. W's chore list for me!

Flushed with success!

No model making today but I am flushed with success as the bathroom refit now boasts a fully working toilet! No more bucket to flush! In fact there was a great deal of progress today with all the cabinets fitted and with the already installed bath now having been tiled it is really coming together! 

The skip which has been on the driver for the past five weeks or so also went today.

Unfortunately it went just a bit early to get the old toilet in it so that now sits outside under a window until I can get to the recycling centre! Meanwhile I am sure Mrs. Woody will be impressed! It will certainly be a talking point!

My job was a simple one of preparing and painting the door architrave and skirting board which was a nice job to do out in the sun. Just needs a second coat of paint tomorrow.

Painting, weathering and shattered whilst Mrs. Woody has a spa day!

8am this morning Mrs. Woody went off for a spa day. That was nice! It left me to my own devices so instead of enjoying a day of pampering I got down to some painting of the freshly plastered bathroom. Luckily the plaster had dried over night so out came a watered down undercoat followed by top coats with the only part of the room escaping paint being where the tiles will go above the bath. By 2pm I was done - in more ways then one! 

Shattered i still went for a bike ride and then off to the Man Cave to weather the tunnel sub-base that has been an ongoing model making saga!

I airbrushed a misting of thinned down brown paint over the brickwork and then some black as soot coming from the locomotives above the tunnel mouths.

I think it looks good but then I would! Mrs. W, having returned from the pampering of her spa day, thinks the bathroom looks good although not sure what she might make of the tunnel! I could do with some pampering after today - maybe a spa day would be good!

Key moments!

A few key moments at WMD HQ today. Firstly the tunnel scenic sub-base is just about as finished as I need it to be at the moment. Just a stretch of coping stones to add and some weathering and I will be calling it a day on this for the moment. What goes on top of it is still open to debate, which is a polite way of saying I am not sure yet! It very much depends upon what I do on the next baseboard when I cover the loops at the back of the layout. However a key moment in that it is back in place and despite of my card board butchery of the last few weeks the trains still run through it!

The second key moment is that the bathroom was plastered this morning. The plasterer arrived at 8am and was gone by 11.30am! I have every admiration for those with the skill to plaster. My attempts usually end up as a pile of plaster on the floor or even if it stays on the wall it ends up looking like a lunar landscape! Once the plastering is done you feel as though things have turned that corner where the destruction becomes construction. A key moment indeed! My next key moment will be painting it after it dries. Oh joy! More painting!

A level of sanity returns!

In Mrs. Woody's view, sanity and me are not words that you associate with each other! However, in the case of WMD, a level of sanity returns with me getting out into the Man Cave and doing some model making activity and inside of the WMD HQ the bathroom is now fully plaster boarded and looks a lot better even if there is much more to do!

Lets deal with the model making first and I am still working on the tunnel section of my layout with the installation of the various supporting piers that are needed. Although I had previously made some of these, because of the need to alter much of the main structure these no longer fitted so there I am having to build new ones.

This is where the above is going to fit.

And fitted, it tidies up that joint nicely!

The next one is now under construction so hopefully with the return of a level of  sanity to model making it will be completed shortly!

Meanwhile, the sanity level returns, in part, to the bathroom with plaster boarding complete and things tidied up. Next step is plastering next week. That will be nice!

No bath tonight then!

Old bath in the skip.

New bath in the bathroom but not really ready for use so its a unclean Woody tonight!

But at least we have a toilet!

It will all come together - eventually! And I will celebrate with a bath!

 

This my bathroom - at the moment!

 

Note the toilet eco-flush system - the bucket!

Yes, this is how the WMD HQ bathroom looks at the moment. Not exactly what you would find in the glossy shots that estate agents take to advertise 'the unique opportunity to purchase a sought after property' but, from this will arise something that hopefully pleases Mrs. Woody. It better do or I will need to move into my Man Cave which Mrs. W thinks is actually more of a mess then the bathroom! Phil the builder, however, assures me all is well and things can only get better!!

Well, as appears the norm at the moment, little if any time for model making matters but I can report on the delivery of this.

And with the outer sleeve removed it does look good without even delving any further, which unfortunately I don't have time to do just at the moment. 

Of course, on the opening of any package a WMD cat has to take part which in this case is the inquisitive Monty!

I do have a soft spot for the Class 37, or as they were referred to by train spotters, tractors. Something about their shape which suited so many of the liveries they have worn over their long lives. This is the classic British railway corporate blue which whilst plain compared to some of the latter liveries, to my mind is the classic 37 livery. I look forward to getting it on the layout - when I have time after that bathroom is finished!

Under thge weather 2!

Still not feeling great but well enough to cut the scrap wood from Phil the builders escapades in bringing WMD HQ up to date and use it to restock the log store for the log burner!

I found that the skip makes a great saw bench and the saw dust goes straight into it meaning less cleaning up! Working smarter not harder as I get older! 

With the warm weather I did feel that I should at least make a token gesture bike ride even if I was not feeling that well. Certainly gave me some fresh air but there was no power in my legs. I think local athletic snails would probably have over taken me at some stages. However I did at least get up to the local canal which I have not seen for some weeks now.  

Obviously things have been happening in those weeks with the Marie Celeste of the canal, AKA Earwig having returned and been parked (or is it moored?) in the middle of the canal. No idea why but no doubt the reason will reveal itself at some point if I can reinvigorate myself for another bike ride and indeed find the time to get back to some model amking!

The rebuild begins!

 Following on from my initial bathroom butchery earlier this week, Phil the Builder continued with it as the rest of the walls and ceiling were stripped of plasterboard as well as various fittings being taken out including the toilet cistern! A bucket of water makes a suitable substitute. 

However, unlike me, Phil is able to rebuild and that process has commenced! Plasterboard on the rear wall makes a big difference as does the preparatory plumbing work. Hopefully next week will see even more progress.

Bathroom butchery!

I have, on several occasions in this blog, talked about my abilities, or indeed lack of them, at cardboard butchery, wood butchery and vegetational butchery. Today, I can mow add a new butchery ability to the list, bathroom butchery!

I started with a decades old bathroom in the morning .....

....and by the afternoon it looked like this!

Phil the builder was busy finishing other jobs so I thought I would lend a hand in stripping out the old bathroom There is still more to go but at least it gives Phil a flying start tomorrow and I quite enjoyed the therapy of using a hammer which is an essential tool in bathroom butchery!

Looking like a white van!

Again not much model making today, just a few minutes to stick some brick paper to the card for the walls on the tunnel sub-base that I am building.

However, there was a lot of painting with the various skirting boards and door architrave for the cloakroom getting three top coats. Painting a dark colour over white primer is no fun!

However it does contrast well with the rest of the paint and fittings.

Now here is something that I have never done before - wash a Transit van! Phil the builders van has been filthy for weeks and my questioning as to why he had not cleaned it got no where and with no sign of him getting round to it O took bucket and sponge to it. It was filthy and I did at one point ask Phil if he had a bio-hazard sticker I could put on it!

However, 90 minutes later and it was looking like a .....white van! Just hope Phil doesn't think that this is a regular thing!