Peter's Blog

Iberianspices spicesiberia

Tuesday 28 April 2015

More preparation being done

Sometimes there seems no point in writing on my Blog when all i have done is preparation work. In the last week 4 apple and 2 pear trees have been planted but as the land is almost as hard as concrete planting 6 trees was not easy but it's done.

The Chestnut door frames are now finished and ready to be fitted tomorrow and again all timber cut by my friendly timber guy Chicco.

My main problem i have found is storage, i have a nice big dry cellar but i need storage in the house. I am going to make a cupboard space under the stairs. I have a floating glass shelf in the bathroom and shelves without brackets in the kitchen. So under the stairs means i must do something out of the ordinary, something to challenge me and again out of Chestnut.

I still need an answer to my shower problem, my water pressure is to low for the unit i wanted to fit and i want something unique to me. For now it's just a shower attachment but as they say Rome wasn't built in a day.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Busy playing with more timber.

I am busy making a door frame out of my favourite timber Chestnut for the bathroom. It's easy in the UK you just go and buy a door frame but here i have chosen to use Chestnut because of the look of this beautiful timber and again it's Chicco who does all  the cutting for me. I use a router to make all my own mouldings for the frame but on Thursday one of my router bits broke off while the router was at full speed. This was the first time i nearly had an accident while working in my workshop thankfully nothing happened. Now all i need to do is to finish sanding and varnish and that's the frame finished.

The door for the bathroom is one that was on the kitchen before i started building work. This door is just a little to big so it will need to be cut down before i can fit it. I think i will strip the door before i mount it and give it a good coat of paint first then i will fit the new door.

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Disaster from a simple silly mistake.

I have been working hard to finish my bathroom for the last month. Knowing to fit my shower unit to the wall i would have to drill the wall to put in mounting brackets i took photos so i knew where i would have to avoid the water pipes.

All the time there is dust in the air and every time i clean shortly after everywhere is covered again. Now the bathroom is near completion i had hopes  a clean dust free house until today.

Today i installed all the fillings for the pipe works to be connected for the shower, sink and toilet. I started early and as you can see from the first picture i knew how the pipes went even though they where covered in the wall.


 The centre pipes are for the shower unit and the pipes on the left are for the sink.





















This bathroom has been a long time coming and i even have underfloor heating so in the winter i don't have to walk on cold tiles.


This picture shows the wall finished and ready for the shower unit to be fitted. The other walls are finished and ready until i drilled a hole in the wrong place and drilled through a water pipe even though i had planned with before pictures to help.
















I took this picture while i was cutting away to expose the damaged pipe. When fully exposed a local plumber is coming back to repair the pipe. 


After drilling a hole in this pipe i sat to consider how i was to repair the damage, i was at the lowest point i have been while living in Portugal. I went for a coffee with other Brits before our language class and the offers of help and even somewhere to stay because my water was off made me realise how lucky i was. One friend while we where taking called the plumber to arrange for him to come and repair the pipe for me.











While doing the bathroom i had put on hold on other jobs and the one i was looking forward to  was to finish my TV unit but for now it's going to have to wait a bit longer.