Started the last gypsum project Sunday, 24-Oct-21 18:53:23 CEST

The anhydrite floor Sunday, 07-Nov-21 22:27:48 CET

Sunday, 31-Oct-21 20:52:04 CET

Ready for the floors

Finished the washing room ceiling and wall, the house is ready for the floors.

Monday 25 October

This was the first day of this week's DIY holiday! We had a slow start this morning, and I used the time to remind our electrician that he needed to install the floor box. He had forgotten it. It was totally overcast today and a lot darker than yesterday. Eventually, we came to the new house. It was still before lunch, but it did not feel later.

	I finished the beam of the north wall. It was already time for lunch when that was done.
	After lunch, I got the two first beams up. I am starting from the east wall going westwards.
	I mounted the first four beams today. This photo is from the southwest corner.
	This photo is from the northeast corner.

 

The electrician came back with suggestions for a floor box, and we agreed on the choice; he will order the things and install them in our house this week.

My wife started plastering the seams in the utility room. It was difficult. The idea is that when the floor is installed, they will put up boilers and things in the utility room, so it will be better if the walls are finished by then.

After our work in the house, we had a walk in the neighborhood. Then we went home. I cooked dinner. It was grilled sweet potatoes with broccoli, chickpeas, tomatoes, and feta cheese.

It was an intense day, but it was good. Tomorrow we will continue. I hope I will get all beams in place tomorrow.

Tuesday 26 October

It is the second day of my whole week of DIY holiday. Yesterday I left the new house with two beams left to go. We arrived a little earlier today.

Obviously, I depicted the ceiling in my mind, but it was just an abstract idea. Until now, the ceiling had a beam around the wall and obviously the beams across the washing room I placed yesterday, but it was not until I had finished the one but last beams that I had this notion that "here is the new ceiling going to be." I looked on top of the placed beams and thought to myself, along this plane, it will be.

I detached the electric cables and mounted them in the new construction. Now it is for real that this is the place where the new ceiling will be. The crossbeams are reinforced from the load-bearing construction beams. The crossbeams are attached with two metal brackets at each reinforcement point. This was necessary so that connection with the beam was made across the grain of the wood. It is not a good idea to screw into the wood from the end. That could be avoided with two metal brackets. Each side of the cross beam is a little bit apart so that the two screws do not meet inside the wood.

In the southwest corner, I had an issue that the ventilation arrived precisely at the last crossbeam. Because of that, I installed a cross-cross-beam that the crossbeam could rest on. Resting is a metaphorical word because the beam is also attached to the loadbearing constructions at several points. This way, I could create a frame around the ventilation. We will put a couple of extra screws around the ventilation so that the gypsum around the whole will be sturdy.

It looks messy, but it is not that bad; it is an ordered mess. When the beam work was finished, I could start isolating the ceiling.

 

Isolating the ceiling and the wall took a couple of hours to do, but I worked vigorously. I had to have the room ready for gypsum plates tomorrow morning. That would be so nice.

My wife studied the art of plastering today. She found information on the Internet and YouTube about what tools to use, tips and tricks. She ordered better material that will arrive tomorrow. The funniest thing she found today was that little chunks of harder plastering following the plaster knife and making stripes; they are called hitchhikers.

The result of today was that the isolation of the wall and the ceiling was finished!

 

When we were done, we did exactly as yesterday. We had a walk in the neighborhood. Then we went home, and I cooked dinner. Well, kind of. We ate the rest of the things I made yesterday. Yesterday I had made an enormous amount of food, and after dinner tonight, we still had leftovers. I suggested making it into a soup tomorrow.

Wednesday 27 October

I cannot say we are especially quick to get out of bed to work on the new house. It is, after all, a holiday, albeit a DIY holiday. Eventually, we got to the new house, and we started with mounting for the first gypsum plate on the south wall of the washing room. It turned out to have 4 holes and one notch. It slid in on its place really well.

We had to get used to the gypsum work. It has been a couple of weeks without gypsum work, so we had to gather the tools and figure out who was doing what and in what order.

Now we had got started. In the back of my head, I hoped we would finish the entire gypsum project today. Would that succeed?

After lunch, we finished the south wall. We brought together the wall outlet to one double outlet. The idea is that we will have the washing machine and dryer in this corner of the washing room. We will also have the pipe for a potential shower if we so want in the future.

With the wall finished, it was time to do the ceiling. The gypsum elevator was brought in for the last time in this house. While carrying in, I wondered if it was possible to rebuild it to serve another purpose, or will we just sell it or give it away now?

The wall we mounted from west to east. The ceiling we mounted from east to west. This had to do with where the beams were placed.

The first ceiling plate had a hole for the lamp, and the plate just slid right over the hole with a perfect fit. It was an extraordinary experience that the work went so effortlessly. I hoped the rest of the plates would follow in the same pattern.

The next plate had a hole for the next lamp, but it also had an opening for ventilation. The opening made a dent in the side of the plate. For the rest, this was a full plate for this ceiling. Not only that, it was the last time, as far as I know, that we would use the gypsum elevator in this house. After the deed was finished, I lowered the boom for the last time and took a photo of the elevator. It was standing in the almost finished washing room with a sort of proud but sad mood. It was a nice natural soft light that illuminated the wall behind the elevator. We took it apart and carried the parts to the workshop. It has been a great acquaintance to learn to know this elevator.

Then it was just a tiny stripe left to finish the ceiling, but we lifted that by hand.

When this was done, I continued repairing a couple of extra holes we got in the wall while the pipes were installed. I hope my wife can include these repairs in the spackling activities tomorrow. She is practicing in the utility room because as part of the installation of the floor, they will install all sorts of equipment in this room. If we want to have the walls painted, we need to do it before installing the equipment.

This was it for today. We were happy that the gypsum project was finished. Now we need to move out stuff from the house.

When we came out of the house, it was a beautiful sunset.

Thursday 28 October

This morning we went for a bit of shopping before we went to the new house. My wife went to the secondhand shop, and I went to buy new shoes. When the pandemic started, my shoes were almost ready for replacement. Then many things happened with closedowns etc., and it was not so easy to shop for new shoes.

I had holes in the soles, the seams were giving up, and the hole for the shoelace was so worn out it would carve a brand new shoelace apart in one day. The solution to that was to use an electricity cable instead of the shoelace. It was a bit sturdy but worked well until the copper had been bent so often it broke off, but the insulation around the copper often held together for a longer time.

The worn-out shoes have been with me during an intense part of my life. Building a house and living through and surviving a pandemic. I am grateful that they served me so well. The new shoes feel fantastic.

When the pandemic started, I washed my hands as if life depended on it. It apparently did. It was less convenient to wear a wristwatch during that phase of the pandemic, so I put my wristwatch away. After a year into the pandemic, I put the watch on again, and soon after, the watch's battery was empty. Today I decided to get the wristwatch fixed so that I can wear it again. I brought it with me to the jewelry and watch shop.

We arrived a little later at the new house than usual, but that was okay. It was fantastic weather, although we were mainly planning to do things indoors today, kind of. My plan was to empty the new house, and my wife would continue plastering the seams in the utility room. That way, I was outside a lot today, walking back and forth between the container and the house.

It was not feeling like I had made enormous progress throughout the day. When I removed the table with tools in the workshop, it was clear I had finished some kind of milestone. We will manage to empty the rest of the house this coming weekend.

In the afternoon, our electrician showed up. He had brought with him a floor box. He installed this, so the people installing the floor heating can place the pipes around the floor box when laying out the pipes. Our electrician also installed a couple of electrical outlets.

Friday 29 October

We had a prolonged start this morning. Not because we were tired but because we are so well on the schedule that we do not need to be stressed. To celebrate this, we went back to the secondhand shop to pick up items we did not buy last time but would like to buy anyway after proper reconsideration. The item had been sold; hence we did not buy anything.

At the new house, I started to move out the stack of stuff of the electrician. Yesterday when he came he was surprised that not more outlets were filled with boxes. I removed them when we mounted the gypsum plates and put them in one of the boxes in the stack. As I used to say, if you don't know what you have, you don't have it. So I found all the boxes and hung them up at all the outlets. There are still boxes left for some outlets.

The box forms the internal behind the electricity outlet. It is mounted to the gypsum plate so that the outlet is thoroughly fastened. It keeps the electrical cables ordered. The rest of the outlet is fastened in the box. If these boxes are missing and lying in the boxes of the electrician, the risk is that he use new boxes. I suppose we pay for the new boxes as well as the "lost" boxes. It is just a guess. To ensure this would not happen, I found all orphan boxes and hung them up in the cables hanging out of the walls. We will see if this works.

Today we had friends coming to fetch our remaining white gypsum plates. They also could make use of the fiberboards. It took some time to load the trailer with the plates. It feels good that the plates will come to good use.

We still have a few green plates left, but we will use them in the utility room. We have room for them in the container while the floor is made. I think it will take some time before we get those plates mounted because we got a lot of other things with higher priority. We will probably move out those plates tomorrow.

Our friends helped us move the woodstove out to the container. It was heavy. I remember when we moved it into the house. That time I did it together with the man I bought the stove from. He is strong. We managed to get the stove to the container without any accidents. That was nice.

When the friends had left, my wife painted the walls in the utility room, and I continued to move things out of the house. The entire morning it had been sunny weather. In the afternoon, the weather changed. It became cloudy, and it even rained a little. It had been nicer with a sunny afternoon and evening. The evening after a sunny day at the new house is lovely. The golden hour with the light shines through the windows in our new house. It will be nice when we live here. But we still do not live there just yet. So we packed our things and went to our old home.

While eating dinner, we watched another episode of the Danish reality series "Giv os naturen tilbage" (Give us back the nature) with Frank Erichsen. Here is a link to the (Danish) Wikipedia page about the program. You can see it on many Nordic tv channels. In the program, there were flowers mentioned that were good for butterflies and other insects. We added these to our shopping list of seeds that we have been working on, preparing for the next growing season.

We are already fans of Frank for a long time. For many years, we have enjoyed watching his program "Frank & Kastaniegaarden" formerly called "Bonderøven" which can be loosely translated to The Hillbilly.

After dinner, we finalized our order at Vreekens seeds. Last year we ordered seeds for the 2021 season too late, so we got the seeds very late, on 26 May this year. This year we are doing this considerably better for the 2022 season. I just hope we get things well on time.

This was our order of seeds we submitted tonight:

Order Number	Dutch Name from the Vreeken's seeds	English Name	Height in centimeters, etc	Sow time and method, Distance
075220	COURGETTE 'Raven' F1	Marrow, Summer squash		April-May indoor, ½ may outdoor. 90x90 cm.
114000	PEULEN 'Shiraz'	Sugar Pea, Mangetout	150 cm.	Outdoors under glass January-February. Outdoor March-May. Rows 150 apart. Sow each plant 10 cm apart.
195200	SUIKERMAïS 'Early Extra Sweet' F1 / 'Tasty Sweet' F1	Sweetcorn		Sow outdoor May-June. Minimum two rows apart 75 cm distance, each plant 20 cm apart.
207500	PATISSON 'Custard White' / 'White Bush Scallop'	Custard Marrow, Crowngourd, Button Squash		Sow ½ May. Distance 100 x 100 cm.
210990	ECO-(KRUL)BLADPETERSELIE 'Moskrul 2'	Eco curled leaved parsley		Sow February-May indoors, and sow outdoors May-July. Sow on a lightly shadowy place.
213450	POMPOENEN 'Blue Ballet' / 'Mini Blue Hubbard' / 'Chestnut Bush' / 'Baby Blue'	Mini Blue Hubbard pumpkin		Sow ½ March indoors, or ½ May outdoors, with 100 x 150 cm distance.
225900	RABARBER 'Näsåker' / 'Lillterrsjö'	Rhubarb ‘Näsåker’ (From Sweden!)		April-July below a glass.
266010	PLUKSLA 'Bionda Foglia di Quercia' / 'A Couper Feuille de Chene Blonde a Graine Noire' / 'Krauser Gelber' / 'Australische Gele'	Loose Leaf Lettuce.		Rows distance 20 cm, March- September.
339000	CITROENGRAS	East Indian Lemon Grass		Sow indoor May-July at 20°C. When germinated, put a colder place. Plant outdoors when soil is 7°C.
341000	DASLOOK	Wood Garlic, Ramsons.	40 cm.	Sow in a boring tray and place 2-4 weeks on a warm and moist place. Then move the tray to the fridge for 4-6 weeks. Sometimes this procedure has to be repeated. When germinated, plant outdoors. It is also possible to plant in September and let the winter do its thing.
343000	DRAGON, RUSSISCHE	Russian Tarragon		Sow indoors in propagator March-July, with uncovered seeds. When germinated When seedlings can be handled, plant individually in small pots and grow at 10°C for 10 days.
347000	KAASJESKRUID, GROOT 'Mauritiana'	Tall Mallow	100 cm. Perennial.	3 weeks in 20°C followed by 3 weeks in the fridge. Repeat until a sufficient amount of seeds have germinated.
356020	OREGANO, GRIEKSE	Greek Origano
357800	ROOMSE KERVEL	Sweet Cicely
358000	ROZEMARIJN 'Rosy'	Rosemary
363005	ECO-TIJM, ECHTE WINTER 'Duitse Winter'	Common thyme
392200	GEWONE ROLKLAVER 'Leo'	Clover ‘Leo’	40 cm. Perennial.
510210	ECO-Calendula officinalis fl.pl. 'Erfurter Orangefarbige'	Pot Marigold	60 cm. Perennial.
547920	Phlox drummondii grandiflora 'Tapestry Mixed' / 'Art Shades Mixed'	Phlox	50 cm. Annual.
550715	Rudbeckia hirta 'Cappuccino' / 'Orange Fudge'	Cone Flower	60 cm. Biennal.
593750	Knautia arvensis	Coulter or Field Scabious 'Blue'	50 cm. Perennial.
593770	Knautia Macedonia 'Red Knight'	Coulter or Field Scabious 'Red'	Plant 25 cm. Flowers 80 cm. Perennial.
734040.1	CROCUS Chrysanthus-hybriden 'Ard Schenk'	Crocus	10 cm.
734110.1	CROCUS Chrysanthus-hybriden 'Romance'	Crocus	15 cm.

 

I added the height only to the flower flowers in the table here above. If I were to follow traditional advice on arranging a border, I would try to build the border so that it builds up from lower plants at the front and then gradually taller plants towards the back. Obviously, I had not had any thoughts like these when I arranged things for the past season, but it is perhaps never too late to improve things.

If I am going to be able to make a better plan, then I need to make a map from the current situation with the heights of plants and where they are located in the flower garden. That is for another day.

As far as the vegetables go, most of them are things that my wife wanted for the next season. I wanted to try the Loose Leaf Lettuce, but it is mostly my wife's suggestion for the rest. We still got seeds left from the current season.

First, the seeds will need to arrive on time for the next season. That part is Vreeken's challenge. Then the next challenge will be to prepare the seeds for planting at the right time. Last season all went into the ground right away because we got the seeds so late. Shame on you, Vreekens!

Provided that Vreekens get things sorted this year, we get the seeds well on time. Then it will be our task to get the seeds prepared on time. I suppose we have to put things in our calendar of what to do when. If we live in the new house, it will be possible to use the big windows to prepare the plants. I don't know how we will do it.

Saturday 30 October

Today we were really slow. I sat in bed in the morning, listening to the sound of the rain falling on the roof of our old house. I was thinking that our sheep were hiding in the little shed made of pallets. This morning we had a cup of tea, and I was blogging about the seeds we ordered yesterday.

We arrived at the new house, and my wife started painting on the utility room walls. I had a bit of slack time, so I continued blogging about the seeds we ordered yesterday. It was raining heavily and continuously until after lunch.

The first possible moment we had to go outside without becoming soaked, we moved the remaining green gypsum plates to our sea container. With that task finished, the remaining things left in the new house are disparate clutter: The table we use when we eat lunch, the table with the coffee machine, and cups, chairs, ladders, and that sort of things. We will move these things tomorrow. Now we did not have the woodstove, and the sun was not shining, so it got colder. We had to have a little electric fan.

Our sheep were done with the current area. They have done a great job of clearing it. The next task for today was to move our sheep to a new area. Our northeast neighbor could use some help clearing his plot from weed. Our sheep could graze there. The building of his house will be delayed until February next year.

First, we let the sheep graze in an area of 50 by 25 meters in front of the heaps of soil. We opened the fence so that the sheep could get into our neighbor's plot. Then we put up a temporary net so that they will not start climbing the heaps. He also got pear trees, and they got their own fence. It will be interesting to see how long they can stay in this area. The growing season is more or less over, so the grass is much less resilient against walking. We will keep an eye on how it goes.

Sunday 31 October

Last night we transitioned from daylight saving time to standard time. I used the extra hour in the morning to enjoy a cup of tea and search for information about the seeds we bought. This time I looked up when to sow and how to sow. That will come in handy when planning what to do and when.

We arrived at the new house and started the activities for today. There were only three things left to do:

1. Build a border around the hatch to the space below the house.
2. Extend the wall below a wall in the washing room on the first floor.
3. Empty the house.

I started with the hatch. It was great fun to do a well-defined small single task. I made the border slightly wider than the original hatch; this makes it possible to create a new hatch that can rest on the concrete floor. The current hatch has been resting on partly concrete and partly just styrofoam. The side with most styrofoam has started to give in. Now when we make the space for the new hatch just a little wider, it is possible to make the new hatch rest on the concrete all around.

Next up was extending the wall; this was also a swift task.

The final task for today was to empty the house thoroughly. I had the idea of making it absolutely and utterly empty, but my wife considered the comfort of the people that would come and lay out the floor. She did not think it was acceptable to give them no place to take a break. For this, we decided to leave a simple place to take a break. Four chairs, two trestles with a plate, and on top of that a coffee machine and an electric kettle. Besides this: coffee, tea, and cookies. Now, what else could they want? A toilet, we left that as well.

It took several hours to empty every little thing in the house except the sparse coffee corner. Around 5PM, the house was so empty it had never been before.

	The workshop. Here is the temporary coffee corner.
	The hall between the workshop and the utility room.
	The south hall.
	The living room from the south hall.
	Here is the living room from the southeast corner.
	Here is the kitchen and living room.

With this, we finished our goal to make all things ready for the new floor before 1 November. We worked several months to make this happen. We finished working on the exterior on 15 May this year. Since then, we have been putting up all the gypsum to prepare the floors for floor heating.

When everything was ready in the house, it started raining. I think the house will never ever be this empty again. If we remove just a couple of more kilos, it will be so light that the poles will start floating in the clay, and suddenly the house will be pushed out of the clay. Just kidding.

The house was empty, it was raining, there was not much to do. We went to our old home to celebrate that we had finished preparing for the floor project before the deadline.

Tomorrow morning they will start to install the floor. It was excellent that we had an entire week of DIY holiday to finish on time.