Plastering Course at Trade Ability

At the end of Feb I went on a two-weekend plastering course at Trade Ability near Newark.  I booked it before Christmas so I got a cheeky discount on the course, so for the weekend option it was only £200.  What did I have to lose?  Nothing it seems!

I had an absolutely fab time, met lots of lovely people, and bagged myself some new skills.  You can't say fairer than that.

Our instructor, Lee, was a lovely chap - and completely down to earth.  He completely accepted that it's not always possible get it perfect, so provided us with some handy tips on what to do if it all does go pete-tong.  As he put it "s**t happens".

We spent much of the time skimming, with a few tutorials and exercises on how to do a few other skills, such as plasterboarding, attaching beading, rendering, plasterboard repairs, making joins etc.  I lost count of how many skims we did but we did quite a few walls and two goes of a ceiling.  It was really flexible though and as a group we were able to choose what we wanted to do more of.

My first small wall - note the lack of detail at the top of the wall!

My attempt at a large wall a bit later in the weekend

Close up - trust me, this one was really smooth!

Some plasterboard repair work

What I really took away from the course, is that the staging of your work is really important.  Getting all your prep done, having all your equipment in the right place, ready to go when you are, so that once your plaster is mixed it's all systems go.  You haven't got time to mess about once the plaster is mixed.

Staging your work - everything set up ready to go

I also learnt when to have patience and when to walk away - when to go and have a cup of tea to leave the plaster to firm up a bit, instead of keep fiddling with it.

The thing I most struggled with was the ceiling skimming.  On my first go, I shall quote what Lee said to me when I declared I was finished "After your second coat that looked like a rat's arse, so I'm really surprised that you managed to bring it back".  I took it as a complement...  My second go was better, although certainly not perfect.

Me in action!

I was dead chuffed with my walls though, and I'm really excited to give it a go in my own home now.  My only regret is that I didn't strip all the wallpaper in our house before I went on the course so that I could have come straight home and cracked on while the skills were still fresh in my mind!

I would certainly recommend the course to anyone, and at that price it would be rude not to.  I'll be the first person to suggest that you learn things about DIY on YouTube, but I think plastering is one of those skills where you need hands on, practical, in real life, experience.

The only improvement that I think could be made to the course is to have an opportunity to plaster a wall with obstructions in the way, such as a door frame, window or for me, an electrical socket (slightly regretting all those sockets I had put in now...).  The walls we did we just rectangular walls with no obstructions, so they weren't quite realistic.  However I can understand why it would be hard to add to the course as you spend the course plastering the same few walls, so if the walls had sockets on them you would probably have to try a wall with a socket on it fairly early on while you are still trying to get to grips with the whole darn thing, which would probably put even the calmest of people into a bit of a flap!

I plan to start with the box room (OH's office) to further refine my skills as if I make a hash of it, guests rarely see it.  Then after a bit more prep, I'll be onto the living room - yay!

Are there any courses you have been on that you would highly recommend for your house renovations?

[p.s. this is not a sponsored post - I just had a fab time and wanted to share my experience]

Making a new loft hatch

The old loft hatch was pretty gross. The trim was coming away and it was covered in bumpy artex. By leaving it as it was, it was ruining the ambience in our (slowly getting there) hallway.

I had my dad kindly cut out a piece of 18mm plywood months and months ago using his jigsaw. (My dad is a bit of a badass with a jigsaw, and I know I'm most certainly not! This was also in the days before my circular saw became a big part of my life). But alas, it sat in the spare bedroom for months, waiting for me to do something with it. The piece of board I used was actually a bit warped, but was the straightest piece in the pile at Wickes so determined as I was, I decided I could make it work.  We used the old loft hatch as a template.

I started by trying to make it as flat as possible by attaching two battens across the board.  One of the battens (the one at the edge) would be used to help attach the hinges, but the one further in from the edge was just to try and make the board straight.  There is no reason why one of the edges of my battens is at 45 degrees. It's just that was a scrap of wood I already had in the garage and I couldn't be bothered to cut it straight!

I pre-drilled through the batten, but not the board.  I then had to use screws that would just go into the board without popping through the other side, as the other side would be visible!  I managed it though.

The trim was also an important part of the whole thing.  I had bought some D-shape pine moulding for the job.  I also dug out my mitre box and hand saw, as whilst I LOVE my circular saw, I don't think it was quite up for this job. One of the trim strips was completely on the board (so that the door could actually open and not impinge the hinges!), but the other 3 sides were half on the board and half covering the dodgy bit of plastering.

 I secured the trim to the board with some small nails, and used the nail punch to sink them into wood. I then covered the nails with a bit of filler. My 45 degree cuts weren't quite perfect so there was a bit of a gap between the pieces of trim.  More filler required!

Once the filler had dried and I had sanded it, I put on the first coat of paint which was the primer. I used the same paint as I would use for the stairs, Johnstones Joncryl Acrylic Primer.  It's very quick to dry and the odour is minimal so it was quite nice to work with.

I tested the hatch out to check it all fitted, but came across a small problem with the loft ladder.  The batten I installed to keep the wood straight was hitting the bottom of the ladder legs so I needed to move it. (I actually moved it and then realised I moved it the wrong way -doh!)

I've bought some new butt hinges, and the plaster patch up is almost done - so not far off a finished product now. Stay tuned!

Preparing the floorboards for sanding

The plan for the hallway floor (upstairs and downstairs), is to sand, stain and varnish it.  But before that, we must prep!  You can look back to when we revealed what was lurking under the laminate here, but overall, it wasn't too bad.

A few floorboards needed replacing as they had been poorly taken up in the past by others so that was definitely on the list.  Also, the nails holding all the floorboards down needed punching so that they sat below the surface.  This was so that they didn't catch the sandpaper on the floor sander.

I couldn't find the right size floorboards in B&Q, Wickes etc... so I headed to our local timber merchant to get some cut to size.

I had to cut them to length at home, but this was no problem as I got to use my brand new toy!

I kept losing concentration and taking my finger off the trigger (not clever!), but it was amazing! Like a knife through butter.  You can see I used a clamp to make a makeshift guide with a piece of scrap wood which worked very well.

I had difficulties nailing the boards down, as I had to check the nails wouldn't be too long that they would end up going through the electrical cables.  I had to make a quick trip to the shops to buy some shorter nails as the ones I had were cutting it far too fine.  I also had to mind the heating pipes too!

I pre-drilled the holes in the floorboards so that they wouldn't split, as many of the nails were pretty close to the edge.  That seemed to work well.

And the finished article:

I know they look pretty odd now, but I'm hoping once stained, they will blend right in.

I also punch all the nails down, with a nail punch I bought from Wickes.  It's not the best to be honest, and it's already deformed at the tip with some light use, so probably not the best for longevity, but it did the job.

Above: Protruding nails

The tools.

Hopefully I'll shortly be sharing with you the sanded and stained floor!