Smurfin's Big Project

[BrianMW]

I have to say I am stunned at how fast you make progress!

There is either a team of you or you wear a cape at the weekends?

Enjoying the work so far

 

[mrbsh1]

Loving the progress, awaiting eagerly for completion pics. Good work.

 

[Smurfin]

Cheers guys

Brian, there's basically me and a joiner (with me directing most of the time ). Yesterday there was us, plus 3 electricians, a plumber and 2 window fitters. After today (which is just the electricians), all trades have gone except the joiner for probably 3 more days, and then I'm completely on my own.

I still have no idea how I'm going to finish this I will get there though....

 

[Rick2102]

Yo decided on Rako then Smurfin

REALLY looking forward to seeing it all finished.

You have a lovely house, hope the final push goes good for you

 

[scatterbug]

Based on the the swatches in the living room and kitchen have you decided upon colours?

 

[Smurfin]

Yo decided on Rako then Smurfin

REALLY looking forward to seeing it all finished.

You have a lovely house, hope the final push goes good for you

Thanks, and yes, I went down the Rako route in the end Thanks to Gear 7 for supplying all the Rako kit quickly too!

I'm doing 3/4 rooms initially: living room, kitchen, dining area, bathroom, along with some external lights and bathroom extractor all rako'd. It's all installed now, I'm just trying to work out how to programme it

Interestingly, what swung me towards Rako in the end was that I couldn't find any other keypads I liked (which didn't cost extortionate sums), but more importantly, the new Rako keypads have hard buttons rather than rubber which eliminates the only problems with the Rako system.

 

[Smurfin]

Based on the the swatches in the living room and kitchen have you decided upon colours?

Yes, we have, although I'm still not 100% sure about the kitchen colours! You'll see next week when I post photos

 

[Scott_Mac]

Has the drill been fired? It seems strangely absent recently....

 

[Smurfin]

Has the drill been fired? It seems strangely absent recently....

I'm not joking when I say there were about 12 Makita power tools in the living room yesterday....every tradesman had their kit all over the place.

I don't work for them btw, I just learnt a while back that decent tools make a massive difference, as does everything being cordless

Anyway, today is plastering day Flooring being fitting in the living room on Monday which is great, except I doubt I'll get the room fully decorated prior to then

The bigger problem is the kitchen - hacking the tiles off the wall has caused havoc, and the plasterer hasn't got time to sort it today. So I need to find someone else good...which is easier said than done in the middle of holiday season...

 

[Scott_Mac]

Yikes - good luck!

Plastering: Amazon.co.uk: J.B. Taylor: Books

If all else fails

 

[Smurfin]

You were joking but.....



Needs quite a bit of work

On a positive note, that additional window has made a huge difference to the light coming in the kitchen.

I mentioned that today is plastering day. Couple of other things happening: now that the kitchen wall is a mess I've decided to put in a couple more back boxes and run co-ax and cat6 behind one of the worktops: they won't be terminated anywhere but cables left ready for when I do phase 2, which will involve HDMI matrix etc.

I'm also installing ceiling speakers in the dining area as well, again the speaker cables will be left loose in the void above, but ready for when I do phase 2.

So a little bit of AV, but depressingly more decorating today (which I hate). Just ordered my new internal doors and about to order some custom made white floating shelves for the living room recesses. God this is getting expensive

 

[Smurfin]

The end of another long day, and it feels like some of the big things are beginning to come together. The kitchen still looks destroyed, but the plasterer was in this morning doing the living room.

Here's a few photos of the wall now it's (largely) completed - barring decoration, final cable fixings and of course the TV and centre speaker The lighting is all Rako'd now as well, and I have 3 circuits in the room. I've specifically used angled spots to highlight pictures and the artcoustics, which work to great ambient effect.







And the number of back boxes in the study seems to be growing by the day





Tomorrow it's (horrible) satin time on the skirting and I begin decorating the living room properly, although I can't really do too much until I've repainted the ceiling. So the majority of activity will be Sunday, when hopefully the plaster will be fully dried and I can get the paint on the walls in readiness for D-Day. D-Day being Monday, as the flooring is being fitted

I can see the end as far as the living room is concerned, though still lots to do. Oh and there's the small matter of decorating 80% of the house in the next 10 days

 

[Arcam_boy]

Excellent work buddy, its nice to drop in here and see what you've done each day. We're doing a few rooms up in our house but only one at a time, I wouldn't dare start on two or three at once!!

 

[Wull]

Nice to see that wonky Rad has gone

 

[BrianMW]

Nice to see that wonky Rad has gone

but cruel

In all fairness I think it was Mr Smurfs photo skills not the radiator that were out, I just had a peek at it with 3D Perspective & Mesh tools and I don't think it was out just the photo

All in fun, good luck with the redecorating

 

[Smurfin]

Excellent work buddy, its nice to drop in here and see what you've done each day. We're doing a few rooms up in our house but only one at a time, I wouldn't dare start on two or three at once!!

Stupidly I'm overhauling 6 rooms, and "just" decorating 2 others along with the hall/landing etc. 10 days to go until it absolutely must be finished

 

[Smurfin]

but cruel

In all fairness I think it was Mr Smurfs photo skills not the radiator that were out, I just had a peek at it with 3D Perspective & Mesh tools and I don't think it was out just the photo

image


All in fun, good luck with the redecorating

Seeing that makes me think "give me my old living room back!"

Not really (he says). Although when Wull criticises the new rad mounting I think I may cry...

 

[Pulsar]

Stupidly I'm overhauling 6 rooms, and "just" decorating 2 others along with the hall/landing etc. 10 days to go until it absolutely must be finished

Fantastic work by the way, but I've got to ask what is causing the deadline?

Cheers

Rob

 

[Smurfin]

Deadline = wife and 2 young daughters returning to the UK - they've been away for 2 weeks now, and I promised they wouldn't come back to a building site Oops.

 

[Pulsar]

Oh right. Best of luck!

 

[Scott_Mac]

P'ah, that's not a REAL deadline!

What are all the cables in this pic?

 

[Nerved One]

Looking forward to seeing the finished product here....

 

[Smurfin]

P'ah, that's not a REAL deadline!

You've not met my wife

What are all the cables in this pic?

image

From left to right:

2 x HDMIs from TV
2 x Cat6 from TV
1 x speaker cable for Quake 10B
5 x speaker cables for 5.1 system in living room
2 x speaker cables from in-ceiling speakers in the study

Speaking of the study, I celebrated the first piece of "equipment install" with an ice cold beer. Yay for some boring speaker pics!





Now, I know in-ceiling speakers above my desk could be considered OTT, and yes it is. But those Polk speakers were cheap and I'm fed up of listening to crap PC speakers And while there was lots of mess, why not?

Now that the plasterer has finished all I need to do is wait until everything's dried before the final paint finishes in the study. Which should be just in time for the new flooring

 

[Smurfin]

The kitchen/dining room is looking soo much better, although I now have the prospect of decorating the ceiling as well as the walls, and then there's the obvious hassle of tiling (which I'm not doing myself!)

Couple of updates to the kitchen/diner, and a shot of a Rako in-ceiling dimmer unit (fantastic lighting system):







Ok, so the last bit isn't really AV (except for the lighting), but the good news is the living room is really coming together now. This is where I'm up to as I take another break before a mammoth "cutting in" session

This must all be finished tonight as the flooring is being fitted at 8am tomorrow, but fingers crossed on Tuesday everything will be done including skirting cut and fitted, for the proper AV install to begin



Now that the ceiling is painted and the spots are fitted properly, I'm really chuffed with the different lighting effects in the room. The colour scheme I was a bit nervous about as we've always done white and only white! - but tbh it looks fantastic in the flesh (so to speak). The wall with the patio doors should look great when finished, with the white designer radiator and white plantation shutters At least I hope!

 

[Arcam_boy]

How big is the centre speaking in relation to the gap you've left?

Can't wait to see that fitted! You could do a little test run for the followers ;-)