Riverview

It’s been a while since I last posted on here. But it’s not been because of a lack of things to write about.

I refurbished the front windows of the house and they are now looking good!

We had a new fence constructed:

I’ve done a lot of reconfiguring of the network cabinets, including a new 24port Gigabit router, that I had to replace the noisy fans of:

…and I’ve just added a solar powered ventilator to the shed office.

More details on all of these items later.

I finally built my desk. I used a 3 metre 720mm x 40mm Bamboo kitchen work surface from these people:

First I built a framework from 3 of 2×4″ joists. I wanted a full 2.8 metre span without any legs so I needed a pretty strong frame.

It was actually quite hard to keep these level due to the wide span, so I had use to use my luxury laser spirit level. Well I probably could have done without, but I hardly use it and it was expensive!

Since the panelling is a full 22mm thick I was able to screw it direct, however, I did add some substantial legs to hold them.

Here’s it finished:

…and here’s it is in action:

I’m going for the sauna look for my office! I started panelling it out on the weekend. I was going to go for the bog standard 7.5 mm pine panels, but instead I got some 20mm boards from Fenland Timber. The boards are really nice and my original plan of painting has been shelved. I’m going to stain them slightly darker then oil them.

I am regretting all those plug and network sockets though! That 20mm board is a pain to cut out!

After the excitement of moving in, I’ve finally returned back to working on the shed. I’m more motivated now by having to work from the kitchen table….!

I got the network cabling done in a day. This is fed by 4 x cat6 cables coming underground (outside grade cable buried in a PVC pipe about 0.5 metres below ground) into a patch panel, then 16 cat6 cables around the office. Perhaps overkill, but it’s a lot more flexible. Incidentally one of those cat6 cables will be a phone line.

The cable looks a little messy by running around the floor, then up to each socket. However, I wanted to keep it as far away from the ring main as possible.

I managed to find time amongst all the box moving and unpacking to get the windows of my shed glazed. So now it’s watertight. About time really!

The insulation is properly finished now, and the first fix electrical is done.

I’ve made real progress (finally) with the shed! I got the majority of the insulation in yesterday, and I’ll hopefully get to the stage that I can wire and network next week.

For posterity’s sake I added a DPM attached with contact adhesive to the bricks and run up the wall. I did this as the shed is a single skin brick wall and with a lot of rain it’s possible that water could penetrate this. Normally a cavity wall allows rain to run down the inside of the outside skin.

The insulation was attached using 8mm 120 mm hammer in fixings through a 1×2 batten. With a blob of silicon sealant to preserve the vapour membrane in the insulation. The battens will be used to add t&g paneling when the wiring is done!

For the floor I had 100 mm non-foil Kingspan insulation, followed by DPM, and then 22mm t&g flooring chipboard.

Do you know any of those flowers ? (Dites moi si vous connaissez ces fleurs!)

The garden is still quite messy and very wild. However, every month there are new flowers appearing. I’m trying to keep track of where they are to make sure we don’t get rid of them once we decide to do something from the garden…
I love flowers but don’t really know much about them. If you recognise any of those and know their names, let me know :

This one is the passiflore (passion flower I think ?) – I love them – but I think there are in the neighbour’s garden. Fortunately some of them lean over the fence

There are also tons of apples !

The garden seems to be a real attraction for butterflies. It could be that there’s plenty of Buddleja growing in the garden. Apparently that attracts them.

There’s a piece of plywood behind my office that seems to be a real attraction for them:

One of the butterflies I keep seeing is this one. I’ve gotta admit I’ve never seen this one before.

The bright sun has produced some beautiful views on the river recently

I finally got the office roof insulation boards on: