Lining out the ceiling

Nine days ago I drove to Birmingham to do some work on a house we own there. The main task was to make the ceiling of the utility room more presentable. I had intended to do that, and some other small jobs, and return home at the weekend, three or so days later.

I finally got back home this evening. A job which, no doubt, would have occupied a builder for a day or less - and which would have been finished - took me more than a week.

This is what it looked like before:


Here are some of the materials: a pile of cladding on the floor and some insulation. I decided that stuffing rock wool insulation in the gap would be easier and cheaper than using Celotex. (Actually, I didn't cost up the Celotex).


Ben helped at the start ...

but I did most of it on my own.

It looks easy, doesn't it? After all, there were rafters already in place: all one has to do is bang some pins into a few strips of cladding. "Easy" it might be, but it took a heck of a lot of preparation to ensure that the cladding would be even. Extra battens were required at each end, together with one in the middle where cladding strips would meet. All this took a long time.

But, at last, it was beginning to take shape.

And today, at lunch time, I called it a day.

Yes, I know it's not finished - it needs trim strips added along the edges, and the pipe in the corner needs boxing in - but it's much better than before. The trouble now is that it shows up the rest of the room!

I have huge respect for boat fitters, and I'm counting James and Amy of MB Willow among them. At least I was working with (reasonably) straight edges and not too many fiddly bits.