Nothing At All. Oops. Well, actually had a pleasant morning’s loafing followed by a pleasant afternoon shopping followed by a Wedding Doo at which lots of non-salsa dancin’ got done. And a lot of guilt was felt.

Fortunately, today, Rach and I got our heads together, did a decent grocery shop, and then I took a big ‘ammer to the ceiling.

The Secret Fact about this picture is that the hole is about 2 inches bigger than I had intended it to be, on account of that being the natural end of the piece of plasterboard.

Lessons Learned:

• look for any edges of plasterboard panels when planning your new ‘ole
• Start by fixing your cross-beam in place (and your ceiling to the new beam) before making the ‘ole bigger.

I figured one would bang one’s head on that bit of wood, so I sawed it in arf and smacked it through the ole.

Next up was to install the new cross-beam. It turned out the hole was still small enough for it not to be a major emergency. You can see the wood at the top of the hole in this pic.

Then it was time to insert the hatch-hole. This involved lots of carefully-metered-out physical abuse, though no swearing as I was having a whale of a time. Turns out the engineering was spot on - it held itself up there with only an “interference fit” - the friction of the frame in the hole.

I then went around all the DIY shops because I didn’t have any of the right sort of nails.

Lessons Learned:

• DIY shops shut at 4 on sundays
• flush-fit halogen bathroom lights can be dismantled from above the ceiling.
• a halogen light is not guaranteed to survive a fall into a bathtub.

So I knocked out the nails that had held the former strengthening in place and, using my biggest hammer and bigger vice, smacked them mostly-straight. I bashed them in to hold the beams to the joists. Then I was on the home straight. Refitted the loft ladder, fitted the hatch cover, tidied, hoovered, put tools away, watched doctor who, ate a lovely meal by the lovely Rachael, and hoovered some more, and it’s done!

Apart from being in need of a bit of plastering/filling and painting.

Lessons Learned:

• A Countersink works better at slow speed
• Those beams I used to lever myself up into the loft by were only held up with 4 nails each.
• If you work 3 hours with a dust mask and 30 minutes without, you still get black snot
• 13 minutes is not enough to get an afternoon’s plaster debris tidied away before dinner.
• this stuff is a lot easier when you have a Domestic Goddess around the house (thankyou Rachael!)
• gloss paint can take an awfully long time to dry
• swarfega can get gloss paint off your fingers if it hasn’t dried yet
• fibreglass splinters are REALLY annoying

Doesn’t that look cozy! I’m so chuffed with the job I’m tempted to sleep in the loft tonight…