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I have string

String levels are also handy, you can make as long a level line as you can make a taught piece of string.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/stabila-builders-line-level-3-80mm-/5494x

deck the balls with boughs of holly

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Or some other apparatus that was defenestrated in an act of exuberant motion.

I keep getting half tempted to do my own survey. Walk down a given street with the ULEZ checker open and see what % of cars are not ULEZ exempt. With the amount of noise on the local FB groups, you'd think it was all of them. But just from a glance when riding about, it's gotta be 95%+. As I look out my window now on a pretty heavily parked street, I'm struggling to see one car that would not be exempt. Including my 16 year old C Max.

And like with the LTN shit, all of a sudden so many people are disabled or have some life or death reason to need to drive.

People in cars complaining about traffic is one of the most ironic things you can read/hear.

They are/were just spunking money around the place. The only first hand intel I have is from an archaeology perspective. The contracts along the route are some of the most lucrative the industry has ever seen. Small fish obviously compared to other trades/functions, but I can only imagine other entities similarly rinsed the pot.

Could the naked burglar be someone from/visiting a flat above that dropped something out the window?

Have a look at the decorators forum

I could, but that would mean admitting I have nothing left in life. Not too worried about one coat and done. Just something that folks have found covers better than others. The Leyland trade does the best of what I have tried, just curious if there is anything even better.

Speaking of paint. I want to get the hall back to a base white before repainting. It's currently a shitty green with marks and scuffs and patches of trial colours. What's the best Matt white to cover all that shit in as few goes as possible. Before I go for my stock Leyland trade?

Is the colour Valspar? I hate Valspar. 5 coats of a dark blue over white in my last place and it was still patchy.

You're evolving into your final slumlord form?

If I had had similar priced quotes for a pro to do it (and not double the price of fittingly), I would have absolutely got a grown up in. @Tenderloin flatters me but it's no harder than any large IKEA stuff I've put together. In fact, some of the fixings are better thought out. The hardest bits were getting the top units lifted in place (I had to ask my neighbour to come in and help me with the last one as the wardrobes were as tall as the design tool would let me create), and then scribing the infill pieces around the outside. I did a shocking job of cutting those so I'm glad I'm handy with a skeleton gun and filler.

Took a long time to get it all done because A) I was doing it solo (manhandling 2.4m x 1m side panels and getting the fixings in place by myself was hairy) around work and parenting, B) I had to paint all the doors with a couple of coats of F&B eggshell and C) they sent one of the top cabinet doors without any pre-drilling (they sent another no questions asked but it took a few days to be made and sent out).

I will say though, that the end product in terms of size and appearance, is EXACTLY what I specced in the design tool (I really wanted to maximise the storage space as there's fuck all here for such a big house so I was cutting it fine between the two side walls and around the chimney breast, while also trying to keep a uniform width per unit - the two left hand units JUST fit into the laft hand alcove without having to chop into the skirting board). And the online support folks were super helpful during the whole process. They jumped in a few times and just fixed things on the fly in whatever design I was working on as they could obviously see right away which one it was. Eg. I was trying to add one of the top units and it just kept snapping to be stacked on one of the other top units instead of the wardrobe. A few seconds and a clumsy description of what I was trying to do and they sorted it. The delivery guy also carried everything up to the first floor. Which is no mean feat as they use minimal packaging (another bonus over IKEA) so it was hundreds of pieces. I could have paid I think another grand for them to put it together.

Last thing, if anyone does use them, the design tool works best on Chrome. Knowing that would have saved me a few frustrations early on.

It's one of things that if we ever sell this place and I do the viewings, will mean buyers will be subjected to a 3 hour viewing.

It is chipboard but seemingly more dense and in most places thicker than IKEA. All of the custom carpenter quotes were MDF. Fittingly also have a bewildering array of finishes/colours. I went with a white oak for the wood looking bits and primed for the rest that I then painted with F&B eggshell. Went on well.

Adjusting 60 cabinet hinges is not something I fancy doing again any time soon.

For fittingly, they usually have a 15% or so sale on. Like one of those places where you'd be stupid to pay RRP. Book a "design consultation" once you've designed your shit and are about ready to buy, ask what they can do about the cost as you are ready to pay. I got 30% off RRP, valid for that day.

Yes, full width/height (5m x 3m or thereabouts) wardrobes around a chimney breast was £5k from fittingly or £11-14k from a carpenter (various quotes). Deliberately left out drawers as that adds complexity and costs pretty fucking quick.

Start with a ratchet then wind out the rest with the impact driver.

My previous deck I did nothing when I built it (pressure treated and nothing buried), and it was fine for the 5 years I lived there with a clean and a deck protect application once a year. No signs of it even starting to go bad in that time.

For the most recent one I went a bit overboard. All timber was bought pressure treated. Posts were soaked overnight in wood preserver and I used post-savers when concreting them in. I painted the tops liberally in wood preserver once I cut them to size. Frame was also liberally painted in wood preserver. Deck itself was painted in deck protect straight away and has just had it's first annual re-coat fairly recently.

If you need to focus on somewhere think about where water might sit or which areas are more exposed to the elements. Another thing that will shorten the lifespan is putting it together under strain. If some bits don't quite fit and you force them in place, those will be under stress constantly and will likely be where it fails.

2x kryptonite D locks, a diamond rated litelock core, and abus chain in the cafe lock and the cafe lock. Still not super happy about leaving it out of sight. Will likely get one of the grinder resistant D's in the near future.

It helps but won't prevent it. Getting wet isn't the problem, staying wet is. Varnish when split will trap moisture underneath.

Sand, fill splits/cracks, sand, oil.

The latter being a tenner for a small bottle from B&Q

I have always used ronseal deck protect on my deck. It's what I would use. Or Liberon Teak Oil.

Sand back and oil with a neutral/natural coloured oil rated for exterior/UV. I reckon any varnish unless religiously maintained is going to flake.

Cheers, if anything, it will soak away 4m from the house instead of 2m now the root mass is gone. They are going to come back to me with suggestions.

Goes into the proper drains at the back of the house. Looking at maybe directing the front round to the back.

We have a drain under the downspout at the front of the house, it goes perpendicular from the house out towards the road. It takes the roof run off from me and my neighbour. It has always been slow draining but only ever a problem in massive downpours.

I got an extension for my Karcher K2 but could only get so far. Thinking mine was just weedy, I called in some pros, who then couldn't get any further either.

They came back out, lifted a slab, removed the U-bend and stuck a camera down and found a root mass.

They came back out with a picote milling machine and cleared the root mass, stuck the camera down again, only to find that the drain runs smack into a line of bricks, which were the old footings from the front yard wall. First thought was that whoever installed the old wall just cut through the drain. But we went and had a look at the next two identical houses (ours is in a run of four) and theirs just dumps the downspout onto the floor. So we now think the weird drain was a shit attempt at a soakaway or it was just put in for looks.

£1200 to clear a drain that goes nowhere. FML